6

The brawl downstairs grew so loud that I could no longer hear my own thoughts, let alone quell my pounding heart. I ended up in the bathtub with my head underwater, holding my breath, and watching the refractions gleam and flutter like a pair of iridescent wings.

The North didn't have as many advanced inventions as the South since they relied on magic for most things, but thankfully, this was a relatively modern bathtub. However, the pipes had accumulated such an unsettling amount of grime and rust that it was a miracle the thing worked at all.

Initially, I'd had a funny image pop up in my head of twisting the spigots only for something outrageous to pour out—perhaps a talking frog instead of water. I always caught myself thinking of the oddest things whenever I was this nervous. And gods knew I was sick with worry.

I had no idea how Apollo intended to get me back to Elora. His promise to help me was as vague as his manners, and I was anxious for him to return to the room and lay out some sort of plan that would put my mind at ease.

In the meantime, I tried my best to scrub this horrible day off my body before the water got too cold. I found a single bar of unscented soap clinging on a small metal tray atop the footstool next to the bathtub, and although it did a decent enough job to clean my body, when I brushed the lather through my hair, its texture grew tacky and grainy, and I spent a terribly long time trying to rinse it off, groaning incoherent curses under my breath.

Eventually, the door creaked, and heavy footsteps thudded on the old floor. I cowered into the tub, bringing my knees flush with my breasts. "Apollo?"

There was a long pause. Then a tired sigh. "Yes, darling?"

"I haven't finished yet."

"You don't say. And here I was chatting up with the other Nepheli on the bed," he retorted.

I rolled my eyes at the ceiling. "Can you hand me a towel, please? I forgot."

Apollo fumbled around the room, opening drawers here and there while muttering unintelligibly to himself. He must have finally found one because his footsteps carried him alarmingly close to the impromptu partition.

"Don't come closer," I blurted out, wavering in such panic inside the tub that water spilled from the edges.

"Then how am I supposed to hand you the damned towel?" growled Apollo.

"Throw it," I bit out.

He made a low, indignant sound and tossed the towel over the partition. I caught it in midair and exhaled in relief.

As I got out of the tub, wrapping the rough cloth tightly around my body, I realized, to my absolute dismay, that, out of habit, I'd left my clothes folded in a stack atop the bench at the foot of the bed. If I were in my Shop now, the cauldron would be gurgling in exasperation as if to say, Where's your head today, girl?

I got on my toes and took a peek over the partition, clutching the edge of the towel as if my life depended on it.

Apollo was sitting on the bed, crouched low, and busy unlacing his boots.

I turned around, too embarrassed to look him in the eye, and cleared my throat. "Can you please pass me my garments too?"

"Oh, goody," he wryly muttered. "It is so rare I get to be a handmaiden these days."

"Is it your job to be this obnoxious?" I hissed. "Is there some sort of competition that I'm unaware of? Will you get a medal for the most odious man in The Faraway North if you win?"

Apollo bristled. "I knew the gods were fucking with me."

"What?"

"Nothing," he snarled as he tossed me my chemise. "Get dressed. Your soup will get cold."

Well, at least he brought some food for me too. I was surprised he thought of it at all.

I dug my nails into the soft, lace-trimmed cotton of my chemise, trying not to think too much that the Prince of Thaloria had just seen and touched my undergarments, and waited patiently for him to hand me the rest.

"Come on, I'm freezing here," I grumbled, shifting my weight from my heels to my toes to produce some heat. Oh, how I missed my lovely, clean, warm Shop now, with its tireless fire and cozy armchairs. I needed socks and a steaming cup of tea. And a fuzzy blanket. And a good book that preferably had nothing to do with handsome, albeit insufferable princes. "Apollo, where is the rest?"

"I gave you your chemise. How many more clothes do you need for sleep?"

Well, nothing else, obviously, but it was already enough that I was sharing a room and a bed with this horrible man. I wasn't about to do it wearing only a semi-diaphanous undergarment too.

I chewed at the corner of my lip. "It's not… proper."

"Darling," he said, his voice frothing with sarcasm, "someone got stabbed in the kneecap downstairs, there is a couple fucking in the hall outside our door, and that creaking sound you keep hearing is probably the guy next door rubbing one out on his bed. You couldn't make things more improper even if you slept butt naked."

"Rubbing… what out?" I stammered through a wave of confusion.

"Gods, help me," groaned Apollo.

"Never mind," I seethed as I slipped into my chemise before folding the towel on the footstool next to the tub.

Now that the sun had taken its rest, the room wallowed in comforting semi-darkness, the only source of light being the yellow-hued sconces on the walls, and so my garment didn't appear too insubstantial to be considered scandalous. I just had to wake up before Apollo in the morning and get myself properly dressed.

Gods, I was being ridiculous, wasn't I? But to my defense, even that one night I had spent with Ryker before he left for the East, we had made love late at night in his warm, lightless bedroom, and after we were done, we had fumbled clumsily for our clothes in the dark. So I wasn't exactly used to anyone seeing me like this, let alone a complete stranger.

I sucked in a breath, balled my fingers into fists, and walked away from the partition.

Apollo was sitting on the bed with his neck stretched all the way back and a bloodied cloth pressed to his nose.

All my silly consternation dissipated, and a genuine sense of worry drilled through my bones as I reeled across the room. "For the love of Estia, what happened to you?"

I crouched over him, trying to check the state of his face behind the cloth, but he wasn't feeling particularly cooperative.

"I fell," he rasped.

"You fell?"

"On the stairs."

I eyed in suspicion his black eye, broken nose, and the two ceramic bowls of food resting on the nightstand. "Yet the bowls didn't break and the soup didn't spill?" I deadpanned, my gaze trailing to the red and torn skin of his knuckles. "And let me guess, you fell knuckles first."

Apollo sighed, straightened his head, and crumbled the dirty cloth in his fist. It was an infinitesimal movement, but I was actually able to see the bone at the bridge of his nose as it snapped back into place.

Gods, he really was unbreakable.

"What do you want me to say, Nepheli? That I got into a stupid fight with the stupid wanker from earlier?" he gritted out, his eyes averted from me. I debated whether he was simply uncomfortable admitting this, or if he was being courteous for once, considering my half-undressed state.

My brows shot up to my hairline. "You did?"

His throat bobbed. "It wasn't right. What he said to you. How he looked at you. It wasn't right."

"I didn't know heartless people could tell right from wrong." This I didn't say with any spite or resentment but with sincere curiosity. It was impossible not to be curious while standing in front of a corporeal marvel of magic. He was healing right before my eyes, and not the way a normal person would heal—a tender bruise shifting from mean reds to cold purples and sickly greens. No. Apollo was healing in reverse, his very existence transcending the restraints of time.

"My moral compass works perfectly fine," he deadpanned. "I just forget to look at it sometimes."

"Is it hard for you?" I asked a bit more gently, trying to show him some understanding. "To be without your heart?"

His eyes snapped at mine, cold and inscrutable like the night sky. "The heart is an unwilling lover of the body, darling. It never wants what it's supposed to want. It never sits and listens. It never asks you for permission. It just breaks and craves until you go mad trying to appease it. I'm better off without it," he claimed as he raised his now-healed hand to me. "And being indestructible also has its benefits, don't you think?"

I gaped at him, astonished at this pessimistic take on being human. What was a human without their heart, anyway? Without their ability to love and be loved? Oftentimes—usually after reading something particularly romantic—I asked myself this one question: Are we human because we fall in love or do we fall in love because we are human? Because that was how inseparable love and humanity were in my mind; one could not exist without the other. My only dilemma was whether love was our nature or our purpose.

And now here Apollo was—heartless, loveless, and perfectly human.

I closed my mouth and asked warily, "So you chose this?"

He shrugged. "In a way."

"And you heal," I persisted now that he was finally indulging me with answers. "That's why you can't die."

Apollo launched to his feet and towered over me, his dark locks tumbling over his stormy eyes. "The curse made me undead. This is how I can live without a heart. And a heartless man can't enter the Underworld. The spirits won't allow me passage. So I heal instead."

"So, technically, you're not twenty-seven, since you became undead at the age of…"

"Twenty," he gritted out.

"Then, again, technically, since I am twenty-three, I'm older than you."

Apollo gave me a blunt look. "Would that make you happy, Nepheli?"

I lifted my chin. "Actually, it would."

"Then, darling, you're older than me."

"I didn't realize you cared about my happiness," I mocked.

"I don't. I would just like for you to shut up so I can finally take a bath," Apollo grunted and carefully slipped away. "Eat. If it gets cold, the taste will get worse."

He stepped behind the partition and immediately started taking off his belt and trousers, the sounds of fabrics swishing and soughing exaggerated in the sudden silence. "You're staring, darling," he taunted as he dragged his shirt over his head.

By the stars, I was staring.

Blushing through my bones, I swiveled around and finally went to sit down on the bed. I forced down a few spoonfuls of the foul-smelling mush that passed for soup around here and decided that it was probably smarter to go to bed hungry than risk spending the entire night hugging the toilet. Instead, I sat back cross-legged and began braiding my hair, a soothing ritual I did every night as I prepared myself for sleep. "The food is atrocious. I'm just warning you," I mumbled.

"I know," he said over the wailing pipes as they strained to pump out fresh water. "My things are still at the inn in Elora, but I have spare toothbrushes in the brown pouch next to my sword if you want one."

Rejoiced, I sprung off the bed to go and grab one.

Several toothbrushes were huddled together inside the linen pouch, along with two unopened tins of paste. But what caught my attention was the little brown container that was labeled as a ‘contraceptive'. Of course, he was taking the contraceptive tablets. I had no doubt that this man was as promiscuous as he was unpleasant.

I cleared my throat. "Why do you have so many toothbrushes in here?"

"Whenever I reach a city, I stock up on these things," he explained.

"Smart," I admitted.

"Don't sound so surprised," he clipped.

The second I heard the water sloshing aggressively around and realized he had emerged from the bathtub, I shuffled toward the small bathroom to give him some privacy. First, I checked if the sink spigots worked—thankfully they did—then I began brushing my teeth with the myrrh and mint paste, only to have the most intrusive little thought come straight at me mid-brush. This was the taste of his mouth. This was the taste of his kisses and his exhales. How strange was it that we shared that now?

As I returned to the bedroom, still toying with that flustering thought, I caught a brief sight of him as he crouched down to throw a lit match into the hearth, the pile of logs going up in flames with unexpected vigor—much like my sanity. Then he stood and turned around. And my heart almost left my body. Because he was wet and naked, apart from a tinny towel that hung obscenely low on his hips.

If there had ever been a debate about whether or not life was unfair, Apollo's existence would settle the argument once and for all. The gods just had to make him wealthy, powerful, handsome, unbreakable, and with the body of some fairytale knight. They just couldn't leave something for the rest of us, could they? No, Apollo simply had to have the most beautiful bronze skin and stupendously sculpted muscles, and strong arms, and chiseled abdomen, each and every line deliciously pronounced from his obliques to his pelvis.

Whoever was responsible for the good-gene distribution in this world had some serious explaining to do.

"You're staring again, darling," Apollo crooned, grinning his witty rake's smile.

I swiveled around so fast that I got myself dizzy. "Put your damned clothes on!" I growled, although, to be honest, there were not enough clothes in the world he could put on now to successfully erase that particular image from my head.

"Look at that, Little Miss Butterfly, all flustered and excited," he drawled, his steps wandering about the room.

"I am not excited, you conceited brute," I hissed, my cheeks burning. "You're just a man. There's nothing special about you."

"Well, being heartless does make me a bit special, don't you think?" Apollo mocked. "Of course, my killer grey eyes do add to the general allure of my person."

"Being heartless doesn't make you special," I muttered through clenched teeth. "It just makes you cruel."

"No retort about the eyes, huh? I see. So you do like something about me."

As he went to brush his teeth, I remained pinned to my spot, staring at the grey-brown planks of the wall with my skin tingling and my heart taking dancing lessons on the floor of my chest.

Finally, the bed screeched, and Apollo cooed, "You can turn around now, darling."

I did, hesitantly. He was already tucked under the bedcover with one arm propped behind his head as a pillow. His undershirt was so white that it paled the shadows of the room and made his skin look warmer, almost ethereal, and when his smoldering eyes fell on me, intense enough to make me aware of the most microscopic mechanisms of my body, my fingers flew up to close around my pendant.

He regarded the gesture with a raised brow. "Are you going to stand there all night, Little Butterfly?"

"Not all night," I clipped and tried to divert his attention away from me. "Aren't you going to eat first?"

"I ate in the kitchen. These were for you. Now stop stalling."

I swallowed. "I'm not stalling."

He sighed at the ceiling. "Nepheli, darling, please don't make me get up and drag you to bed. We have a very long journey tomorrow. You need to rest."

At the mention of our journey, my good sense resharpened, and my previous anxieties returned to me at once.

I slipped into the bed, as mindful as I could be of the wisp of linen between us, and rested my head back on the pillow, admittedly grateful that he hadn't taken it for himself. The covers were already warm from his body, and I pulled them up to my neck, desperate for some heat. He shifted, trying to give me a bit more space. The bed creaked. The fire crackled. My knees cracked. The side of my thigh touched his hip, but neither of us moved about it.

We were so close and so quiet, I was afraid he'd be able to hear the thudding of my heart. I remembered reading something like that in a novel once, and I finally understood what the protagonist meant. That dreadful feeling of being discovered. That harsh betrayal of your own body.

"About that," I began, my voice hoarse. "How exactly am I going to return to Elora?"

He released a long breath. "Once we reach the city, I'll get you on the first ship that sails out to the South. You'll have an escort to ensure your safety and a handmaiden to tend to your needs or to just keep you company if you're too used to taking care of yourself. Either way, she'll be there for you. And of course, I'll reimburse you for the damages, lost business, and all the distress I've put you through." He turned his head to face me. "Does that sound okay, darling?"

He'd really thought of everything, hadn't he?

Okay, fine. Perhaps Apollo Zayra wasn't so horrid after all. Of course, he still hadn't properly apologized to me, but at least I felt a bit more assured now that I knew he had a plan.

And maybe, just maybe, I could go to sleep now and feel a tiny bit excited that tomorrow morning I would wake up in the most enchanted kingdom in the Asteria Realm, the place where magic was birthed and curiosity was forever celebrated.

I tried to picture myself in Thaloria, wearing one of those fancy, elaborate garments I'd read about in the papers while strolling by over-bright storefronts and opulent theaters, my every step leading me to newness, my heart pounding from the thrill of the unknown, my senses taut and outstretched for any evidence of magic. And there would be so much magic to see, to learn, to master, and so many people to talk about all the things that never failed to make the blood quicken in my veins and my heart leap with joy.

How would I look to these people with my strange hair, my curious eyes, my thirsty ears? Would I be just another girl? Would I fit perfectly, like a lost piece of a puzzle? Or would I still be marked by this invisible veil of otherness I seemed to wear? Was the extent of one's strangeness only as large as the world they lived in?

I stole a glance at Apollo, a man who'd seen so much of the world that I figured he had to have the answer. And I knew he would be honest—brutally so, for he didn't have the capacity to care about my silly little heart at all.

The handsome line of his profile was perfectly serene, his lips slightly parted, and his black eyelashes lowered, drifting into the calm of sleep.

"Apollo?"

"Yes, darling?"

"Do you think I'm strange?"

He stifled a yawn. "Do you care if I think you're strange?"

Something caught in my throat—a fear I couldn't swallow. "I don't know."

His eyes opened and met mine. "You like magic, right?"

"Of course, I like magic. I'm a Curiosity."

"Don't you think magic is strange?"

"It's not the same. Magic is magnificent." I fiddled with the end of my braid, biting down on my lip. "I'm afraid I'm just odd."

"Magic is magnificent because it doesn't sit around caring if strangers think it's odd," Apollo argued. "You can't wish for magic and then dread it when you finally meet it, Nepheli. You'll go mad for contradicting yourself like that."

"Sometimes, I think I only wish Elora was more magical so I wouldn't stand out so much. Me and the Shop. I would be like everyone else," I blurted out, my face flushed with embarrassment.

"You don't want to be like everyone else," he said, rather resolutely. "You want to be extraordinary. You're just terrified of the journey that will get you there."

I took on a rueful expression. "You think you have me all figured out, don't you?"

A smug little smirk tugged up the corners of his mouth. "I do, in fact."

"You know nothing about me," I hissed.

"Let me paint you a picture and tell me if it rings any bells, yes?" he said, his eyes drifting to the ceiling as if he were watching it all unfold over the wooden planks. "You're sitting at a table. Let's call this table life."

"Oh there's going to be a metaphor too," I mocked.

He ignored me, his tone dry but relentless, "You're sitting at this table, and there is wonderful food being served to you constantly, and everybody else around you feasts and enjoys, but not you. You wait. You save your appetite for something better, tastier. You're starving yourself, but you don't care. You're ravenous, but you don't wither. You're too determined, perhaps even too accustomed to the waiting. But now you're starting to realize all the flavors you've missed—the smells, the textures. Not every dish that was served to you was extraordinary, but now you think that maybe it was worth tasting regardless. But you've missed it all. You've wasted all this time waiting for something you're starting to fear might not be served at all."

Irrationally, I wanted to be furious with him. How dare he tell me in this nonchalant way of his what I wasn't ready to hear? His portrayal of me cracked me right open and left me feeling helpless and hating myself for feeling helpless. Why couldn't I be more like him? Hiding everything behind a wall of sarcasm and casual indifference. I bet no one could ever make him feel exposed and vulnerable like that.

But I could not siphon enough anger from my bones to say anything about it. I could not scoff or joke or feign offense. Because his hand had fallen in the small space between our bodies, and it was all I could think about now. I couldn't see it, but I could feel it—his little finger resting right next to mine. Electricity sparked in that microscopic distance, in the tantalizing possibility of a touch.

My hand trembled. My breath strained to reach my lungs.

"I didn't realize I was so easy to read," I finally muttered.

"You're not," he said, his voice keenly quiet. "I'm just getting better at it. I meet new people every day, after all."

"It must be nice," I considered. "Being able to make friends so easily."

"I said nothing about friendship, darling," Apollo drawled, on the verge of laughter. "But I have to be able to read people if I am to lure them into dubious inns to devour their hearts."

Furiously, I turned to smack him on the shoulder with the back of my hand. "You're horrible. Absolutely horrendous."

"Look at us having an argument before bed. It's like we're actually married," he retorted and shifted to his side, the bed making an alarming creaking sound at the sudden movement.

I glared at his back, resisting the urge to shove him off the bed altogether. But then I reminded myself that making an enemy out of a heartless, powerful royal was probably not the smartest idea, so I breathed through my nose, unclenched my jaw, and turned on my side too.

A few silent moments ticked away, then a quiet rasp, "Nepheli?"

I groaned. "What now?"

"I…" he hesitated, and the bed complained again as his massive body shifted. "I'm sorry. For all the trouble, I mean. I'm never certain when I'm supposed to use the heart I don't have." He sighed. "I know an apology doesn't rectify the situation. But I'll make it up to you. This much, I can promise."

"It's okay," I whispered, a bit startled at his confession. "I forgive you."

He paused, just as surprised as I was. "You do?"

"What can I say? Keeping a grudge gives you wrinkles."

He laughed under his breath. Apollo had one of those laughs that, once you learned it, you could recognize anywhere. Deep and husky, like woodsmoke fuming in the night.

Suddenly, I felt him move closer, the covers rustling, his hands slipping over me. My heart lurched into my stomach. I veered in a panic. "What are you doing?"

The outline of his figure looked daunting in the firelight as he hovered next to me, propped on his elbows.

"I was just trying to cover you with my side of the blanket. It's really cold tonight," he bit out, clearly offended. "Gods, Nepheli, what did you think I was going to do?"

To be honest, nothing of this sort.

Surely I wasn't as seasoned as the Prince of Thaloria, but I was far from naive either. I knew when to be on my guard, and a man who occasionally forgot to check his moral compass had to be on top of the list of people one should suspect of the utmost impropriety.

"I… Nothing," I stammered, pulling the covers over my head. "Goodnight."

Apollo snorted. "I'm perfectly capable of keeping my hands to myself, you know," he said before adding with just the right amount of scorn to infuriate me, "Besides, you're hardly so irresistible."

"Shut up," I hissed.

Although I couldn't see it, I heard the audacious little smirk in his voice. "Goodnight, Little Butterfly."

"I said, shut up."