34

Mor Trisencor and the Museum of Shadows

The sky growled, spitting water and fog over the downtown streets and ushering humans indoors. A handful of watchful people still carried on in the rain, scrambling for their umbrellas or pulling up their hoods. Pools of water dotted the roads, dark and cold in front of the Museum of Ancient Egypt. Several humans who looked toward the museum screamed and raced for cover.

Two Shadow Fairies waged war upon the front stairs.

Purplish fairy blood leaked into the crevices of Mor’s hands beneath his fairsaber handles. He blocked Luc’s right saber and kicked for the fairy’s knees, but Luc swiped his free blade across Mor’s kneecap, and Mor released a growl as a spray of his blood painted Luc’s rainwater-drenched summer shirt.

Neither fairy wore a dandelion coat. They’d raced across the city toward each other, fairsabers out. This was the end, and it seemed they both knew it.

The large, wooden front doors of the museum burst open. Cress marched out, shouting, “Stop airslipping away from me, you fools!” He swung his sword, locking it against one of the fox’s blades. Mor stabbed at Luc’s lower sections, his sword brushing the fox’s hip before Luc vanished back into the air and appeared behind Cress.

Mor punched his blade over Cress’s shoulder, narrowly missing Luc who airslipped again, leaving Mor and Cress alone on the museum stairs.

Cress tilted his ear toward the wind. He did a full turn, then he shot up into the heavens like an arrow. Mor gaped, watching as Cress snatched at something in the sky. Luc reappeared—half strangled in Cress’s grip. Cress threw the Shadow Fairy down toward Mor, and Mor raised his fairsaber, ready to deal a lethal hit.

Luc caught his senses during his fall and vanished. Mor raced into the wind after him, channeling over fog and rain, following Luc across three streets in a heartbeat.

Mor leapt out of the airslip, pinning Luc against a street lantern. The stem of the lantern bent from the impact, and the light flickered above. Luc kicked Mor back a step and slashed the air, barely missing Mor’s throat. He marched after Mor, grabbing his collar.

Mor was tossed back against the lantern post this time. The light finally went out, blanketing the two Shadow Fairies in rainy dimness.

Why her?They were the two words burning through Mor’s mind with each swing he dealt and hit he took. He gritted his teeth, timing his wild rhythms. He ducked just before Luc’s fairsaber struck the lantern post and carved into the metal where Mor’s head had just been.

Mor snatched Luc’s ankle and tore him back into the air, rushing fast through the city as Luc fought to regain his balance. Luc punched his blade forward, catching Mor in the side with a shallow cut, and he ripped himself from Mor’s grip as they landed in the lobby of the dark museum that one sign claimed was closed for renovations. Luc rolled over the tile floor, and Mor skidded to a stop on one knee.

Luc laughed, uncurling himself to lay flat on his back. “Have you had enough yet, Trisencor?” he asked.

Mor stood in the light spilling in from the open entrance doors. He tightened his grip on his fairsabers and marched to stand over the nine tailed fox. “Never,” he stated.

“Good.”

Luc vanished and appeared standing before him. “Me neither,” he said.

Their fairsabers collided, sending a sharp, metallic ring through the empty museum. Thunder howled outside, muting the next three swings and blocks. When the sky deities stopped roaring, the sound of someone sighing loudly came from a large, historic Egyptian throne at the far end of the room. A small sign said: NO CLIMBING ON DISPLAY. But it seemed Cress didn’t care for human rules.

“You two took forever to come back,” he remarked from where he was draped sideways over the oversized throne, his head laid back against the armrest, his legs crossed like he’d been napping for the three seconds Mor had been gone.

Cress pointed with his fairsaber at a picture across the room depicting a human female with an elongated skull from a distant kingdom called Ancient Egypt. “Look at that, Mor. There are humans with weird heads.”

Luc smacked Mor’s left fairsaber from his grip. Mor’s blade tumbled over the floor, sliding until it hit the base of the display where the Prince of the North lounged. Mor tried desperately not to shout at Cress and point out that it was Cress who wanted to help—a thing the Prince seemed to have forgotten during his marvelling at human paintings.

Luc raised his blade toward Mor’s throat and held it steady there before Mor could lift his right sword in defense. Mor swallowed, his neck grazing the sharp end of the Shadow sword. He couldn’t even speak to ask the sky deities why in the faeborn cursed world he’d bothered to bring Cress along.

Cress dropped from the sky like a boulder.

Luc yelped as he was pummeled into the floor, his chest crushed beneath the weight of Cress’s knee, his fairsabers clanging away. “You fool,” Cress said to him. “You came to my café and threatened my High Court. I will enjoy killing you over and over.”

Cress didn’t hesitate. He stabbed Luc—straight and true—and though it should have been a sweet relief to Mor’s eyes, something tightened in his stomach at the sight. An old memory rushed in of the last time he had watched this same fox die in front of him. Mor shook the thought away as he witnessed Luc take his last breath, as the fairy’s ruby-haired head relaxed against the tile.

Cress stood and brushed a bead of sweat from his brow. “Queensbane, this fox is as faeborn tough as you said. But don’t worry, he’s still no match for me,” he remarked. He walked across the lobby toward a human drinking fountain. After a few seconds of deliberation, Cress pressed a button on its side and a spout of water came out. The Prince ducked his face in and out of the stream a few times, grappling at the flying water with his lips before he finally figured out how to get some into his mouth.

Mor stood by Luc. Waiting.

The necklace of fox tails at Luc’s throat shivered. One of them disintegrated, leaving seven behind.

A second passed before the colour returned to Luc’s face. But the fool didn’t open his eyes or strike or vanish, even when the wound in his chest closed and the fairy blood dried up. The faint movement of his lips was the only indication he was back.

“Bravo,” Luc said, eyes closed. “Bravo, Trisencor. It seems you beat me for the first time.”

Mor angled his blade so the tip was at Luc’s throat. “All the things you’ve done to me… You’ll pay for them now,” he said.

Luc’s slow smile spread over his face. “All the things I’ve done,” he said quietly. His eyes slid open; he focused on the curved museum ceiling. “Your problem, Trisencor, is that you think everything is about you.” He licked a spot of blood off his lips then turned his head and spat it out. “Do you know how long it took for me to convince the commanders to let me come here?” Luc asked. “How much talking, how much luring, how much baiting and convincing before I had the commanders wrapped around my finger at last?” The sound of the drinking fountain ceased, and Mor guessed Cress was coming back. But Mor couldn’t take his stare off the nine tailed fox. “I never came here for you,” Luc said. “I came here for something else. It was just by the meddling of the sky deities that I happened to see you and…” The fairy worked his jaw, his lips tightening, anger flashing over his silvery eyes. Quiet popping sounds filled the museum, like Cress was making noises with his lips on the other side of the room after his drink.

“And her,” Luc finished.

Her.

Mor’s mouth parted, the realization settling into place that Luc knew who Violet was.

“I recognized the old fairy scents upon her when she and I first met, but it took a few tries to establish exactly where those old scents came from. I’m ashamed I didn’t figure out sooner that she was the same human from that day.” Luc lifted a hand and delicately touched his freshly healed chest.

Mor blinked. “How did you find out?” he asked in a monotone voice—determined not to allow Luc the luxury of believing Mor was even the slightest bit interested. “When she has no memories of those things?”

Luc laughed from the floor; a coarse, bellowing sound that echoed over the wide space and bounced off the walls. “I wasn’t after her memories,” he promised. “But I was after her. And the beauty of it all is that our dear Violet thinks you’ll keep her safe from me,” he said, rolling up to sit and climbing to his feet. When he was eye-to-eye with Mor, he added, “You won’t. I would very much like her to suffer for a long time, and then die.”

Mor swung his fairsaber, but Luc grabbed Mor’s wrist and held his arm in place. “Oh dear,” he said, stealing a glance past Mor. “I don’t think you want to bother me anymore, Trisencor. Or the next sound you hear will be your North Prince screaming through a deathblow.”

Mor’s face grew puzzled. He whirled to find Cress, his stomach dropping at the sight of Cress surrounded by two dozen Shadow Fairies, armed and cloaked with dark iridescent shell plates of armour. It was a sight from Mor’s childling days he thought he would never see again: His own division of the Shadow Army, wearing the colours he wore, holding the same swords he held in his own grip now.

Cress’s fairsaber hadn’t been torn from his hand, but he didn’t dare move it. He stared across the museum at Mor with cold, turquoise eyes, saying only one thing in the tone of his expression: “The fox wasn’t lying about the Shadow Army being here.”

Luc stretched, working his arms, hands, and his fingers as though he was coming back to himself after being slain. He tilted his neck back and forth and smiled as he dragged his ruby from his pocket. The fox rolled the gem over his fingers and walked past Mor to where Cress was surrounded. He settled his dark gaze on the Prince of the North. “I warned you, Prince, didn’t I? If we both kill each other once, I’ll still be here, and you won’t,” he said.

Mor’s hand tightened around the one fairsaber he had left. He tried to calculate his odds of successfully snatching Cress into an airslip and outrunning the Army through the wind.

Luc called back to Mor, “I wonder what secrets your Prince is hiding, Trisencor?” He held up his ruby in the muddied light from the doors. “Do you think he knows the hidden passages into Queene Levress’ Silver Palace? Do you think he knows the weaknesses of the North Brotherhood of Assassins? I’d love the opportunity to destroy both.” Luc paused before he spoke again. “Do you think he knows where our dear Violet is hiding?”

Luc shoved the ruby in his mouth and grabbed Cress’s temples, sending Mor springing a step forward. He halted when the Shadows threatened to stab Cress through the neck. Cress’s flesh tightened, but he didn’t fight back.

“Luc…” Mor tried. “Luc.” He said it again, darkly.

Luc frowned, and then nodded and dropped his hands from Cress’s temples. “I suppose it was wishful thinking. I rarely get the secret I want on the first try.” He lowered his voice to say quietly to Cress, “Shame on you for hiding all those cookies from your friends. But I imagine one of them will find your stash in the bottom of the freezer soon.” Luc dug his ruby out of his mouth, and Cress glared.

It took a full second for Mor to realize what Luc had said.

“Secrets?” Mor growled when it dawned on him. “Secrets?! That’s what you’ve been stealing?” He could hardly believe it. “You’ve been luring in human females and stealing their secrets? For what, Luc?! What do you need human secrets for?”

“Did you know I stole Violet’s secrets exactly seven times before I got the one I wanted?” Luc disregarded the question and turned to Mor with one of his own. “Do you want to know what her greatest secrets are, Trisencor?”

Mor felt his last bit of life drain from him. He backed up a step, bringing his fairsaber up between them. “No.”

“Yes, you do.” Luc smiled, beautiful and broad. “The first secret—the one I stole from her at that bus shelter—was that once, she hated her life so much she wanted to forget it. How interesting is that? And why was it a secret?” He paced and tapped his chin in feign wonder.

“Vanish, Mor,” Cress instructed from where he stood with blades at his neck. “He is trying to lure you in.”

Luc chuckled. “Nonsense, Prince Cressica. Trisencor isn’t affected by the lure of foxes. He’s proven that enough times.”

“What are you talking about?” Mor gritted out, and Luc looked at him doubtfully as if to ask, “Do you really not know?”

Mor blinked.

Luc released an annoyed sound like it pained him to have to explain. “I never had to force you to like me, Trisencor. You were never afraid of me to begin with,” he said aloud, and there was a certain tone in the statement that left a ringing sound in the back of Mor’s mind.

Luc worked his jaw with a look Mor couldn’t read. After a moment, he turned away. “The second of Violet’s secrets was that she was lying to her aunt about her job. The few after that were also a bunch of boring human nonsense I added to my collection. But after a while I discovered a secret I found interesting. You see, ten years ago, Violet made a deal with a pauper fairy to get rid of her memories. All of them. This was a secret she didn’t even know or remember she had. Isn’t that fascinating?” Luc went on. “And then I thought, ‘Ten years ago… I wonder if by some miracle of the sky deities she could be that same human girl?’ Because call me crazy, I thought she sort of looked like the human from that day. And once I noticed it, I could not unsee it.”

Mor’s voice shook. “Luc. Your war is with me, not with a human—”

“This was the secret that gave it away for me,” Luc went on. “The one that told me she was in fact the human who you abandoned the Shadows for.”

Mor looked over at Cress standing perfectly still. Cress seemed to have no reaction to the news, but he twisted his fairsaber in his grip like he was ready to turn and fight his way out.

Luc’s face curved into a snarl. “But there was one more secret that I found the most interesting of all.”

“Don’t tell me,” Mor said as his rhythms began to hammer.

“She’s in love with you.” Luc said it anyway, and Mor closed his eyes, trying to steady his breathing. “That was her greatest secret. That she was falling in love with her fated-to-suffer, very ruined boss.”

The sound of Luc’s footsteps stopped in front of Mor. When Mor opened his eyes, he saw revulsion in Luc’s gaze. “And if I didn’t know any better, I’d guess that flittering thudding in your chest is a sure sign of a fairy crush.”

Why her? The words came back in full swing.

Why was Violet the same human girl that had sent him into such a frenzy on his way out of the Shadow Army? Mor’s heart wasn’t only breaking imagining Violet in that situation, it was aching, angry, set ablaze and feeling the weight of that horrid day all over again since the moment he’d first laid eyes on the human.

“Your war isn’t with Violet,” Mor stated again, clear and steady. “It wasn’t her that made me turn on the Army.”

Luc raised a brow in question, and Mor’s gaze slid across the room to Cress, indicating it was time.

Then Mor said, “I was going to leave the Shadow Army anyway.”

Cress turned and swung at the Shadows.

Mor stabbed toward Luc—

His fairsaber sailed through empty air.

Luc was nowhere in sight. And Mor would have followed him, but he couldn’t leave Cress alone to take on the Shadow Army division alone. The division of Mor’s past who had finally returned for him.