Cress was waiting outside the front door the next morning when Thelma Lewis came hobbling out, leaning her weight on a cane. The old woman raised an eyebrow at him standing in the early chill. Cress lifted two cups of coffee—purchased with human currency he traded some young fool for with a pile of pebbles.
The Prince’s mind shouted in frustration when he thought about how he’d spent his evening at this old woman’s house, and he hadn’t even gotten what he came for.
For that, he forced another non-cruel smile to try again.
The old woman, however, went back inside, and Cress lowered the coffees. But she came back out with a thick plaid coat in her wrinkled fingers. She extended it toward him.
“Heavens, son. How are you not sick yet?”
Cress stared at the ugly human overcoat. He hid his scowl as he set the coffees down on the porch stairs to take it and put it on.
As hideous as human garments were, he had to admit, the coat was exceptionally warm.
“I’m heading out for my morning walk. Why don’t you join me since it seems you still have something to try and sell to me, hmm?” Without waiting for him to pass it to her, Thelma Lewis took one of the coffees for herself and began heading toward a path in the bush.
“I’m not trying to sell you anything,” Cress said as he grabbed his own coffee and jogged to catch up, struggling to clasp the coat’s buttons with only one hand. “Perhaps I was simply curious. I smelled your baking from the road last night.”
“Ah.” Thelma nodded. “That is a terrible lie. Try harder,” she advised, but Cress looked up from the buttons.
“It wasn’t a lie,” he said.
Thelma only laughed as a response. A moment later, she set her coffee on a rock and swatted Cress’s hands away to button up his coat for him.
Mor would have told Cress to just say the old woman’s name and be done with it.
Four hours later, Cress waited for Thelma at the kitchen table. The old woman came down the stairs with a soft navy sweater in one hand, and a box half her size balancing high on her opposite shoulder.
Cress leapt to take the box before she might tip right over. He set it on the table, eyeing the sweater that Thelma held up for him to see.
“I bought this for my grandson, Greyson. But he’s gone to a warmer place for the winter, so you can have it.” She extended it toward him, and he took it with hesitation. “It’s a name brand, and it was expensive. So, take care of it,” she added as she dragged the box over to herself.
Cress’s thumb ran over the fabric. This was nothing in comparison to the luxurious fabrics in the North Corner, but it was better than wearing a garment with no sleeves as he had been doing. He pulled the sweater on to see if it fit.
“Look at these muscles,” Thelma said, knocking a knuckle off his arm. “Big muscles won’t do you any good if you freeze to death, you know.”
Cress stretched back and forth. The sweater was too tight.
“Now, onto the next thing. My hands shake too much to write proper letters these days. You need a place to sleep from what I can tell since you still aren’t trying to sell me anything. And I need someone to help me do a few simple tasks.”
Cress raised a brow. He did not do tasks for humans. “What sort of tasks?” he asked anyway, leaning to try and see inside the mysterious box.
Thelma handed him an ink pen with a blue lid. “Well, the firewood out back needs chopping. My granddaughter Lily usually does it, but she’s been too busy. But before I make use of your muscles, I need you to write some letters.”
Cress glanced down as Thelma stuffed papers into his hands. “How many letters?” he asked.
“Well, we’ll start with one to the neighbours. We’ve been at war for three years now over them hauling their leaves into my yard and dumping them there. Last year I had to hire someone to get all the leaf piles removed,” Thelma said with a grunt. “I’m too old to stuff them into bags and haul them away myself. I think they’re trying to take advantage of me. I’d like to let them know that I see exactly what they’re doing.”
Cress nodded and sat at the table, spreading the first page flat. “I shall tell them they are insubordinate fools who will suffer the wrath of the sky deities—”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Tell them I have a granddaughter who’s a cop. And that she’ll be paying them a visit soon if they try tossing their leaves onto my property again.”
Cress made a doubtful face. “You think threatening to send one measly human after them will frighten them into obedience?”
“I think that’s just where I’m going to start. Plan A is this letter. Plan B—” the old woman smiled. Cress knew the look of a plotter when he saw one. “—Plan B comes later if they don’t smarten up.”
“All right,” Cress sighed. “I’ll write your preposterous letter. Who else must I write to after this?”
“Katherine, Lily, and Greyson.”
Cress’s fingers tightened on the pen. He smoothed out the paper again when he realized he’d crumpled the corner.
“I think a letter will be easier. I’ll leave them on the kitchen table on my last day here.” A water bead glistened in Thelma’s eyes before she brushed it away. “I have good grandchildren and they’ve suffered enough losses. This is one loss I can take care of on my own.”
Cress set the pen down and turned in his seat to face her. He felt the North’s cruelest cold frost over his eyes, and he was sure he was startling the old woman even though she didn’t react. “You want me to write your farewell letters?”
Thelma nodded and raised her ever-shaking hands to show him. “I can’t do it myself.” She drifted to the counter and filled the kettle. Then she pulled her tea tin from the cupboard.
Cress took in a deep breath and huffed it out. “One should always write their own farewell letters,” he mumbled. But he turned and snatched the pen back up. “Dearest neighbours,” he read aloud as the pen soared over the paper in beautiful, elegant strokes. “I’ll have you know that my granddaughter is a deadly, powerful, menacing—”
Thelma’s deep laugh roared through the kitchen.
Cress smacked the pen down on the table. “Do you insist on letting your neighbours harass you, then? I am excellent at writing letters, Thelma. Allow me to take care of this for you.” But Thelma’s laughter didn’t cease, and he bristled.
“Just call me Grandma Lewis,” she said when she finally collected herself. “And only write what I tell you, all right? I can’t really send Lily after them anyway. If I tell her what was going on, she’ll lose it.”
Cress dragged a hand through his short hair and rolled his eyes. “Fine.”
“Dear neighbours,” Thelma began. “I’d like to politely inform you that I’m aware you’ve been dropping your leaf piles into my yard.”
“That’s terrible,” Cress mumbled. “This won’t frighten them at all.”
“I’d also like to give you a fair chance to come apologize before I send my granddaughter to see you. She is a member of the Police Department. Sincerely, Thelma Lewis.”
“I am not using the word ‘politely’,” Cress stated.
Thelma drifted over and read what Cress had written so far. She jabbed the page with her finger. “I didn’t say that part. Take it out.”
Cress released a quiet growl as he dragged the page aside and started over.
It took Cress an hour. After he ate twelve freshly baked chocolate chip cookies, drank himself full of warm beast milk, and scribed a note exactly as Thelma told him to, she passed him a fresh page.
“Now for Katherine,” she said.
Cress chewed on the inside of his cheek. “Katherine,” he said, mulling over her name. “Katherine Lewis?” he guessed.
The old woman set down a fresh plate of muffins like she didn’t hear him. “You sure have an appetite,” she remarked. Then she added, “And don’t get any ideas. My granddaughter is off limits. She’s way too good for you.”
Cress’s thoughts spat objections. If only this old human knew who Cress was, his title, his power. He cast his attention on the blank page instead of pointing it all out. “Just tell me whatever nonsense you wish for me to write to her.”
“Katherine,” Thelma began. The old woman hobbled around the kitchen as she thought aloud. “You are the best kind of human there is—”
Cress sighed loudly.
“—You’re kind and caring. You’re always helping those weaker than you, even when it doesn’t make a lick of sense.”
Cress stopped writing. Thelma continued to speak, but his fingers lifted to trace over a warm spot in his chest. It had been many faeborn years since he felt a spot of warmth.
“You were never the same after the accident,” Thelma went on. “That day was terrible for all of us, but it was the worst for you. Something like that would have broken most people, but—”
“What accident?” Cress asked quietly, and Thelma stopped pacing.
Rain began spitting against the window from outside. The sound filled the kitchen as Thelma drifted back to the table.
“The day her parents were killed. She was in the back seat of the car. She survived, and they didn’t.” The old woman swallowed. “Katherine woke up in the hospital and asked for them, but they were already gone.”
Thelma stared out at the rain. “It’s why she’s afraid of thunderstorms,” she added.
Cress folded his hands, and squeezed his eyes shut. He’d gone several full days without feeling the affects of the enchantment. He thought that meant it had worn off. But it knocked at the door now as it dawned on him why he hadn’t been able to hear any tricks in his human target’s laugh.
Why he hadn’t been able to detect any cruelty on her when he first saw her.
Why she’d raced across the street to save the red-haired female in the middle of the night and got smacked for it.
Why she’d stopped to help the childling in the academy hall.
Why she’d sneaked outside her building to help an aged woman and donated her yellow sweater when the woman was cold while the assassins had stalked her.
Queensbane.
Cress dropped the pen onto the table and stood as the windows darkened. Icy rain began pounding against the glass, the sound roaring through the small house now.
There was no more time for Cress to dally around with Thelma Lewis, to try and lure Kate Kole out, or to try new, clever games. He needed to find her, now, even if he had to fight his way through his own brothers to do it.
Cress could hardly breathe.
He could not fall in love with a human.
Cress stood across the road, waiting for Shayne to glance up from lazily washing a dish in the lower level of Kate Kole’s building. When the white-haired fairy finally looked out the window, he almost didn’t spot Cress there, leaning against the tavern wall.
Cress waved.
The fairy’s bright blue eyes widened. Shayne scuttled around the counter and slipped out of the building unnoticed. Mor and Dranian were still upstairs with the human target. They would catch Cress’s scent soon if he didn’t hurry.
“You shouldn’t be here,” Shayne said as he crossed the road. “All my instincts are telling me to attack you for being this close to the human.”
“I needed to speak with you about the enchanted kiss that went wrong,” Cress whispered, tugging Shayne around the side of the building. “What are you wearing?” The Prince made a face at Shayne’s human cooking apron.
“I’m cleaning,” Shayne said. “Well, I’m sort of cleaning. Honestly, I just flit around from corner to corner until Mor and Dranian do everything.”
Cress rubbed his temples. Though the thought of his immaculately trained, glory-receiving assassins cleaning human dirt placed the hottest shade of blue fire in his faeborn veins, he reminded himself of his larger problem.
“I’m enchanted, you fool. What do I do?” he asked.
Shayne grinned with obnoxious wideness. Cress scowled and looked off, fighting the impulse to tear the apron off the light featured fairy and hurtle it across the human city.
“You just have to reverse it,” Shayne said. “I did it with Lady Rosebellow when I was a childling. She enchanted me with a kiss, and so I enchanted her right back. Only one can be enchanted at a time, you know.”
Cress’s rounded eyes darted back. “Why didn’t you tell me this before?!”
Shayne put his hands on his hips. “Queensbane, where were you when the rest of us were studying defense at the Assassins’ House? Most of what I know of these things aren’t even from my childling days at the academy!”
“I was on assignment more than the rest of you,” Cress pointed out, and Shayne rolled his eyes.
“Yes, yes, you were so much better than all of us. Please, keep reminding everyone,” he said.
Cress snarled and glanced back at the building. “She’ll probably smack me if I try to kiss her again.”
Another grin spread over Shayne’s face. “Yes, she seems absolutely fantastic like that.”
“I’ll have to think of a way to make sure she endures the kiss and doesn’t pull away too soon, now that she knows my play. This must work.”
Shayne’s irritating smile was full and glowing like the sun. “Careful, Cress. You’re going to make her your forever mate at this rate. You’re dabbling in things you’re not good at.”
“I’m good at everything,” Cress objected.
“You’re dreadful at romance. You’re like a crossbeast blazing through a twig forest. You leave a mess.”
“That is not true.”
Shayne snorted a laugh. “Well, hurry it up then before you enter the territorial stage. If you can’t shake this, you might start ripping other males apart for standing too close to her, and no one wants to see you go through that embarrassment.” Shayne tapped his chin and added, “And remember, if you plan to kiss her, don’t tell me. I have to beat you up if I find out you’ve touched her.”
