That was, you could not stomp out your anger when a man had your hand tucked in the crook of his arm and was leading you up some stairs behind an innkeeper.
You also couldn’t do it when you were in the presence of an aristocrat, even if you weren’t one yourself (officially), because that wasn’t the done thing.
But I already knew you couldn’t throw a hissy fit in public, it was rude—in this world, my world or any world, no matter how much reason you had to do it.
That said, I was going to do it when we reached our room.
Yes, our room.
The first day gliding over the frosty tundra with Apollo had gone relatively well. This mostly had to do with Apollo riding beside me through the snow and not attempting conversation.
On my way through Lunwyn the first time, as the men rode close to my sleigh and we chatted, for the most part, my attention had been taken from the landscape.
Without that diversion, I was able to more fully take in the beauty of what was around me. The rolling plains covered in soft snow twinkling in the sun. The vistas dotted with green pines tufted with white. The small villages we passed, sleepy and closed away from the cold, smoke drifting lazily from chimneys coming out of roofs covered in marshmallow blankets.
As the glorious white horse with its smoky gray mane (the contrast to Apollo’s fantastic beast, which was smoky gray with an unusual white mane) pulled my dark green lacquered sleigh, I could give it my full attention. And I saw it was far more beautiful than I’d noted on the way in.
This annoyed me. It was silly and even childish, but I didn’t want to like anything that came with Apollo. And considering the latest turn of events, after a wonderful four months that had been the happiest maybe in my life, I was feeling okay with being silly and childish.
One of the worst parts of this turn of events was that it included being in the presence of Apollo.
He was worse than I imagined and he was pretty bad before.
Sure, there were reasons I couldn’t go forth and start my new life, free to be whatever I felt like being. I mean, malevolent magic was imminent and I didn’t want to seem like a wuss, but I didn’t think it was the smartest decision to go it alone in a whole new world when bad witches and vengeful deposed rulers were plotting to unleash misfortune on the land.
And he’d been cool (okay, I had to admit, he’d been relatively kind) when I explained about Christophe and Élan.
But mostly he was dictatorial, haughty and arrogant and it really annoyed me when he interrupted me like what I had to say wasn’t as important as what he had to say.
I’d slept on it and come to the decision that being with him would be easier to deal with than being around his children. And I decided this because I decided at the same time to ignore him as much as I could when I was with him.
I could ignore a dictatorial, haughty, arrogant grown man (maybe). I couldn’t ignore kids (definitely).
Decision made, I put it into practice when we stopped briefly for lunch and he tried to engage me in conversation. Without a peep, I turned my eyes away, chomped into the roasted pork sandwich one of his servants (no doubt, I didn’t see Apollo in a kitchen slapping together sandwiches) had provided (which was delicious, by the way) and ignored him.
The good part about this was it worked. He quit trying to talk to me from the moment I looked away from him.
The bad part about this was that when my eyes slid through him moments later, he was leaning against the side of the sleigh, his gaze to the ground, his mouth curved up and I knew it was me he found amusing.
That annoyed me also so I decided to ignore that too.
Off we went maybe ten minutes later and he kept apace with my sleigh but he said nothing further.
He also said nothing when he guided us into a larger village, this one beside a lovely streaming creek that had glistening black rocks at its banks. He took us straight to a building that had a shingle hanging from it that said “Rock Creek Inn” (not original, but apt), where we stopped.
He also said nothing when he wrapped his reins around a post in front of the inn and came back to me, offering his arm as I dismounted from the sleigh. I was, of course, a now-consummate sleigh-driver seeing as Gaston gave me a lesson when we got to Lunwyn and I’d been in charge of my sleigh ever since. Though, truthfully, it wasn’t much to brag about since it wasn’t all that hard.
I took his arm but did it with my face turned away and I didn’t even glance at him because I didn’t want to see if this amused him due to the fact that I knew that would annoy me.
He did curve his fingers around my hand in the crook of his elbow but I ignored that too. Since my hand had rabbit fur-lined gloves on it, I could even pretend his hand wasn’t there.
This was what I did.
He then took us into the inn, right to the desk and instantly asked the innkeeper for his best room.
That would be one room, singular.
It was not your standard Holiday Inn but it had more than one room, I was sure. And I seriously doubted Apollo intended to sleep in my sleigh. Further, the only other time we’d stayed under the same roof overnight, for some insane reason, he’d slept in bed with me.