I shrug. There’s not much to tell about Bel. “He likes poetry.”
“Ah, say no more.”
“We’ve never gotten along particularly well. I think he thinks I’m…rather superficial.”
“Because you prefer tragic romances to epic poetry?” He chuckles. “Can’t say I really see the difference, honestly.”
“It doesn’t matter anyway; he’s not going to break the curse. None of them are.”
“That’s the spirit.”
“I presume, once they’ve exhausted all their options, myparents will drag themselves up here to read me the riot act about being careless enough to get caught by a curse.”
“At which point the curse will scurry away, tail between its legs, and you’ll be free.”
I laugh despite myself. “I’m honestly just holding out hope for Honeyrose’s ability to locate a clever sorcerer before my parents send all seven princes to Little Pepperidge.”
“Ah, the mysterious Honeyrose,” he says. “You’ll have to tell me about her.”
“No,” I say. “I want you to tell me about yourself.”
He smiles in that lazy, infuriating way. “Do you.”
“If you’re going to hang around stealing my things and bothering me, you might as well.”
“Fair enough; what would you like to know?”
“How’d you get cursed?”
He chuckles. “Pissed off a sea witch.”
I sigh. “And?”
“That’s about it, really.”
I put my head in my hands. “Honestly, do you keep everyone at this good-natured kind of distance or is it a special kind of aggravation you reserve just for me?”
“This is very much a special aggravation I reserve just for you.”
“Ugh,” I say, and bury my head in my arms on the desk. “Why, in the name of the great winged serpent?”
“You look awfully comfortable for a princess cursed to be stuck in the same place for all eternity. I haven’t really got anything better to do, so I might as well spend my time reminding you that there’s more to life than sitting behind a desk in a cursed bookshop.”
“Charitable of you to act so selflessly on my behalf,” I say, myvoice muffled. I still have my head in my arms. There’s really no point in letting him know that I’ve been quite enjoying sitting behind a desk in a bookshop. And I’m the cursed one, not the bookshop.
There’s a pause, and then he speaks, his voice lower and much nearer than it had been. “I told you, Princess. Something binds us together. There’s some sort of sympathy between your curse and mine. I’m sure of it. I simply haven’t figured out what yet.”
I look up in surprise, and turn beet red. Again. He’s standing at the desk, hands braced against it, looking down at me with an expression of very serious intent.
“Coincidence,” I murmur, my voice hopefully sounding less strangled than it feels. The wild scent of the sea is filling my senses, making it hard to focus.
“Perhaps,” he says. He is staring deeply into my eyes, almost as though he’s searching for something. It’s nearly unbearable.
“Why do you smell like that?” I blurt out, sitting back abruptly.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Salt water. You smell like…”Like the sea on a cold day, mist rising off the water, like fog and sand and dark, hidden places.“Brine,” I amend, turning, if possible, redder.
