48

Mor Trisencor and Doom First Thing in the Morning

Mor stared evenly at the male faeborn doctor across the room. Dr. Wendal.

It surprised Mor to cross another fairy in the human realm, but perhaps he should have expected it. The doctor wore casual human-y clothes and fashioned long gray hair pulled back into a bun just like Mor’s to hide his pointed ears, though the doctor was considerably older than Mor by the looks of it. Perhaps around Freida’s age.

Neither fairy spoke as the human receptionist tidied up a few things in the room and left so that Mor could ‘have his appointment’ first thing in the morning with the doctor.

The moment the door to the doctor’s room closed, the old fairy lifted a hand with his palm up as if to stop Mor—as though he expected some sort of reaction. Which he should have, since Mor was ready to grab the fool, airslip into the clouds, and drop him from the sky.

But Mor folded his arms, quite aware of his fairsaber handles in his pockets. “I was wondering what sort of doctor in their right human mind would prescribe cold iron as a supplement,” Mor said to him. “But I suppose I should have guessed that no human doctor would.”

The doctor’s face squinted in confusion before he seemed to put the pieces together. He dropped his hand and folded his arms, mirroring Mor. Mor was slightly surprised to see muscles appear on the fellow. The doctor’s casual clothes hid them well.

“I only prescribe cold iron to humans who are in danger of fairy meddling,” the doctor explained. “And I only did it once. You must be here about Violet Miller.”

Mor itched to bash in every cupboard of supplements in this doctor’s office. “What in the name of the sky deities would make you tell a human to consume cold iron? The pills aren’t only hurting her insides, they’re going to shorten her human life, possibly by years!” Mor growled.

The doctor sighed and slid his hands into his pockets. “Judge me if you’d like, Shadow Fairy, but until you just said that, I didn’t even know if you were a friend of Violet Miller’s or a foe,” he admitted. “I prescribed Violet cold iron to save her life. Yes, she may live a shorter human life if she continues to take those pills forever, but I deemed the risk worth it. It’s better for her to live a slightly shortened human life with the occasional stomach-ache than to be hunted down and probably killed by fairies at thirteen years of age. Wouldn’t you agree?”

For a moment, Mor didn’t have an argument. But even so, he had to put an end to this.

“I will not allow her to live a shortened life because of cold iron,” Mor stated. “You can prescribe her regular iron from now on if she has a low-iron condition.”

The doctor nodded and chewed on the inside of his cheek. “The first time Violet Miller came in here a decade ago, I nearly slapped my hand over my nose. The scent of fairies was so strong on her, I worried every fairy hidden in the city for miles would be drawn to it. Even after all these years, when she comes in here, I can still smell it.” He released a huff and eyed Mor. “Fairies will come for her—always. She’s too interesting to let pass by. I am not young anymore, as you can see. And I already have a job, so I could not take on the role of following her around to ensure she was left alone. Cold iron enhancements were the only way I could be certain she would not be touched, even if the fairies did find her. So, I stand by my decision. For her own safety, I believe she should keep taking them.”

Mor shook his head. “She doesn’t need them anymore. Fairies won’t touch her, whether her skin will burn them or not,” he stated.

“How can you be so sure?” the doctor asked. “I may not be human, but she is still my patient. And I take my job seriously.” His narrowing eyes emitted a warning.

“Because she has me now.” Mor sauntered in a step, standing slightly over the doctor so the intent in his tone would be clear. “Her forever mate.”

The doctor’s face changed. He drew back a little then looked Mor up and down. At first, he appeared doubtful, but then… a gradual smile spread across his face. “Ah, I see.” He nodded once. Twice. “Very good then.”

The doctor turned and fetched a notepad from his table. He scribbled something on it. Mor leaned to try and read what the doctor-fairy was writing, but the scrawl was horrendously messy. He straightened when the doctor tore the sheet from the notepad and handed it to him.

“This is a new prescription for Miss Miller. As her guardian, please ensure she takes one every evening before she sleeps. I’m counting on you, Shadow Fairy,” the doctor said.

Mor took the slip of paper. He couldn’t have read the prescription if his faeborn life depended on it. But he folded it and tucked it into his pocket with his fairsaber handle, trusting it was for plant-based iron that had nothing to do with fairies.

The café was empty apart from a lazy fae Prince by the fireplace reading a book he claimed to have written. The fire was lit, breathing warmth through the space. The mornings were just beginning to get cool as fall approached, and the crackling fire brought a soothing music into the room.

Mor closed the door behind him. Kate’s novel, TheHigh Court of the Coffee Bean, hovered in Cress’s hands, and Mor considered that the Prince would do well to let the story go and write a new one, instead of constantly going back to his and Kate’s origin story to relive it.

Cress released a chuckle from the plush chair as he read, making Mor realize Cress had no idea Mor was even there.

“You’ve been in the human realm too long,” Mor said to him, and Cress glanced up in surprise. “Your senses have turned to lakeweed mush. I could have crept up behind you and run you through.” Mor kicked off his shoes and slid on the fresh pair of cream-coloured slippers someone had left by the door.

“Those are Kate’s,” Cress informed him as he eyed the slippers.

Mor wandered over to the fireplace chairs regardless, sat, and put his feet up on the stool between them. “Kate has big feet,” he remarked.

“No, she doesn’t. You’re stretching her slippers.” Cress closed the book and rested it on his lap, leaning back against the chair’s headrest.

“Why are there no customers today?” Mor asked, eyeing the empty tables.

Cress sighed and shook his head. “Well, I did a rather exceptional cooking show yesterday, and I invited all my human subjects—”

“Subscribers,” Mor corrected.

“—to our café to try my latest cupcake recipe. Unfortunately, Dranian mucked up the enchantment, and all who ate my delicious cupcakes were hit with unstoppable, raging diarrhea,” Cress said. “It was an absolute mess, Mor. You can’t even imagine.”

“That’s horrifying.” Mor hid a smile.

“So, we shut down for the rest of the day. Shayne’s been having nightmares anyway and wanted to catch up on sleep,” Cress finished, and Mor raised a brow.

“Nightmares?” Mor wanted to ask how he hadn’t heard about this until now.

Cress sighed again. “All those poor humans.” He shook his head. “They must be devastated they don’t get to eat more of my cupcakes.”

“Yes. I’m sure that’s what they’re devastated about the most,” Mor said with little enough sarcasm in his tone that Cress wouldn’t know if he was being serious or not. “But on the note of that thieving pickpocket, I’ve been meaning to ask how in the faeborn world Shayne figured out Violet had gotten her memories back?”

“It sounds like Violet gave Shayne hints while she was under his care,” Cress said.

“Hints.” It was a question. Mor folded his hands on his lap, trying to imagine Shayne being the wise detective of the group. It didn’t make a lick of sense.

“Shayne secretly followed her to the cathedral once where she stood outside and stared at the bell tower for hours. Then he caught her reading a Fairy Post, of all things. And last, he saw her running her fingers along the heels of her flat shoes. She even put on your favourite sweater, Mor—Don’t ask me how she got it,” Cress said. “It was all very confusing because every time Shayne asked her if she remembered you, she said no.”

Mor tapped his fingers together as he thought about that. “She was doing it on purpose,” he said.

Cress nodded. “It would seem so. It appears your human wanted Shayne to know she remembered everything. But for some faeborn reason she couldn’t tell him. I sniff a fox trick on that one.” Cress leaned back in his chair and folded his arms. He kicked his legs up onto the footstool, shoving Mor’s feet out of the way and making one of Mor’s legs drop. Kate’s left slipper flew off and Mor scowled at his cold fairy foot.

“Were you as startled as I was to learn that nine tailed fox returned her memories?” Cress asked flat out.

Mor looked over at the fire. He hadn’t stopped asking every moment of the day why Luc would do such a thing when he hated Violet so much.

Cress was quiet for a while, staring at Mor with his naturally cold eyes. Finally, he said, “Are you sure the reason you wanted me to stay out of your fox hunt was because you were worried about what would happen to me if he discovered I was here?”

Mor blinked in astonishment. “Of course! Why else would I have tried to keep you all away?”

Cress made a face, but it didn’t reveal whether he believed him. “The thing is, Mor,” Cress pulled his feet off the footstool and leaned forward with his elbows on his knees, “I could have killed that fox another seven times. In the museum, I could have waited for him to come alive, and slain him over and over before he even had a chance to gain his bearings,” he said.

“What’s your point, Cress? Why didn’t you finish him off, then?” Mor asked, hugging his arms to himself.

Cress hadn’t blinked once in the last minute. Mor felt like any little move he made now would be scrutinized by the North Prince. He kept his gaze on their shared footstool.

“I wanted to. He was messing with you. His presence took you away from us,” Cress admitted. “But the thing is…” He tilted his head and squinted his turquoise eyes a little. “I think part of the reason you didn’t want me to get involved in the first place was because you didn’t actually want that fool to die.”

Mor’s wide gaze snapped back up. “What would make you say that?”

Cress relaxed back into his chair again, seeming satisfied. “I’ve known you a long time, Mor. You’re bad at keeping secrets to begin with, but you especially can’t keep secrets from me.”

Mor didn’t find the voice to object. He glanced over at the fire then out the windows, taking in a deep breath and letting it out slowly. “I suppose it doesn’t matter anymore now that Luc is long gone. He wanted me dead in the end, and I imagine he’s already vanished into human life somewhere. He probably thinks he succeeded in killing me. It’s probably best to let him believe that.”

Cress said nothing. He reached for a nearby mug on the windowsill and took a long drink of beast milk.

“Though I’m worried about Dranian,” Mor went on. “The fool has declared an oath to not sleep until he’s hunted the nine tailed fox down and finished him off. He wants revenge for his arm that was stolen.”

Cress snorted a laugh through a gulp of his milk. “Good luck to him. I would pay every coin to my name to watch him try to fight a nine tailed fox with one arm,” he said, wiping a milk stain off his upper lip.

Mor smiled at the thought.

“Fool,” Mor and Cress muttered in unison.