25

Mor Trisencor and Brunch with the Nobles

Two days sleeping and one day cleaning was two days and one day too many.

Mor scaled the early morning shadows, becoming a vapour in the wind. He moved across the sidewalks, in and out of normal speed, and finally he shed his dandelion-dusted jacket when he reached the walkways by the harbour. He folded it and hung it on the rail. And he waited.

The water sparkled with early light, rippling too far into the distance to see even with fairy sight. Human-speckled boats drifted by, and loud white birds squawked overhead.

A breeze ruffled Mor’s curls, and he glanced over to see Luc standing a few feet down the rail in a loose, light blue tunic, appearing nothing of the shadow-dominating war fae he was. He licked a cone of pink ice cream, dropping a dollop onto his shirt. In one swipe, he scooped the drip up and sucked it off his finger, rattling the pendant of eight tails hanging faithfully at his throat. His ruby was nowhere to be seen.

“Have you tried this, Trisencor?” Luc asked, holding up his ice cream cone. “It’s like a cold, sweet, cloud of icy honey.”

“Where’s your coat?” Mor asked as he glanced back out at the water.

Luc answered his question with another question. “Did you hope I would come running the moment I realized your scent was no longer masked?” He stuffed a large bite of ice cream into his mouth. Then he got to work crunching the cone.

“You did though, didn’t you?”

“And you came alone.” Luc looked at Mor for the first time, his silvery eyes sparkling in the sunlight and outshining the human realm waters. Mor stared back at him.

“Don’t you wish to know why I decided to shed my dandelions?” Luc asked, raising a scarlet brow. He flicked the rest of the cone over the rail and Mor watched it fall all the way down into the harbour.

“No, not really.” Mor traced a finger over his folded jacket. “But I imagine it was for the same reason I did.”

“Yes. And now we’re both here, like we both wanted.” Luc’s cold, beastly smile was the darkest thing about the morning.

“You know I’ve been tracking your movements,” Mor said. “You probably knew it would drive me mad, too, trying to figure out what you were doing. I’ve tried stopping you with force and that didn’t work, so now, I’ll just ask. Tell me—” Mor turned to face him, “—what are you collecting, Luc?”

Luc’s smile almost fell. He kept it pasted there, just a straight line.

“What makes you think I’m collecting something?” he asked after too long a pause.

Mor searched the fairy’s face, his stance, his tone. Violet’s article wasn’t wrong; as soon as Mor had read it, he knew she’d pegged the fox correctly. “Why steal those human females’ memories of a single day of their life? What will those memories give you that you don’t already have?” he asked.

Luc’s gaze grew sharp for a second, then he tore it away and looked out at the sunlit water. “I know Violet isn’t your lover, Trisencor,” he said, but his smile broadened again. “She’s so much more special than that.”

Mor angled himself toward the fairy. “What in the name of the sky deities are you talking…” It dawned on him a little too late. He’d seen the traces of Luc’s attempted kiss on Violet from the day they met at the bus stop. He knew Luc had tried to get close to Violet, but Mor hadn’t considered…

“Did you steal something from her?” Mor asked, his hands twitching toward his fairsabers as he thought about how desperately she clung to her recollections. “At the bus stop… or in the alley?”

All Luc replied with was, “Too bad she doesn’t remember.”

Mor’s flesh tightened, his vision melting to a shade of red. Violet was his secretary. His responsibility now. And she’d been in Luc’s clutches, possibly more times than she realized. Luc had been playing games with her—the same way he’d played games with rebellious Shadow Fairies in their Army division.

Luc licked the sweet bits of ice cream from his lips as his smile faded. “I imagine only one faeborn Shadow Fairy will leave this street alive today. Let’s get it over with so I can be on my way.”

Mor reached behind him for his fairsaber handles as he drew closer to the fox. “Don’t hold anything back.” Mor eyed Luc’s pocket, waiting for him to draw out his ruby. “Give me your best fight—”

“But, Trisencor,” Luc scratched his head, feigning bafflement, “aren’t you wondering why no one you care about is dead yet?”

“I’m not interested.” Mor let his blades slide out from their handles to prove it.

“You might be,” Luc challenged. “Did you think I wouldn’t find out where your High Court was hiding? Did you think I wouldn’t be able to identify your allies simply because you had kept your distance from that café?”

A rock sank through Mor’s stomach. “My… what?”

“Your watchdog raised his spear at me in the street. You might have been careful to mask your scent all this time, but you never told that fool to mask his. I walked right up to Fae Café’s front door. I almost went in too, but the strangest thing happened.” Luc glanced off in supposed bewilderment. “A human girl came out. What did she say her name was again?” He snapped his fingers. “Ah, that’s right! Lily Baker.”

Mor dropped one of his fairsabers and grabbed a fistful of Luc’s collar.

Luc only grinned. “I bet that’s her real name, too. I wonder if she’d walk into the harbour for me and drown herself if I told her to,” he said.

Mor’s blade found Luc’s throat. Terrible thoughts of murder surged through his mind until a familiar voice brushed over him.

“Actually, I wouldn’t, even if you said please,” she said.

Mor’s gaze ripped over to a blonde-haired human in a police uniform with her gun drawn. She had it aimed for Luc’s head and, sky deities, she looked ready to shoot. “I knew what you were the moment the wind blew your hair off your ears,” Lily said to the Shadow Fairy in Mor’s grip.

To Lily’s credit, Luc seemed surprised to see her there. But his surprise wouldn’t save her. Mor was about to shout for Lily to run, but Luc spoke first. “Lily Bak—”

Mor punched his mouth with the hilt of his weapon.

Luc grunted and drew a fairsaber, the blade forming and swinging all in one motion. It nearly sliced Mor’s head clean off. Mor ducked and blocked, picking up his other handle and forging the blade while attempting a stab at Luc’s midsection. But the fox kicked him backward, and Mor was caught by a pair of strong hands.

“Queensbane, Mor. Is this the sort of humiliating nonsense you’ve been up to?” Cress’s icy voice took up every ounce of space in Mor’s ears.

“No…” he whispered. “No, no, no!” Mor spun to see the Prince of the North Corner for himself.

There Cress stood, his dark turquoise gaze sailing past him and locking onto Luc. Cress’s gold and silver fairsaber handle was in his hand.

Luc surveyed Cress with a strange look. It was possibly the first time Mor had seen the ruthless Shadow Fairy hesitate. Luc had never crossed Prince Cressica Alabastian in person, but it would not stop him from recognizing who Cress was.

“Lily, leave.” Cress’s words were cold.

Lily glanced at him, and her gun wavered. She looked like she might protest—but she obeyed. She jogged down the street toward the police car parked on the curb where her partner waited.

“Cress.” The name cracked in Mor’s throat as he looked at the one fairy he did not want to see, now doomed alongside him. “You should not have come here!” he rasped through his teeth.

Power rippled ever so slightly off Cress’s skin. The tension in the air was suffocating, and Mor tightened his grip on his swords, preparing to flood Luc with a thousand cold iron stabs. There was no letting the fox get away alive now after what he had seen.

But Cress spoke before Mor could move.

“How about brunch?” he said. It was the most unexpected suggestion said in the darkest, most cruel voice.

“No,” Mor growled.

“You’re out of time, Mor.” Cress finally tore his gaze off Luc long enough to settle it on him. “You knew I was coming to handle this,” he said.

Luc still stared; his smile gone. He seemed to weigh his odds as he sized Cress up. Calculating how he might run Cress through. But instead of stabbing, he said, “What an excellent idea, Prince Cressica.”

Three tense fairies were led to a table in the corner of the breakfast diner with a view of the harbour. Mor and Cress took seats on one side, and Luc took a seat on the other against the wall. Mor looked around at all the humans. Humans that would run in terror if this brunch did not go well, and chances were, it wouldn’t.

Mor glared at Cress. “You promised to stay away,” he said.

Cress was no fool. He must have realized the Shadow Army would come for him now that he was revealed. That they would storm the human realm, crushing anything in their path to execute Queene Levress’s ward—the exact terror Mor had spent the last months trying to avoid.

“Nonsense, Mor. All I must do is kill him. A dead fairy speaks no secrets.” Cress settled his stare on Luc. He didn’t take his glower off the Shadow Fairy even when a human arrived to pass out goblets of water. A slow, wickedly broad smile spread across Luc’s face in response.

“I’ll be right back to take your orders!” the human promised. She was ignored.

“Mor must have forgotten to mention that killing me doesn’t keep me away.” Luc angled toward Mor. “Right, Trisencor? You saw me die once.”

“You’re a nine tailed fox,” Cress said, and Mor’s head snapped toward Cress in surprise. “I did my research. I know how many times I must kill you for you to stay down.”

Luc released a chuckle. “You may try then if you’d like, but my war isn’t with you, Prince. It’s with the one who abandoned his people,” he said, nodding in Mor’s direction.

“I am his people,” Cress stated, sharp and deadly. “So, if you touch him again, I will gut you on a table like this one.”

Luc’s dark smile spread. “Has Mor not told you about me? Or about himself, then?” he asked. “About how he turned coward and abandoned his army? Has he not told you the story of how he—”

Cress shoved the table forward and pinned the fox against the wall. Luc’s breath caught as his lungs were crushed. His wild silver-brown eyes fired up to Cress.

“We’re in public,” Mor reminded Cress with a mutter.

Luc’s skin was tight beneath the pressure, but he didn’t move, or push back, or disappear like every fairy at the table knew he could. “Are you trying to make enemies, Prince?” he asked Cress coolly.

“It’s in my nature,” Cress returned. “Along with assassinating my enemies.”

Luc nodded, then whispered in a tantalizing tone, “Mine, too.” His warped smile returned, and prickles skittered across Mor’s back. “And if you think that Trisencor and I are the only Shadow Fairies in this realm, you’re in for a surprise. We’re an army, after all. We live in the shadows. We watch from a distance. We creep into your lives and homes and minds. And if you betray us, we destroy the things you love.” He angled his head like a crossbeast, his gaze snapping over to Mor. “And we enjoy it.”

Mor’s heart tried to beat its way out of his chest.

“It sounds like we’re a good match, then.” Cress shoved the table a little harder, turning Luc’s next sound into a growl. “But you’re lying. I would see the Shadow Army coming long before they entered this city. You’re alone here, Fairy.”

Luc released a raspy chuckle. “Maybe. But you’re doomed, Prince of the North. In the same way you plan to kill me, I cannot let you live now that I’ve seen you,” Luc promised. “My tongue is burning from the falsehood of saying my war isn’t with you. That part was a lie. I planned to kill you the moment I saw you. And the lovely truth is that you will have to kill me several times to keep me down, but I only have to kill you once.”

Mor broke. He grabbed Cress’s arm and they slipped into the air.

They were already shouting at each other when Fae Café appeared around them. Humans at tables shrieked and spilled coffee or halted their conversations mid-sentence as two fairies appeared out of thin air, yelling at the same time:

“Are you out of your faeborn mind?!—”

“I told you to stay away!!—”

“That Shadow Fairy has plans to torture you to death, Mor!—”

“I had a good faeborn-cursed reason to do this by myself!—”

Mor couldn’t remember the last time they yelled at each other this way, or the last time he truly lost his temper and yelled at all.

“That is preposterous!” Cress shouted, swatting a mug off a nearby table. It shattered against the wall.

“Why can’t you ever listen?! Being a prince doesn’t give you the right to deal with my past when I told you to stay away—”

Cress put his finger in Mor’s face. “It has been you and me together for all these faeborn years! I gave you the space you asked for, but this has gone on long enough! If that Shadow Fairy is not dead in the next twenty-four faeborn-cursed hours, I swear I will begin snapping necks, starting with yours!”

Dranian moseyed out from the kitchen. He folded his arms and watched, muttering something about how Shayne had left and asking if Cress or Mor knew where he was. But neither Mor nor Cress heard him.

“You’re out of your faeborn mind,” Cress growled at Mor again. “Ask me for help,” he demanded.

Mor’s jaw tightened. He had half a mind to draw his fairsabers right here in the human-filled café.

Cress’s gaze flared when Mor said nothing. “Ask. Me. For. Help. Mor.”

“We have customers,” Kate’s small voice said from where she stood by the wall. Mor hadn’t seen her sneak up.

“Some things are more important than customers, Kate.” Mor articulated it cruelly, like she was daft. It was mean—and he wanted it to be. He wanted every fairy and human in earshot to hate his words. To hate him.

Cress’s eyes narrowed. “Nothing is more important than our customers. That’s the first rule of business,” he bit out.

Mor took a threatening step toward his dearest friend. He rarely used his power of the Dark Shadows, but he did it now, letting the coolness slip over the floor and meet the frost crawling from Cress’s own feet. And Mor said the thing that would seal the deal.

“Stay away from me, Cressica Alabastian. Or I’ll destroy this place with fire magic and shadows.” He flicked a nod at the café. “This is your last warning.”

He took to the air, the colours bleeding around him, the wind scarcely cooling his fire-hot heart.