Page 94 of The Little Shop of Grand Curiosities

She started leaning forward, her neat dark locks tumbling over her forehead. I grabbed her shoulders just in time and kept her straight, wondering if she could even lie down in her bouffant gown. “It’s nice that you’re still connected with her like that,” I tried to soothe, looking over my shoulder at Apollo.

“You’re out of water, Isa,” Apollo said, holding up the empty carafe. “I’m going to go get some, okay?” He turned to me, a little worried now that Isa was looking so green and fragile. “Don’t let her lie on her back.”

I nodded. “Don’t worry. I got her.”

Sorry, he mouthed.

I smiled and mouthed back,It’s okay.

He crossed the room in a hurry, but the door was acting stubborn again.

“Is it jammed?” I asked as I stacked two pillows one on top of the other, before guiding Isa to lay down on her side.

Apollo kicked and twisted and pushed. “I don’t know,” he grunted. “Isa, did you lock the door when we came in?”

When I faced Isa again, she didn’t look green at all. Her skin was cool like rain. Her hazel eyes were lucid and wide open. Something wicked washed over her expression. A shadow. A darkness.

Slowly, horribly, she stood up. The flames around the room flickered with an off-puttingswoosh. “You weren’t wearing that when you came to the manor,” she said, and the sudden clarity and depth in her voice drew goosebumps on my skin. “But something tells me you’ve had it for a very long time…Little Butterfly.”

I stumbled back, gasping. “What are you talking about?”

Isa smiled a monstrous, knowing smile. She lunged for my neck andripped. “His heart.”

32

Nepheli

Two words, and the whole world tumbled. Two words, and everything inside me floundered and scrambled, my entire body inwrought with a grim sense of doom.

His heart.

“Isa, what—” Apollo started, but the words died inside his throat as Isa held up my necklace. The butterfly pendant glowed with a translucent, flame-like quality, the silver cracking, breaking. Something wild and very much alive shifted beneath.

It throbbed. Itpulsed.

I felt like a sleepwalker interrupted mid-dream, dazed and immobile. My muscles locked in place and my brain stuttered, every part of me on pause to let the realization sink in.

His heart. His heart. His heart.

Isa careened forward, and Apollo sprinted across the room, reaching me in a heart-rending instant of disbelief.

“The concealment spell really was my best work. I mean, it hid the necklace’s true magic even from me. I didn’t feel its presence in my house at all.” She laughed a dark, bitter laugh, the sound snapping me into alertness. Apollo stepped in front of me, trying to shield me from her, but her sharp eyes followed me. They pierced through me like arrows. “And you had it with you when you came to the manor, didn’t you? You’ve had it all along.”

From this vantage point, I couldn’t see Apollo’s face, but I heard the rage and hurt in his voice in that single, broken, “Isa—”

“Shut up!” she screeched, and the whole room shook before her fury. The blinds of every window snapped shut, ensuing a flurry of ear-splittingbangs. The candles burned higher. The floor shuddered and roared. The vines on the wallpaper seemed to crawl to life, one black thorn at a time.

This room was my mother’s, you know. It still bears her magic. It’s embedded in the walls. I can do almost anything in here.

Just like that, all the blazing panic and my thousand questions clarified into deep, guttural fear. It pounced through me. It left me breathless.

“Isa, Isa, Isa,” she mocked. “I’m so tired of listening to the sound of your fucking voice.” She clutched the pendant in her fist, and the last piece of metal melted away like iron under fire. A tender, throbbing organ cocooned in opalescent flames remained between her long fingers. And then, she clutched it.

Apollo let out a tremendous gasp, stumbling backward as though a spear had gone through him.

I grabbed him around the waist from behind, but he was too heavy, and we both staggered further back and collided with the wall.

“It was you,” Apollo snarled, struggling to form the words as Isa tightened her grip on his heart.

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