Page 100 of Welcome to Fae Cafe
Shayne was struck. He rolled through the snow.
Time seemed to stand still as Bonswick decided what to do next. Cress couldn’t take his eyes off the saber above Shayne’s back, pointed down, waiting for Bonswick’s command to drop.
A fairy pressed Shayne’s head down with his boot, forcing Shayne’s cheek into the snow. From the ground, Shayne gave Cress a look that resaid what he’d uttered aloud:Never make a bargain with a fairy.It was what Thessalie had taught Cress since the day he’d entered the Silver Castle. It was the reason Cress had never made a fairy bargain in his entire faeborn life after the one he had made on behalf of his mother.
“I’ll go with you,” Cress said to the High Lord. “You can take me back to the North Corner to face the Queene’s wrath. I won’t kill you, I’ll come willingly.”
“When?”
“On the humans’ day of Yule tidings.”
Bonswick listened with a bored face.
“You know I can kill you now, or tomorrow, or the next day if I please. I’ll do so if you don’t take this bargain,” Cress added, cutting his cold gaze over to the High Lord. “But you must leave my brothers and the humans out of it.”
Bonswick raised a brow. “I don’t make bargains for humans,” he said. “And I want Mor.”
“You can’t have him.”
The High Lord of the East glanced at the fairsaber getting dangerously close to plunging down between Shayne’s shoulders. “Shame,” he said. “I wanted to kill that one.”
Cress’s chest deflated with relief, but his gaze slid toward the road past the trees where oblivious humans congregated as they dispersed to their chariots on wheels.
“No humans,” Bonswick decided. “But I will accept your bargain for this fool, and the leech, and the last fairy with the ever-scowl, too. On the morning of Yule, you belong to me.”
Cress remained as still as stone until the Shadow Fairies released Shayne. Sounds of the human city flooded the cathedral yard, crawling into Cress’s ears, drowning his faeborn mind.
Somewhere on these snowy roads, Kate Kole was on her way back to the café. His chest tightened as he thought about Mor’s warning—the one Cress had ignored but should have listened to from the start. The one that was meant to remind him what would happen to Kate if the Shadow Fairies sensed what she was to him.
Kate had no idea what was coming for her.
The skies glowed with lightning blasting through the flurries to create a most uncommon picture of human weather. Cress tore off his coat as he entered the academy library where moist dust and heavy air told him the story of new construction and the intent to return this fairy-meddled space to normal.
Shayne went straight to the back to find theFairy Book ofRules and Masteries. He returned carrying it as Mor dragged a desk over for them to work at.
“Dranian isn’t happy about being the only one left with our humans,” Shayne said as he flipped open the book and began leafing through pages. “But what else is new about that faeborn grouch?”
“I think leaving him alone there was foolish. Dranian can’t take on the whole Dark army if they show up for Kate,” Mor said as he pulled out the notebook he stole from the café drawer. He clicked a human ink pen and began scribbling his ideas, both realistic and preposterous. Cress leaned to read them while Mor was looking down.
Shayne slid the book onto the table and sat, but Cress continued to pace.
The Prince pressed light fingers against the cold iron gash in his side. There was no hiding the blood, even on black garments. Kate’s eyes had gone round when she saw it.
He’d lied.
He’d lied to Kate Kole.
So had Shayne.
“A few of the Shadow Fairies followed us, so we fought them off. That’s all there is to it,”Shayne had said when they returned to the café and she’d asked what happened.
Cress rubbed his temple where a fresh headache beat like a cruel war drum behind his eyes. It was better that Kate had no idea she was a target, that Cress had bound his death to his brothers’ survival, or that she was his forever mate. His tongue still felt hot from the falsehood. He knew the fairy curse would grow more painful the longer he didn’t tell the truth.
Faeborn-cursed fairy magic.
“Why would you make such a bargain, you fool?” Mor finally dropped the notebook and glared at Cress, and Cress was sure the fairy had been itching to shout that question since the moment they left the café.
“I was already planning to go back to the North, so this bargain makes no difference,” Cress told him. He sniffed, picking up an odd scent of powder that reminded him of Kate’s hair soap. He wrinkled his nose as he turned toward the back shelves. Tables creaked and notepapers ruffled as his power slipped over the floor and sought out a story of the past. He was sure he could smell her here recently, though, that didn’t seem possible—
