Page 95 of The Little Shop of Grand Curiosities

“Of course it was me,” Isa scorned, stepping into the circle of light the candles cast on the floor. The flames wavered, the shadows trembled, and I wondered with no small amount of horror if even the darkness in this room was hers to command.

We needed to get out of here. Right now. I shut out the buzz of my thoughts and scanned the room for something—anything to use against her.

“You think an ordinary witch could do what I did?” she continued. “My father was a Zayra and my mother an Andria, one of the greatest witch lines the North has ever seen.” The room shuddered as if to applaud her declaration. Apollo pressed his back on my chest, making his body my shield. “You really thought I was going to spend my life makingpotionsand let a magicless half-breed nothing rule inmykingdom?”

“It is notyourkingdom,” Apollo thundered.

Slowly, almost imperceptibly, he slunk to the side, inching towards the vanity table to our left.

The letter opener, I realized as I noticed the sharp object glinting in the purple semidarkness.

“I’m next in line for the throne, aren’t I?” Isa wryly mused, toying with the flaming heart in her palm.

“You did this for thecrown?” Apollo kept her talking, not averting his eyes from her as he edged closer and closer to the table.

Isa pinned him with the weight of her hatred and disdain, her lips curling back into a sneer. “The way you say it like it’s nothing only proves how unfit you are for it. Of course, you’re unfit. You’re your father’s son. A nobody’s son,” she spat, his heart a tender, trembling thing in her palm that she could crush at any moment on a whim.

Apollo’s eyes darted to me, and then even more discreetly to the nightstand, to the large silver vase that looked heavy enough to do some serious damage.

I slipped to the side, pretending to cower away from her as she approached.

“I thought about killing you,” she said nonchalantly, as if murder was nothing too hard for her. “But killing the Crowned Prince of Thaloria means years upon years of investigations and memorials and faking tears every time someone mentions your fucking name. You would have become a hero, and I would have become the Queen who had somebig shoes to fill.No, it was far more gratifying to turn you into a joke.” She glanced in admiration at the alabaster flames around his heart, the very spell that kept it beating while it was ripped away from its owner’s body. “Murder is such amanthing to do. But patience…patience is a womanly art.”

Apollo seized the opportunity of her wavered focus and snatched the letter opener from the vanity. But before he could even raise it fully, she jabbed her fingers deep into his heart, and Apollo crumbled.

He screamed—he screamed, and the horrible, heart-shattering sound pounced through me and punctured every bone, every joint, every muscle in my body. I could hardly feel my limps ignite into motion as I changed directions at once.

He collapsed on the floor, heaving, spasming, grasping at his chest. “No!” I pleaded, tearing across the room. “Stop! Please!”

And just as I was about to reach him, my fingertips almost at his shaking shoulders,somethingpulled me back. Something handless but tremendous picked me up and shoved me across the room. I landed hard on the wall with a ragged cry, my head spinning, my ears ringing, and the air leaving my lungs so violently that black spots fell upon my vision and the candlelight burned dark through my eyelids.

Then, the wall came to life.

The vines uncurled and poked out of the wallpaper. They slithered over my body and wrapped around my throat, my wrists, my ankles, pulling me back into the baseboard until I was fully and inescapably trapped inside a black cocoon of thorns.

“Nepheli!” Apollo howled, trying to stand through the pain with a white-knuckled fist around his only weapon. Isa dug her fingers into his heart again, and he fell on his back, every muscle on his body convulsing all at once. He looked up at Isa, his jaw so clenched that the words barely made it out, “I swear to the gods, I’m going to tear you to pieces if you harm her.”

Isa stepped with her heel on his wrist, forcing the little object out of his hand. He growled in pain, and I thrashed underneath the vines, twisting around and pushing against them until my dress tore on the thorns and my skin was just as raw as my fear.

She’s going to kill him, was the only thought left in my head. And a prayer to the stars, the stars who hadn’t taken me, who’d forgiven my childish mortal mistake and had made me a part of them instead, to tell me now what to do.

What should I do? What should I do? Gods, what can I do?

“You really are pathetic,” Isa tutted, sharp-edged and cruel, strolling around Apollo’s shuddering body like a vulture with carrion. “You made it so easy for me after Verena. You practically told me what to do. Your glorious, miserableheartbreakgave me the idea. And you didn’t even notice me, ruining you one potion at a time. Of course, you didn’t notice. Why would you? I’m just your second best.” Isa squeezed his heart, and he arched in agony, grunting on the floor. “But Iwasalways there with your disgusting, imbecile friends, slipping my potions into your drinks. Magic is an emotional practice, you know. For a potion to take full effect, it needs to be fed by its host. The potions intensified your pain and desperation to a breaking point becauseyoufed them pain and desperation.”

“Isa,” Apollo choked out, trying to sound reasonable. “If I ever hurt you—”

“I told you to shut your fucking mouth,” she snarled, and this time she rammed her fingers so forcefully into his heart that even the flames quivered in pain.

“Please,” I sobbed hysterically. “Please, don’t hurt him.”

Isa whirled around, alight with fury. “He hurt himself. By consuming each and every potion I slipped into his drinks. By being so unable to see past the illusion of the old witch. By begging me to stop the pain. What better way to make an heir unfit to rule than by stealing his very ability to feel, understand, empathize with his people? Everything worked out perfectly. I couldn’t steal or alter his memories, my magic has its limits, so I had to be thorough. It had to look real, so the Queen and King had someone to blame, something else to investigate. I bought merchandise and staged an entire Witch Shop that was always closed during the day because the witch was too old and only worked whenever she felt like it. I guided him to it. I’m no illusionist, so I cast the most basic illusion spell over myself that if he had a speck of magic inside him, he would have been able to see right through it, even stinking drunk. But he made it soeasy. I told him about the spell. He consented. I put his heart on a necklace. A random, worthless necklace. I cast a concealment spell so no one would ever be able to know it for what it was, even if they held it in the palm of their hand. I faked the old witch’s death. And, of course, I didn’t want to keep the evidence with me. I was only a young witch back then, and the North has too many magical beings that can work through a concealment spell. I had to get it out of here. So I sold everything, including the box with the necklace, to Curiosity Shops in the South—the other side of the world. And then,” she curled back her lips, eyes shining, “youfound it.”

The room around me became a spinning blur of distant remembrances—the day I found and bought the necklace, the first night I slept with it on my neck and never took it off me again, the day Apollo walked into the Shop, and after seven years, he found his heart at last.

I was in agony; every nerve ending, every organ, every emotion bruised and crushed. My mind wanted to shut down, but doubt crept in, cutting and stark.It wasn’t real. None of it was real. His heart had drawn him to me from the start.

His heart, which I’d had all along. I’d wished on it, prayed on it. I’d dreamt with it at night. I’d took it in my hand whenever I needed courage. And then Apollo came into my Shop and couldn’t leave without it.

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