Short increments of late-morning sunshine chased the snow away. Loud chatter filled the café, along with the smell of fresh-pressed coffee beans and warm community. Chairs squeaked, cutlery clapped together, people sipped, and occasionally a chorus of laughter erupted from one of the groups. Shayne’s new mugs decorated the bistro tables, along with Christmas garland and pinecone centrepieces Lily had made. Kate snapped a photo of it all for Fae Café’s social media page.
“Taste this,” Dranian said in his deep, drone voice. He held a mug filled with cinnamon-smelling milk toward Kate’s mouth. “It’s meant to mimic Yule gingerbread.”
“Why can’t you try it yourself?” Kate asked as she took it and sipped.
“Fairies don’t eat bread.”
Kate nearly hissed out the drink as she laughed. “Gingerbread isn’t real bread,” she said, handing it back to him. “And I love this. Add it to the menu.”
Dranian looked into the mug for a few moments. Then he slowly, hesitantly, brought it to his lips to try it.
“Seriously, where in the faeborn-cursed Corners is Cress?” Mor marched out of the kitchen. “The fool instructed me not to leave, so I can’t go out and look for him without being punished…” His voice drifted off as the café bell clinked and the door swished open.
A gust of chilly air rushed in. Cress followed it.
Shanye stopped what he was doing and eyed the fae Prince. “What’s gotten into him?”
“Has something happened?” Mor asked Cress. It was more of a demand than a question.
Cress lifted his head to look at Kate. Envelopes were in his fist. After several seconds of staring in silence, he took one out and held it toward her. “I promise, I didn’t try and take her from you,” he said.
Kate set her phone on the counter and took the envelope. Her name was on the back in handwriting she didn’t recognize. She ripped it open to find a letter inside, signed at the bottom with Grandma Lewis’s messy, uneven signature.
She only read the first few lines before she walked out the door.
Kate didn’t recall the hike to Grandma Lewis’s house, but when she got there, she found the lights were out. There was no tea or baking smells seeping from the kitchen when she walked in, there were no dishes left out, nothing even to clean. Her grandmother had put everything away.
Her lip quivered as she took in the evidence, or lack of evidence, of her grandmother.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked the silence in the kitchen. A tear slipped from her eyes and burned down her cheek. “I would have been there. I don’t care how hard it would have been.”
Kate’s knees gave out; she crumpled and sobbed into Grandma Lewis’s entry rug, the letter slipping from her fingers. She sobbed until her throat and body hurt from it, until her tears soaked the ends of her hair. Until her fingers lost their feeling along with her heart.
A rush of cold flittered through the kitchen. Kate heard the door close, but she knew it wasn’t Grandma Lewis. She was lifted from the floor. Kate slapped a hand over her eyes as she shook, trying to hold her breath so she wouldn’t cry out loud.
She came against a warm body with a slow-beating heart, and his arms wrapped around her. He held her up as her knees wobbled.
“Cry however you want to.” Cress’s low voice filled the kitchen. “There’s no need to hold it in because you’re worried what I’ll think, Human.”
The strings holding her together snapped.
There was only one other time Kate had ever cried so hard, and she swore afterward she would never do it again. But her unrhythmic, melodic sobs echoed through the house; a soloist telling the story of a lifetime of warmth and wisdom that had reached its conclusion.
Moments later, she was swept off her feet and carried up the stairs. She was set down on the bed she’d spent many of her teen years sleeping in. Her bedroom door closed, and she was left to fall asleep that way with all her memories of Grandma Lewis close by.
Kate awoke in the morning to a crumbly, chocolatey, sweet smell. She rubbed her eyes, trying to remember where she was. Her feet were tucked into a yellow comforter, and a novel she knew well rested on the bedside table. Her stomach growled, reminding her she hadn’t eaten in a while. Reminding her where she was. Reminding her of other things, too.
She sat up and inhaled the aroma of baking. It was a smell she’d known on many mornings throughout her teen years. She blinked away the dizziness, trying to sort out why evidence of her grandmother’s baking was leaking into her room.
The bedroom door squeaked when she opened it. She drifted down the stairs and tiptoed to the kitchen where the lights were on. The house wasn’t cold anymore—the floor was warm beneath her toes as though someone had gotten the living room fireplace going.
Cress’s back was turned when she peeked around the corner. He sild off the oven mitts and tossed them on the counter.
Kate was sure he knew she was there, but she cleared her throat just in case. “What are you doing?” she rasped.
“I’m making freshly baked chocolate chip cookies.” He finally turned and leaned back against the counter with his arms folded. He said ‘freshly-baked-chocolate-chip-cookies’ like it was all one word.
“Why?”
“You know why.” Cress’s gaze was heavy, and he didn’t blink.
This time, Kate didn’t feel like cowering or shifting her weight. She stared back as her mind filled with that moment in the narrow hallway of the café when Cress had put a hand over her mouth to keep her from saying something.
“You like me,” she said. It wasn’t really a question, but she wanted to hear him say it either way.
“Yes.”
“But I’m a repulsive human,” she quoted.
“Yes.”
“But you want me anyway?”
“Yes.”
Cress lifted off the counter and crossed the kitchen to where she was. “And I know what I have to do about it now,” he said. He chewed on the inside of his cheek. “I need to end my feud with the Dark and leave.”
Kate blinked. Of all the things she’d expected him to say, that wasn’t one of them. “Leave, forever?”
“Yes, forever. So that you can keep your happy life, Kate Kole.”
A weak thudding appeared in her chest. “Are you crazy?”
The timer on the oven beeped, sliding through the tension she felt and stealing Cress’s concentration. Cress moved for his oven mitts, but Kate grabbed a handful of his shirt, and he halted.
He turned back, his gaze slowly dragging around with him. He seemed to read a story in her eyes. “What do you think you’re doing, Human?” his voice was low and quiet.
When she didn’t answer, Cress carefully unpeeled her fingers from his shirt. He stepped toward her, forcing her to move back, and he planted his hands flat along the wall on either side of her head, leaning in. Kate’s lips parted, but before she could speak, he gently brought his lips against her mouth.
Time stood still and sped too fast all at once. Kate felt lost in a dream, like she was both sinking to the floor of the sea and shooting up to the stars. She inhaled when his hand drifted into her hair, his thumb pushed her chin up, and he kissed her deeper.
That same twisting in her chest turned into a thousand butterflies. She wanted to speak, but she couldn’t find words. She wanted to think but couldn’t find clear thoughts.
Cress pulled his mouth off gradually. They stayed still for a moment, Kate feeling his chest thudding against hers. After, he leaned around and whispered in her ear, “Wicked human.”
He dropped his hold on her like she’d burned his hands, and he pulled away all at once.
“W…” Kate blinked. “Wicked?” She pressed her palm against the racing pulse in her neck.
“You might as well be a siren-song fairy luring men to their deaths,” he said, heading to the counter. He slid on the hot-pad mitts and opened the oven, letting coils of smoke roll out.
“Seriously?” Kate said as her senses snapped back into place. “You just kissed me.”
Cress smiled devilishly and looked back at her like he wanted to do it again. He lifted the pan of cookies onto the stovetop and scowled at the burnt tops. Then he tossed the oven mitts on the counter and put his hands on his hips. “You’re to blame for this.” He nodded to the cookies. Then he said, “And you’re also to blame for that.” He gestured to her mouth with his eyes.
“Of course.” Kate shook her head. “I’m always to blame for everything, right? A prince couldn’t possibly make a mistake.”
He frowned. “Was it a mistake?”
Kate swallowed her words, the pulse returning to her neck. She brushed her hair out of her face and glanced out the window instead of answering.
Cress pulled a plate from the cupboard. It was frightening that he knew exactly where everything was. “It was a mistake,” he agreed. “I’m leaving. Before I spoil your happy life.” It was like he had to remind himself.
Kate clasped her hands as she watched him get a lifter and place each cookie onto the plate.
“Stay until Christmas. It’s two weeks away. Then you can leave,” she said.
Cress slowed his cookie passing. “It’s a bad idea.”
“Because you’re worried about those Shadow Fairies in the city?” Kate asked, and Cress put down the lifter. He cast her a look.
“Because I won’t want to leave anymore by then.”
“I don’t think you want to leave now.”
A faint growl emerged when he went back to his cookies. “It’s a bad idea, Human,” he repeated. He reached a teaspoon into the bag of icing sugar and sprinkled the spoonful over the plate. He eyed the last few cookies with the worst burns before reluctantly going for them with the lifter again. They were crisped right to the pan. After he chiselled at one and broke it in half, Kate went over and yanked the lifter away. Cress’s gaze followed her as she put the last few cookies on the plate.
“I’ll make you a bargain,” Kate decided.
“You should never make a bargain with a fairy.” His reply was instant.
“Here’s our deal: You’ll stay until Christmas, and you’ll take all the kisses you want from me in that time,” she offered with a weird, bashful grin.
“I don’t accept,” he said right away again, and Kate turned to find him glaring.
“Why?”
“Because you’d be driven to your death if I had to do that to you. You’d never catch your breath if I took all the kisses I wanted. I don’t think I’d ever want to stop. It’s a dangerous bargain, and you should know better, Kate Kole. Never make a bargain with a fairy.”
Kate was sure she was blushing cherry-red at best, near purple at worst. “Oh,” she rasped out.
Cress reached around her for the plate and took it to the table. “You’re still a fool when it comes to the fairy laws,” he said. “It’s a miracle you managed to enslave my brothers. And now your rhythms are so loud, they’re impossible to ignore. Don’t you know what that does to someone with a fairy crush?” He mumbled the last part.
Kate put a hand over the pulse in her neck again like that might somehow silence it. She made a face at his back as she followed him to the table and sat. But she almost jumped when something thudded against the kitchen window.
Cress stepped over and pushed aside the thick curtains. A wild blizzard raged outside. He scowled at it and dropped the curtains to come sit.
All the lights in the house flickered, and a second later, everything went dark.
Neither of them moved to find a light or open the curtains. Kate could see a vague silhouette of Cress’s side, but that was all.
“This weather is crazy,” she said through the dark.
“That may be my fault,” he mumbled.
Cress’s fingers slid over hers on the table. He turned her hand so her palm was up, and a second later, a warm cookie was set on top. “If Thelma was here, she’d bite at you for not eating before the food got cold,” he said.
A smile spread across Kate’s face. She was glad it was too dark for him to see the tears that filled her eyes, or her stupid grin. “Yeah, she would have.” But she went still when a dishtowel dabbed her cheek, catching the tears. She felt the light heat of being watched by him.
“Can you see me?” she asked quietly.
“Yes. Perfectly.”
She took the towel and brushed the tears away herself. A moment of silence passed before either one of them spoke again.
“If I stay until the human Yule celebrations, you may have to flee this city and hide somewhere far away from the gate after I leave,” Cress said.
“I’m not leaving my city.”
“You might have to, Katherine.”
Katherine.
Kate broke her cookie into pieces without eating it. “Why?”
“Because Shadow Fairies love to torment humans. And they’ll come for you once I’m gone if they detect… Well, it won’t be safe for you, especially,” he said. “The Dark and I have a bad faeborn-cursed history. I’m the hated, young North Prince whose armies drove them back into their Corner. Ordinarily, they wouldn’t touch me without the consent of my Queene, but…”
“But what?” Kate squinted, trying to see his face through the darkness.
“I believe my Queene has given them permission to kill me. Possibly even hired them to. My brothers and I are waiting to see if they strike first.”
Kate dropped her cookie puzzle to the table. “What? Is this a joke? Those fae who were following us the other day…”
“They may have reasons for being here. Which is why I have a good reason to leave.”
“Didn’t you say your High Court might kill you for going back home without completing your task?” Kate asked. “Isn’t it crazy to return to those people, Cress?”
“Perhaps.”
“Then stay!” She shouted it at him. “Why would any of you run back to a life like that?!” Kate felt hot tears resurface. “I can’t let Shayne, Mor, or Dranian go back to that terrible place. They’re happy here, can’t you see it?”
She heard him release a heavy breath in the darkness. “That’s why they’ll stay with you, and I’ll go. I haven’t told them yet,” he said. “I didn’t want to say anything until you’d mourned your human grandmother.”
Kate tossed her cookie toward his voice. She had no idea if it hit him.
“I’ll tell the High Court I killed all of you—them for insubordination, and you for committing a crime against the North Corner,” he went on. “I’ll take whatever punishment is necessary for returning without evidence, but it’ll keep the fairies from coming back here to search for you and my brothers in the future.”
“Do you really think Mor is going to stay here if you go back?” Kate asked. “Do you really think Dranian will just sit back and watch you leave? They’re going to follow you, Cress!”
“I’ll leave in the night. They won’t know until I’m gone.”
“Cress!” Kate stood so fast, her chair tipped backward and clamoured over the floor. Her knuckles banged over the table as she tried to feel her way around. He caught her arm when she reached him, and she realized he was standing.
“You leaving is a bad idea,” she said.
“Me staying is a worse idea.”
“Stay until Christmas,” she tried again. “Just until then, please. You can leave on Christmas day, and I won’t argue after that.”
Cress’s grip loosened, and eventually, he dropped her arm.
“Fine. I’ll stay for the human Yule celebrations, Katherine Lewis. But I’ll be gone before Christmas morning, and you must prepare yourself to move far away from this city after I leave,” he said. “That’s the only trade I’ll make with you.
