Cress felt the whispering magic of the Ever Corners calling him back to the Silver Castle. He felt the Queene’s icy gaze across the gate. But more than anything, he felt the loss of Whyp deep in his faeborn soul; a hollow, crushing pain worse than hunger.
Things could have gone terribly wrong when Cress had uttered Kate Kole’s false name. Had he not sniffed his human target’s affection for the light-featured human officer outside, he might have been overtaken by the fairy-killer himself as Whyp had. An assassin of fairies, it seemed Kate Kole was. That meant it was assassin against assassin, and only one of them would survive in the end.
The balcony outside Kate Kole’s dwelling was covered in dirt from dry, abandoned plant pots. Cress remained there through the night, glaring at his short hair in the reflection of the glass doors and listening to the human’s restless breathing through the walls. Hoping someone might show up and say the human’s real name.
Cress watched her roll out of bed and teeter on her feet as she stumbled toward the window. The streets were dark this late at night, apart from a few tall metal lanterns at the roadsides. The curtain only hung open a slit—Kate Kole didn’t spot Cress there.
The human nudged her curtain aside while rubbing her eyes. She opened the window, and Cress held his breath. But human bickering lifted from the alley across the street, and Kate Kole seemed far more interested in that.
His human target sputtered some nonsense to herself. She shut the window, and a moment later, she darted across her apartment. Cress listened to her distant thudding down the stairs. She reappeared below, pushing out of the building with a glowing rectangular device pinched between her ear and shoulder. She aimed for the alley where Cress sensed the two additional human heart rhythms.
Cress released a bored huff. He hopped the rail of the balcony, landing lightly in a shadow, and walked around the building to watch from the darkness.
“Let’s go inside! I’m freezing!” a grumpy male human said. He took hold of a red-haired female’s shoulder.
“Hey!” Kate Kole shouted, swooping in to stand between the male and female.
“Who are you?” the red-haired female asked Kate Kole, and Cress grunted.
He would also like to know.
“Get out of the way,” the male said.
Cress sighed, checking his nails for human realm dirt. His fairsaber handle pressed lightly against his back in his belt. He wondered if he ought to just race into the alley and slay them all. He’d done more reckless things than attack an assassin he knew little about.
“Go find someone else to bother,” Kate Kole said to the male.
The male’s fist lashed out toward the wall and not toward either of the human females. Yet, Kate Kole leaped into his knuckles, and Cress’s deep laugh rolled out, filling the darkness. When the male’s fist slammed against Kate Kole’s shoulder, the hit was hard enough to send her into a full spin.
But it seemed she got what she wanted. Cress listened to the elevated heart rhythm of his human target, and to her raspy breath. He waited for her to slice the human male open in retaliation like any cruel female assassin would.
But Kale Kole turned back to the white-faced male human and didn’t draw her weapons. She didn’t unhinge him with trickery. She didn’t even make a threat.
“What’s the matter with you? Are there really still idiots who smack girls around in this day and age?” was all she said.
Cress dropped his hand, interested now.
The male human blinked in surprise. “I…” He staggered back a step. “I wasn’t really trying to… I mean you jumped right into that! I was going to miss and just scare you. You made me hit you on purpose!”
Wailing trumpets erupted down the road, and the male’s face paled further. He turned to run, but Kate Kole snatched his plaid shirt. The male nearly dragged her down the alley with him, and Cress snorted another dull laugh.
The male shoved Kate Kole away—she tripped over her own feet and tumbled into the brick wall, barely catching herself on clumsy-looking hands, and her forehead smacked a brick. Her lashes fluttered for a moment as she blinked, and Cress chewed on the inside of his cheek.
What in the faeborn-cursed Corners was she doing?
“Stop! Police!” It was the voice of Officer Lily Baker that boomed down the alley. Her partner Officer Connor Backs was beside her.
The male in plaid came racing around the building where Cress leaned against the wall in the dark. The fairy Prince sighed. With an easy shove of his heel against the male’s fleshy stomach, Cress sent the human spinning back into the alley.
Officer Connor Backs snatched the human in plaid and dragged him to the ground from there.
In the darkness, Cress watched as Kate Kole touched her forehead with a delicate hand.
“Are you all right?” Officer Lily asked her.
Cress folded his arms, his brows tipping in as Kate Kole nodded and dropped her hand from her head.
“You need to come to the station with us,” Officer Lily said, and Kate Kole released a breath.
“I can’t do that after I already showed up there yesterday,” she said. She nodded toward the redhead human whose wide doe eyes took everything in. “She’s a witness though. She saw everything.”
Officer Lily folded her arms and glanced to where Officer Connor hauled the male in plaid toward the four-wheeled chariot with flashing lights. “Then get out of here before my backup shows up,” she said.
Just like that, Kate Kole scampered back across the road and disappeared into her building.
The fairy Prince tapped a forefinger against the handle of his fairsaber as he realized how difficult this would be. His human target was the finest actress he had crossed in his twenty-two faeborn years of life. Even those she cared for were being fooled into thinking she was some delicate, weak thing who needed help, instead of a lethal assassin who killed fairies.
Cress moved deeper into the darkness, deciding he wouldn’t get answers by waiting around on Kate Kole’s balcony if not even Officer Lily Baker knew her secrets.
His stomach growled. “Hush,” he commanded it as he walked.
The feasts of the North Corner called him home. It seemed like an eternity had passed since he’d tasted blossom syrups, sweet bell corns, and rose dough. Perhaps he wasn’t built for peasant life, or human life. He’d been out of the Four Corners of Ever for less than a day.
The night frost in the human realm smelled different than the frost in the North. It was clear, empty, and carried only the memories of the branches it coated. Cress followed the air’s fragrances until he smelled one that was familiar. His feet came together.
“Queensbane,” he cursed.
He turned.
The silhouettes of three faeborn males filled the shadows across the street. Shayne’s crossbow glimmered silver in the moonlight, but the rest of the males were concealed by the dark.
They must have guessed they’d been discovered because the triad emerged from the shadows and met the Prince in the empty road.
Mor’s brown-silver eyes were hard, his lips thin. Dranian looked angry, but that was nothing new. Shayne looked like a fieldpup ready for an adventure. His bare faeborn feet were blueing from human frost.
“What,” Cress began through his teeth, “in the name of the sky deities are you three doing here?”
“We’re saving your faeborn life, Cress,” Shayne said, swinging his crossbow up and resting it on his shoulder. “Why else would we have broken a sacred fairy law?”
Cress looked to Mor, who said nothing.
“How did you get across the gate?” he asked anyway.
“We bound our fate to the success of this quest, Your Highness,” Shayne told him, and Cress’s blood turned cold. “You can’t fail now, or we’re dead. That was our agreement with the North High Court when they allowed us to cross and aid you.”
Mor had not blinked for several minutes. His gaze hadn’t moved from Cress in that time, either.
“Lucky for you, a few of the High Court members wanted justice for Whyp.” Shayne shrugged, and his crossbow slid off his shoulder. It nearly toppled to the road before the fairy caught it again.
Cress ran his hands through his horrendous, terribly short hair that barely covered his pointed ears. “I failed to learn the human’s real name.”
“Great. Well, we need to find it, or we’ll all suffer the death of traitors,” Mor said, speaking for the first time.
A tall lantern flickered down the road as a few tense faeborn heartbeats passed in silence.
“We will follow all the rules while we are here,” Cress finally said, pointing at his brother assassins. “No witnesses to fairy acts. No mentioning our realm or our Queene. No unnecessary tricks on the humans—”
“Do you think we don’t know the rules?” Mor said through his tight lips.
“—and absolutely no lying. We don’t need to fight extra curses for trying to fool humans with falsehoods.”
“Careful, Your Highness,” Shayne warned as he ran his thumb over the sharp edge of his bow. “You’re getting a bit bossy.”
Cress’s jaw slid to the side. “Am I?” Sarcasm.
Shayne sighed. “How about a kiss?” he suggested, flicking his white hair from his eyes. “You said you don’t have her real name. So, take her will instead. Maybe she will want to die for you if you ask her to.”
Dranian made a repulsed face. “You cannot ask the Prince of the North to kiss a human!” he growled.
But Cress folded his arms and tapped a finger against his bicep. “Shayne, you were the only one of us who spent your childling years at an academy. Did they teach you the six dangers of the human realm in your lectures?”
Shayne nodded. “Of course. Humans conspire differently than us. They will try to trick us into eating bread,” he promised.
Cress quieted to think. “We should learn who the human assassin answers to if we can,” he said. “I want to know if she was told to kill a member of the Brotherhood by a higher master, and how she was able to outsmart a fairy. I want answers.”
“Maybe if you return with answers, the Queene won’t destroy you for leaving the Ever Corners before her daughter’s wedding,” Mor said. The comment was loaded with the wrathful reminder of the promises Cress had broken.
