Page 2 of Wanted: A Roommate Who Isn't Evil

Violet flipped back a few pages in her journal, wondering herself now. If there was evidence, it might have been hidden within the notes she’d taken. She chewed on the inside of her cheek, and after a moment, she scribbled in a margin:What is the cost or worth of a single secret?

Some would say secrets were the cause of destruction. Others might argue a secret was a necessary saviour. A secret could kill or save, depending on how it was used.

Violet’s phone rang.

“Hello?” she answered, resuming her pen knocking against the table.

“Violet.” Her tapping slowed as the familiarity of the voice set in.

“Fil,” she greeted, setting the pen down carefully.

From the corner of her eye, she saw Mor lower his novel again. Shayne ducked his head back out of the staircase with a grin and mouthed,“Is that the Fil we hate?”He looked too excited.

Fil didn’t speak right away, but Violet was sure she could feel his anger seeping through the phone. She imagined the fury that must have streaked his face when he’d realized the cupcake delivery that had destroyed The Sprinkled Scoop office last week had been her doing. It seemed the journalists had recovered after their sick days off, and now Fil was back in the—hopefully freshy cleaned and scrubbed—office.

“Do you have something tosay?” Violet asked in response to his silence.

Heavy breathing came through the line. When Fil finally spoke, it was in a low, threatening voice.

“This means war,” he stated.

A slow, wide smile spread across Violet’s mouth. She looked across the café at Shayne’s diabolical grin. Then she glanced over at Mor and Cress, both of whom were folding their arms now like athletes waiting for a playoff game to begin.

And she said, “Excellent.”

There are only two minor things one should demand when hunting for a roommate:

Applicants must be civilized. If an individual is civilized, they will have the decency to clean up after themselves, pay rent on time, and not stick their nose in their roommate’s business.

They mustn’t be evil. If an individual is evil, they will ruin everything.

That pretty much sums it up.

1

Dranian Evelry and the Moment His Life was Ruined Forever

As the coolness of fall brushed in through the magical sliding doors of the human market where hefty basins of food displayed a variety of fruits, vegetables, and roots, a former fae assassin pushed his metal basket on wheels down an aisle that was much too narrow. The low hum of human chatter flitted through the indoor market. It seemed everyone from the local villages had come to purchase groceries today, and every single one of them had come in pairs.

Well, noteverysingle one. Not him.

Dranian let an old forbidden curse of the North Corner of Ever slip off his tongue when his wretched arm bumped a pumpkin from its barrel. The fruit tipped off the ledge and smashed to thefloor, flinging stringy and seedy bits in all directions and slapping over Dranian’s new shoes. A wet clump of bright orange pumpkin vomit clawed over the ground. The fruit’s shell had split into five pieces, all scattering toward other customers and making humans leap back in horror.

Dranian stared at the rebellious gourd for a moment. He had always been taught that pumpkins contained magic. He’d heard stories of them being a method of transportation in the Ever Corners, once enchanted. But it seemed this pumpkin was nothing of the magical sort since it had not caught itself before it had exploded or helped Dranian out whatsoever.

“Selfish faeborn fruit,” he muttered as he dropped to clean up the stringy and seedy bits before the humans could start stepping on them and dragging the pumpkin’s guts around the market on their feet. He tried to reach with both arms first, but a wave of tedious pain launched through his useless left bicep, and he winced.

“It’s broken,” a nearby fool stated.

A bead of warmth fell into Dranian’s stomach. “My arm isnotbroken!” he snapped at the nosy human. “It was only stabbed!”

---