3

The Dragonfly Forest was as enchanting and peculiar as the stories foretold. There was no sign of the bandits and monsters Apollo had spoken of, but there was still an indescribable, almost transcendent energy shuffling through the air.

The strangeness both exhilarated and frightened me. I must have dreamt a thousand dreams and read a thousand books about places like this one, but dreams and stories were only as vibrant and grand as one's imagination, and everything here was so much more magical and animated than anything I could have ever dared to imagine.

Mushroom rings sprouted from an unusual, almost cloud-like type of moss, while flowers slid from one color to another in a repetitive, consistent pattern, as though they were the markings of some mysterious, unseen creature. Golden specks floated in the air, and tiny, glinting dragonflies with wings the shape of actual, miniature dragons meddled in between the shrubs and the tall, leafy trees. The trees themselves looked almost sentient, the lenticels of their barks resembling some old spirit's eyes. Microscopic pixie houses dangled like bird nests from the lower boughs, and day flowers sunbathed on the underbrush, their yellowish petals shrinking and expanding like a pair of anxious lungs. From somewhere between the brambles, I could hear echoes of curious small voices and merry, jingling laughter. And, there, only a few feet away from where we had landed, hanging amid a huddle of saplings, lay my trusty old parasol.

Swiftly, I went to grab it, a silly kind of relief overtaking me.

Apollo groaned. "Just leave it here. We have a long way to go, and we both know that I'm the one who's going to end up carrying it."

I glared at him over my shoulder, my fist tightening around the handle's curve. "No, you will not."

He noticed my viselike grip and smiled wittily. "Oh, I see now. You're going to fight monsters with your pink umbrella, aren't you, Little Butterfly?"

"It is not pink. It's magenta," I gritted out. "And it's a parasol, not an umbrella, you uncultured brute."

I began plucking the leaves that had gotten stuck into the lacy fabric when a dragonfly came and settled at the pointy tip. Its membranous, dragon-like wings were a stunning shade of green with sparkly, lilac veins, glinting like a layer of dew under the sun. "Hello, little friend—"

"Careful!" Apollo shouted, lunging at me. He knocked the parasol out of my grip and pulled me back to his chest, banding his arms around mine.

"What do you think you're doing?" I hissed, squirming in his embrace. He kept me trapped against his body for another frantic, heart-throbbing moment, his hot breath teasing along the curve of my neck. Only when the dragonfly stretched its wings and flew away did Apollo relax his hold.

I whirled on him, furious. "What is wrong with you?"

"I'm going to say this once," he bristled. "Don't ever, ever try to touch a dragonfly again."

Dread twisted my insides. "Why not?"

"Because you'll get dragonfly fever and die. Painfully. Very, very painfully."

My jaw dropped. I couldn't believe I almost died twice in a single day. I couldn't believe he didn't let me touch it just to get rid of me.

"Come on," he urged, striding away, "we don't want nightfall to catch up with us."

I bent down to grab my parasol before scrambling after him."Where are we going?"

"There is an inn about—" he considered, examining our surroundings with thinned eyes as if he could discern some sort of difference that I was blind to, "twenty-two miles from here. We'll rest there for tonight."

I gaped at him. "You want me to walk twenty-two miles before nightfall?"

He veered to face me, cool and sharp like a blade. "You want to go home, darling?"

"Yes."

"You want to go home with all of your body parts intact?"

I gritted my teeth. "Preferably."

"Then do as I say and don't make me repeat myself."

I had never, not once, met someone who needed to get slapped in the face more than this man. I knew it was probably wiser to stay on his good side, considering I needed him to get me home and that he had the appropriate build to kill me with his bare hands, but, oh, was it fun to fantasize about.

I breathed through my nose. "But the Shop—"

"The Shop can wait," he cut me off, guessing right about what I was about to say.

"Actually, it can't. It's called having responsibilities. Which I understand is a foreign concept to you since, apparently, all you've ever done with your princely duties is run away from them."

Apollo halted mid-step and pinned me with his steely gaze, the muscles of his jaw twitching. "Don't make me gag you."

"Excuse me?"

"You heard me."

I shook with fury. "Gods, you're so…so…"

"Charming? Attractive? Irresistible?" he offered dryly.

"Heinous! You are a despicable human being!"

"And you are a headache."

"Well, I hope I split your head in two!"

He cocked his head to the side, smiling wide. "Will you marry me?"

I swallowed my tongue. It was very possible that every blood vessel in my eyes had burst because, momentarily, I lost my vision.

"Ah, finally, something that shuts her up," he sighed with pure contentment and strolled down the route with his hands in his pockets, as cool as a breeze.

I, on the other hand, was on the verge of screaming and tearing through my hair, so I took a moment to collect myself before running after him.

"How long till we reach the city?" I panted.

"It's a four-day journey," he said, then glowered at my feet. "Make it five."

Gods, help me.

Five days away from the Shop. Five days of worrying and walking. Five days with this horrible beast of a man.

"Five days is a long time," I grumbled. "What about the creatures?"

"What about them?"

"What do you mean what about them?" I squealed. "They're probably rampaging all through Elora as we speak. Someone could get gravely hurt, don't you realize that?"

"Don't get your wings in a tangle, Little Butterfly," Apollo mocked. "They were chasing me. Creatures like that don't go after people for no reason. They most likely returned to their box the moment we left Elora."

I couldn't help it. Even with the crippling fear of what might be happening to my Shop packing down my lungs and even with my good sense arguing otherwise, curiosity pricked at my heart. "What box—Wait, why were they after you?"

Apollo sighed. "I accidentally opened a cursed box that I found in an abandoned Curiosity Shop in Elora."

My eyes rounded from shock. "Are you insane? Why would you ever do such a thing?"

"I didn't know it was cursed when I opened it, Nepheli," he said, my name on his lips as unfairly obscene as his exasperation.

I considered, for a moment, using my parasol to make way between a patch of tall weeds. "So these were not some random creatures. They were guardians."

Apollo glanced at me over his shoulder, looking intrigued. "They were what?"

"When a Curiosity Shop closes down, the owners usually sell their merchandise to other Shops, but if something doesn't want to leave the premises, it most likely means that it is a fundamental part of the magic that created the Shop in the first place. And it goes without saying that you shouldn't ever, ever try to remove it from its home because then its guardians will—" I hushed, realizing that I sounded like an obnoxious encyclopedia. But I knew so many things, and it was so rare that I got to use this knowledge, and be anywhere other than the Shop and with anyone other than myself.

Feeling flushed and embarrassed, I clutched my pendant in my hand and averted my gaze from him.

We walked in silence for a few moments, Apollo guiding the way ahead while I waded in and out of the intricately woven route, trying to keep up with him, until he suddenly asked, "Did you buy any mystery boxes when the other Shops in Elora closed down?"

"Well, my parents bought a mystery box a while back. But I sold it about seven months ago," I said, narrowing my eyes at him in suspicion.

"Great," he wryly muttered. "Just my type of luck."

Why would the Prince of Thaloria be so interested in some old mystery boxes? His entire kingdom—a kingdom he would one day rule—was a giant mystery box, as far as I knew.

"What are you looking for anyway?" I asked. "You were looking for something in my Shop too."

"None of your damn business," Apollo growled. "Now, can you walk a little faster? Bandits usually attack after dusk."

On reflex, I squeezed the parasol in my fist.

I knew the North was magically superior because this was where the Celestials—the gods, titans, and spirits—had been born when Time was still young. I knew that the magic here was so dense that if you paid close attention, you could see it in the air at night. You could breathe it in and make it a part of you. I knew that the Queen of Thaloria was an intelligent, generous, and loving ruler—which made it nearly impossible to believe that Apollo had come out of her—and that the King was kind and stoic, although not of a royal bloodline himself. Queen Eloise, in fact, was the first Queen in the entire Asteria Realm to have married a commoner. But no paper or book had ever written anything about bandits skulking in the Dragonfly Forest.

I gave Apollo an incredulous look. "I don't get why the North is so dangerous. I thought you were a prosperous kingdom."

"We are," he said, matter-of-factly. "We're the wealthiest kingdom in the Realm. Our people are very happy."

"If they are so happy, then why do you have thieves lurking in the woods?" I prodded.

He halted his striding and turned to look at me, his handsome face serious for once. "You're joking, right? There are bad people everywhere, Nepheli. There is no such thing as a perfect world. Elora has just as much crime."

I sidestepped him, skipping over a thick, broken log. "I suppose I wouldn't know."

"What do you mean you wouldn't know? You've lived your entire life there, no?"

"I've never really ventured very far from Diagonia Alley," I admitted. "My family's apartment is right across the street from the Shop."

I'd been born in that apartment. I'd lived my whole life there, a life comfortable in its repetition, and in the certainty of always knowing what was to come. The morning ritual: tea and raisin muffins and a book on the small kitchen table. A short walk to the Shop. Then back home in the afternoon, when the apartment was lush with sunlight and silence, I would trudge to the back balcony, a basket in hand, and hang the laundry on the metal drying rack, impatient to get it done and get my hands on a book again, something to read while I fixed myself dinner over my old, wood-burning stove.

And now Apollo was judging this life, my life, his face etched with disdain and disapproval. "Gods, you really are living the most miserable little life, aren't you?"

Abruptly, I swiveled on my heel, and his hard chest smacked right into mine. I pushed him back with the tip of my parasol. "Just because my life doesn't look like yours, it doesn't mean that it's miserable or unimportant," I declared. "I happen to enjoy leading a small life. Not everybody is dreaming of having some grand adventure."

Apollo let out a long breath. "You know what, darling? I don't care enough to argue about this. So let's just keep going."

Working my jaw, I veered around, and my boot caught on another fallen branch.

Apollo's rough hand came up lightning fast to close around my arm. "Watch where you're going," he snarled, pulling me straight. "If you break your legs—"

"Yes, yes, I know," I huffed, wrenching my arm from his hold. "You're going to leave me for dead."

◆◆◆

I was exhausted. I didn't think I'd ever been more exhausted for the entire twenty-three years of my life. Even the summer I met Ryker—my almost-fiancé—that we'd spent prancing all over Diagonia Alley from bookshops to tea houses to late-night plays at the theater only to end up back at his townhouse, kissing until our bodies ached, was still less anxious and exerting than two hours of trekking through the woods with Apollo, whose mood alternated between easy charm and disdainful side glances.

And still not a single, I'm sorry, or more appropriately, Forgive me for all the trouble I brought you, Nepheli. Surely, I'll reimburse you for the damages in your Shop. Don't worry. It'll all be okay.

Was simple courtesy too much to ask?

"What are you muttering about?" Apollo grumbled.

I shut my mouth. I was so used to sharing my every thought with the Shop that I didn't even realize I was talking aloud.

I glared at his back, about to give him a piece of my mind, when I noticed a bramble of common field berries nestled amid the sedges, and my empty stomach argued that I could always pick a fight later on.

"Oh, thank the gods," I groaned. "I'm starving."

"Could be poisonous," Apollo considered, crossing his big arms over his chest.

"No, they're not," I huffed as I got down on my knees. I took a long stem and snapped it in half to show him. "See? The sap is perfectly clear. Now, if the sap is thick and white, then it's poisonous. And if it smells bitter, then you will probably die. These are fine." I popped a few in my mouth and moaned at their rich flavor. Either these were the sweetest berries I'd ever eaten, or I was indeed not very far from starvation.

"You read that in your little books?" Apollo taunted.

I did not take to his words very kindly. Yes, I had read it in a book. So what? I loved my books. And there was absolutely nothing wrong with that. I loved books more than cake, more than stormy nights and crackling fires, more than afternoon naps and waking up to a steaming cup of tea. I could go without many things in this life, but not without books. And he had no right to mock me about it.

I rose to my feet, ready to retort, but I caught him as he worked himself out of his cape and baldric, and I forgot what I meant to say. He had large, beautiful hands—long fingers, strong knuckles, and veiny backs. He could kill a man with those hands. He could probably make a woman tremble in pleasure too, but I wasn't going to think about that now—never. I was never going to think about that.

He dropped his things on the ground and perched under the shade of a massive alder tree, its base flush with purple violas. The moss trailing up the gnarly trunk was a curious yellow color, and it almost sparkled when it caught the light.

Apollo let his head loll back on it, exposing his sunbaked throat to the sky, and shut his eyes, letting his long, dark lashes kiss upon his strong cheekbones. His face was full of strength like that. Chiseled lines and meticulous angles. And then his mouth, the exact opposite. Soft. Full. A tender curve.

A nice breeze swirled down the tree and whipped into his linen shirt. The fabric billowed around his chest, reminding me of a ship's sails about to embark on a magnificent journey. It was strange, somehow, that someone like him could look so serene, so human. Just a beautiful boy basking in the sun on a warm spring day.

I had never thought of a man as beautiful before, and the notion startled me enough that I almost dropped all the berries I had gathered in my palm.

"You shouldn't mock my books," I finally said. "Books aren't just sources of information or windows to the world or even lighthearted entertainment. Books are mirrors for our souls. They force us to contemplate every small and grand aspect of life, and then they make us question how we fit into it. Reading is such a self-reflective practice that you both find and lose yourself at once."

Apollo opened his eyes and stared at me for a few seconds without saying anything. He was one of those people who could be looking at you very attentively—so much so that I thought no one could ever feel lonely under the beam of his attention—while keeping their face completely nonchalant. It made me so curious about the true nature of his thoughts that my skin prickled from the inside and burned on the outside.

He finally released me from his gaze and relaxed further by folding his arms behind his head. "I don't disagree, darling," he said. "But all this self-reflection means nothing if you never show the world the person you discovered in there." He nodded at my chest, and my heart, strangely enough, skidded at the attention.

With a loud sigh, I went and settled down next to him, propping my parasol against the tree before brushing out my skirts. To my displeasure, I found the hem already green from the damp grass.

Apollo shifted, and his shoulder bumped into mine. His skin felt hot even through the layers of clothing. The heat raced up my arm, and my hand, for some reason, trembled as I offered him the berries. "Want some?"

"I'm fine."

I munched on a few. "They're delicious."

"Enjoy them. You need them more than I do, anyway," he said.

Nervously, I glanced down at my body.

Sure, I had lost some weight the past few months trying to live as economically as possible, but I was hardly a skeleton either.

"Don't get all self-conscious now, I didn't mean anything by it," Apollo interjected, noticing my frown. "But I'm guessing that if you were willing to sell me that filthy little book, things have been pretty tight for you." He raised his brows. "No?"

I groaned. "Only good thing about all of this is that you'll never find out about… that."

Apollo smirked to himself, some obscene little fantasy sparking up in his grey-blue eyes. "Darling, there are far more interesting ways to find that out than reading about it."

I smacked him on the head with my free hand. "Don't you dare flirt with me."

His smile widened. "Afraid you'll fall madly in love with me, Little Butterfly?"

I tipped my nose at the sky. "I will never, ever, ever fall in love with you, Apollo Zayra. I'm way too smart for such nonsense. You can count on that."

Apollo chuckled and picked a berry from my palm. "Good for you," he drawled as he popped it into his mouth. "I might not eat hearts, but I am still an expert at breaking them."