Page 58 of Sincerely, Secretary of Doom

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 partwas 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 agood faeborn-cursed reasonto 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 ispreposterous!” 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 withmypast whenI 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 withyours!”

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.

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