26

Seven balconies outlined the outer structure of the ballroom, and on the fourth, larger one, Father stood in his formal tunic and trousers. His hands were crossed behind his back while his legs formed a habitual fighting stance.

It was no secret that my father didn't have any magic in his blood, but I would argue that being able to recognize someone's footsteps as easily as someone's voice was certainly some type of magic.

"I didn't think you'd come," he said the moment I stepped onto the balcony, passing in between the gauzy white curtains that blew out into the night. Beyond, the sky burst into gemstone colors—uncanny blues and purples with pitch-black edges. "The ball is about to start."

"Sorry, I'm late, Dad. I fell asleep," I said, bracing my hands on the stone balustrade.

I was lying, of course. I had not fallen asleep. I had tried to write a letter. In the overwhelming familiarity of my childhood bedroom, I'd sat down at my writing desk and tried to put into words what was happening to me, to conjure answers to things I didn't even know how to ask.

On a whim—a very selfish one—I'd invited Nepheli to stay here a little longer, but deep down, I knew she wouldn't. I knew she would leave tomorrow morning. I knew there was not enough time to fully understand, let alone express, the way I felt about her. The fact that I felt altogether, perhaps not with my heart but with my soul.

I was shocked to be even thinking about this. I should be relieved to get rid of her. I should want to be released from this torment. This random, persistent jab of sentimentality after seven years of numbness. I would be fine without her. Without her sarcastic remarks. Without her supercilious judgment. Without the rustle of her body in the morning. Without her beautiful laughter. Without her looking up at me like I was someone good and salvageable. Without her tongue stroking over mine.

But there were things I needed to say. To evict from my body. Things, I thought, they'd kill me to keep quiet.

So, I considered writing her a letter and slipping it into her bag. I'd imagined her discovering it somewhere along her journey, unfolding it carefully between her pale fingers, the way she did all things, and settling down at some cozy corner of the deck, the harsh sea air lashing back her hair and her florid lips parted in a shocked oh as she skimmed the words. I'd imagined her being relentless, not regretting her decision to leave, but heartened to know that she was someone who touched people's lives like that. Someone easily needed, thoroughly understood, secretly yearned for.

But I'd been unable to write such a letter. As it turned out, I was an embarrassingly nervous writer. Nepheli, I'd scribbled down, my penmanship a mess of curves—it had really been a very long time since I'd written anything down. Then I'd crossed it off.

Nepheli

Darling

Little Butterfly

Nepheli, my darling,

I seem to have developed the most inexplicable habit of not being able to breathe whenever you are not near. I believe the only option left is for you to stay by my side forever to save me from this miserable fate.

I need you.

Desperately so.

Don't leave.

That was it. That was all I'd written. And then I'd spent an hour or two staring at the page, unmoving and unblinking, when someone finally knocked on my door to remind me of the time.

I sucked in a quick breath. The air was sweet; magic, cypresses, and honeysuckles. Home.

Father was examining me closely, the way he would an opponent, with a furl in his brow and a ticking muscle in his jaw.

"What?" was all I said, bending to rest my elbows on the balustrade.

"You seem different," he said.

"Different how?"

He returned his attention to the horizon, and his wordless answer burned and bubbled inside me like a witch's spell. Then he sighed in calm dignity and subtle accusation. "Does Nepheli know about your curse?"

"Of course she knows," I bristled, whirling on him. "What kind of question is that?"

Dad raised his hands between us. "I don't wish to fight. There's just a lot of speculation going around—"

"Nepheli isn't going to break my curse. Let's start with that," I cut him off, wondering how many more times I would have to explain this before they finally got it into their heads and I lost mine. "She is a brilliant young woman who has a thousand more adventures to live, and she is going to get on that ship tomorrow morning, and she will go to live them. End of story. A happy ending."

Dad raised his brows at me. "Whose happy ending?"

"Hers."

"And what about you?"

"I don't deserve a happy ending. Not after all I've done—"

"No one is blaming you for anything, Apollo," Dad interjected, his gruff tone and soft words a wild contradiction. "I am blaming that witch who found a twenty-year-old drunk, heartbroken boy at her doorstep and didn't send him home."

"I was a grown man, Dad," I said. "I knew what I was doing. I'm the sole perpetrator of my misery. I deserve this. You've taught me to always take responsibility for my mistakes. Well, I'm taking it. But Nepheli cannot and will not be one of them."

His eyes widened on me. "You care about her," he whispered in half-shock, half-hope. "You genuinely care about her."

"She's easy to care about."

Gods, Nepheli was so easy to care about. So easy to need. So easy to long for. I tried not to think about last night. I tried to be a decent man. I tried to pretend that it was possible to unlearn the pathways of her body. But I could not, for her body had told me things, and I had listened, learned, memorized faithfully. Because how do you unlearn the taste of one's mouth? How do you forget the face they make when they surrender to you? How do you erase the feel of someone's warmth from your fingertips, the sight of their skin from your eyes, the sound of their pleasure from your ears? How far back in time would I have to travel to forget what it felt like to want her? Last night? The night at Walder's? The night she slept curled in my arms at the inn? The minute I walked inside her Shop?

I could not—I did not want to unlearn. I wanted to become. I wanted to transform myself into the man she deserved. Someone reliable, someone with honor, someone she needed intimately—an inseparable and irreplaceable part of her life.

Yes, there was hope, but there was not enough time for it to come to fruition. And I couldn't be selfish with her again and demand more. I had to think of what was best for her. And it was not me. Gods, anyone would be a better option than me.

Dad clamped a hand down on my shoulder and shook me out of my thoughts. "Apollo, don't you understand what this means? You're starting to feel again."

I shrugged him off. "It doesn't matter."

"I cannot believe I'm hearing this," he scoffed. "You've spent the past seven years hunting down your heart, wishing, hoping, dreaming this would happen, and now you're telling me that it doesn't matter?"

"My heart won't return to me just because of love, damn it!" I snapped as something like panic welled up my throat, making it harder and harder for me to breathe. "That's just a recipe for disaster. You know how I can be. You know how easily I can change. One moment I'm in control of it and I'm thinking straight, and the next I do all the wrong things or say all the wrong things, and someone always gets hurt. And I will not hurt her. I will not be the one to break that woman's heart. In fact, if anyone ever breaks her heart, I will hunt them down and kill them with my bare fucking hands if I have to."

Dad gaped at me. "You love her."

"For fuck's sake, you can't love someone you hardly know," I growled. "This isn't a fairytale."

"What nonsense is this?" he demanded. "Love doesn't have a timeframe. You should know by now that love tends to be strongest when it is the most unreasonable. I fell in love with your mother from the moment—"

"The moment she marched into the middle of your training session and demanded you show her how to properly use a sword because she refused to be the kind of Queen that could not fight her own battles, I know. I've heard the damned story about a hundred times," I bit out.

"Do not disrespect our story, son," Dad said somberly.

Guilt crawled beneath my skin. "See? One moment we're having a nice conversation, and then I'm acting like a complete fucking wanker. I cannot do this, Dad. I cannot—"

He took my shoulders again, shaking me a little harder this time. "Breathe," he ordered, and I tried. "That's it, one more time."

I breathed in and out. Again and again. But it was pointless. Something had packed down my sternum. A pain, almost. An agony.

"I've never met anyone like her," I panted and started pacing up and down the balcony like a madman. "She's insufferable, really. She's frustrating and stubborn and never listens to me. She's quick to judge and even quicker to take offense—I swear that woman burns like ale on fire. I'm telling you, she makes me insane. Worse. She makes me murderous. If a man even looks in her direction, I want to kill him. What's up with that, huh? And she's so… so…" I grunted. "Perfect. Surely someone can't be perfect. That's just the insanity talking, right?"

"She's perfect for you," Dad said with a smug little smile on his face that actually managed to enrage me even more. "That's all that matters."

"I can never give her the love she deserves. I invited her to stay, but I understand now that it was a mistake. Another mistake. Let's say she does stay, not for me but for reasons of her own, then what? What happens then?"

"You tell her how you feel and pray she feels the same."

The pressure in my chest convulsed and expanded. "But it is not enough! It is not enough that I care! It is not enough that I see, understand, desire her! She deserves to be loved. Wholeheartedly."

Trumpets exclaimed from inside the ballroom, probably announcing Mom's arrival.

Dad stepped out of the balcony, nodding for me to follow.

The room's sky had transformed into a midnight dream: dark blue clouds, bright constellations, and a silvery full moon. The prism chandeliers had dwindled to a candlelit glow, and the heavy draperies had been exchanged for gauzy, wraithlike curtains. Rectangular tables had been set up along the corners of the room, overflowing with golden plates of food, fountains of sparkling wine, and tall vases with exuberant bouquets of white roses and blue hydrangeas.

The orchestra had assembled and was ready to perform as the court gathered in the center dressed in the night's hues: blues, purples, blacks, and silvers. And of course, my mother was already with a glass in hand, making a toast, smiling for miles while her eyes hunted for me in the crowd. She said something, and they all laughed. But I could not listen. I could hardly keep myself upright as I finally spotted Nepheli in a corner across the room, talking animatedly with a Lady of the Court.

The magic of the room waned before her, like the sun at dusk yielding to the stars to let us lowly creatures know that it was time to dream. What was it about the stars that always made us dream? We looked upon the sky every night, and instead of seeing a graveyard of celestial objects, we saw beauty and possibility. Perhaps it was our nature. We were bodies of light, and we couldn't help but worship the things that guided us through the darkness.

So how could I resist?

In all my life, I had never seen anything so beautiful. So unreachable. So easy to love and so hard to possess.

She was wrapped in a midnight-blue gown, the garment cinching in that perfect curve of her waist before unraveling into a long bouffant skirt. Her shoulders were bare, save for the delicate puff sleeves that fell on her upper arms. Blue butterflies trailed her neckline—real ones, fluttering delicately with their glittering wings. Mother's work, no doubt, to match Nepheli's pendant, the silver chain aglow on her clavicle.

To think that I had tasted that spot on her neck was both a curse and a blessing. I'd never been very respectful of the gods, but in the lines and curves of her body, I knew there was faith to be found.

The other woman said something, and Nepheli laughed harder. Her head tipped toward the ceiling, her eyes sparkled with amusement, her loose silver curls trickled down her shoulders like all the secret wishes the mortals had bestowed on the sky.

Then, somehow, she looked straight at me. Our eyes collided, fast, hard, and brutal, like planets out of orbit, and I could only hope my face didn't betray the magnitude of my longing.

"Whatever you feel about her," Dad said quietly, "she feels the same."

"What are you talking about?" I whispered.

"The way you look at each other," he said. "She knows about your curse. She knows all the volatile, shameful parts of yourself. You think you'll hurt her with your darkness, and here she is, looking at you like you're the sun."