Page 18 of Sincerely, Secretary of Doom

The guy raised a brow. “The job is yours.”

Violet blinked up at him. “I don’t want it.”

“Too bad.” He eyed her and unfolded his arms. “You are my ideal help, Violet Miller. Your writing, your fact checking, your belief in magic, your choice of stories for articles. And from what I hear, you need me now that The Sprinkled Scoop has dropped you like a charmed hot coal. Rest up today, and we’ll start tomorrow. Permitting you pass the interview in the morning, of course.” He turned and headed for the door.

Violet’s lips parted in disbelief. “Why did you make a job posting in the first place? Were you trying to lure in another innocent victim?” she challenged, scaring herself a little. “Am I going to be the next person you leave in a heap with no memories and rocks in my pockets?!”

The guy stopped. He turned, his eyes slightly wider even though the rest of him seemed as uninterested as before. “I posted a job, Human, because I’ve become busy with other things.”

Violet released a revulsed huff.Otherthings. “I can only imagine,” she said.

He seemed to think better of leaving. The guy turned and drew back into the room. The corner of his mouth tugged up into a poorly suppressed smirk. He approached until he stood right before Violet, a daunting statue of muscle strength, tattoos, and the devil’s eyes. “Worse things than you can possibly imagine,” he assured.

Violet swallowed. When he made eye contact like that, the colours of his irises were utterly consuming—like a drug or restraint that pinned her in place and made her believe she couldn’t move.

Her stomach interrupted with a growl. She slapped a hand over her abdomen, but he was already glancing at her loud, obnoxious stomach with something of its own to say.

“I haven’t eaten anything since yesterday,” Violet felt the need to explain for some unbeknownst reason, though she shouldn’t have cared what he thought. Her cheeks felt warm.

He sighed. “What would you like for breakfast? I have everything,” he said without addressing her stomach music.

Violet glanced back at the window she’d thought to leap through. There was no way she could eat here—with him.

“Toast? With jam?” she suggested.

His face twisted into a scowl. “No bread. How about cooked bird eggs, hog meat, and warm beast milk? And coffee?”

A scoffing laugh bubbled in Violet’s throat, but she sealed it in when she realized he wasn’t joking. “Sure,” was all she said, smile dropping.

He finally turned to leave. Violet stayed still until his footsteps disappeared down the hall. As soon as he was lost to his hunt forcooked bird eggsandhog meat, she lifted from the bed and used the wall to keep herself balanced while she planned her escape through her brain fog.

8

Mor Trisencor and the Human on Quick Feet

It took everything inside of Mor to stay leaning back, relaxed against the kitchen counter as he listened to the human struggle. He didn’t care to try and help her—the lightly stinging flesh on his fingers and wrists was enough of a reminder that he should never touch her again. But she was astoundingly clumsy. He sipped his coffee as the sounds of her pushing a table across the storage room downstairs flitted through the cathedral and into his lovely, pointed fairy ears, along with a ridiculous amount of female grunting, and a messy climb out the window.

He smirked when it seemed she’d fallen onto the grass outside—with a shriek loud enough to wake the sky deities. At least she’d managed to make it out in one piece. Mor sighed and guzzled the rest of his coffee, sprinkled with the light tastes of hazelnut and cream. He turned and set his empty mug on the counter, then leaned his hands flat against the smooth surface, letting the cool marble ease the hurting flesh on his palms. His skin was nearly healed of her. What a relief it had been when he’d grabbed Violet Miller outside of Lily’s workplace yesterday and hadn’t been scorched a second time. The pain had been startling when Mor had first caught the human—when she was falling from his roof toward her death. It was like touching cold iron with one’s bare flesh, and the irate, prickly aching even two full days later was astoundingly annoying.

His phone beeped. Mor crossed the kitchen and flicked it on to see he had a new speaking message from Shayne. He thought to snap his human phone in half to be rid of the faeborn fool who kept leaving him messages every few days. Shayne didn’t seem to understand that when a fairy ignored him, it meant he didn’t want to talk.

“Sky deities,” Mor cursed, caving and poking the buttons until Shayne’s speaking message performed its duty. The white-haired fairy’s unmistakable, chipper voice filled Mor’s kitchen.

“Good morning, Mor. Today’s message is a simple death threat, unfortunately. If you don’t come back here, I’ll kill you. Simple as that! See you soon, then.”

Mor rolled his eyes and silenced his phone. Shayne’s first few messages had been sweet and inviting in the beginning, stuffed with luring things meant to make Mor miss home based on how much he was loved and missed and a bunch of other faeborn nonsense. Shayne’s next few messages had been tricks. “Cress is bleeding out!” and, “Queensbane, Mor! We need you! Kate was hit by a speeding vessel on wheels and her arms ripped off!” and Mor’s favourite, “A flood has rolled in, and the café is under water! Everyone is drowning inside but me! Hurry, Mor!”

Since then, most of Shayne’s messages had turned violent. In the last one, he’d laid out the exact fairy gutting Mor was in for if he did not return. It had only been two months since Mor had left the café to face his own beasts, and in that time, he was sure he’d heard Shayne’s voice more than anyone who was still trapped in the café with the white-haired assassin.

Mor tossed his phone back on the counter and headed out of the kitchen, through the hall, and down the faded emerald carpet on the stairs. He lifted his coat from the hanger and sniffed it to make sure it still smelled of the crushed dandelions he’d rubbed into the fabric, and not his catastrophic blend of Dark Corner and North Corner fairy scents. He slid the coat on and stepped into an airslip.

The cathedral vanished, and the city appeared around him. He walked casually, at least thirty steps behind the human. Violet Miller boarded a large human vessel on wheels—a bus, as Kate and Lily called it. Mor could never bring himself to ride one, stuffed between all those nose-picking, unbathed humans staring at their phones and completely inconsiderate of those around them.

The air carried a soft blend of fragrances, and Mor sighed, following the most familiar one. The one that a dangerous monster was very likely also following from the shadows. After a nice, brisk morning stroll, Mor left the walking to the humans and slipped back into the air. In a moment’s rush, he appeared across the street from Violet Miller’s humble garden-fenced home. Colourful flowers blossomed in the vines covering the fence, and baby vegetables sprouted from the greens. For a split second, Violet Miller’s yard reminded Mor of the North Corner of Ever with its lush garden villages and the magic air that fed the buds.

He tore his gaze away and glanced down at his feet just as the city bus rolled to a stop down the road. Violet Miller half-tumbled out the vessel gates and put on a horrendous show of trying to walk normally as she made her way to her house. She opened the front door and walked right in, announcing to Mor and possibly all the creatures watching that she kept her home unlocked, even when she wasn’t there.

A large living space window permitted Mor to see the human rush to the kitchen cupboard and drag out a bottle with shaking hands once she was inside. He folded his arms as he watched. Violet Miller twisted the lid, dumped a pill or two into her palm and tossed them into the back of her throat. She guzzled a cup of water resting on the counter seemingly without questioning how long it had been sitting there.

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