Page 103 of Welcome to Fae Cafe

Dranian tore Mor’s muzzle off, and Mor spat a flat metal medallion to the floor. He gasped, his breathing moist and strained as Cress kicked the medallion away like it was poisonous. It skidded over to where Kate was paralyzed by the wall.

“What in the name of the sky deities happened?” Dranian demanded.

“Don’t ask him questions. He can’t speak,” Cress said. He stared at Mor with a mix of expressions as Mor’s raspy breathing filled the café.

Kate carefully picked up the medallion from the floor. A set of wings were carved into it, similar to the picture on Cress’s sword, and a pin was on the back like it was supposed to be fastened to a jacket.

Dranian strode to the kitchen, and the freezer door slammed. He returned with a bag of ice and handed it to Cress who took hold of Mor’s chin. “Show me,” Cress commanded.

Mor slowly let his tongue out, revealing dark burns and blisters. Cress carefully touched the ice to it. Mor seemed to fight a reaction, but he made no noise.

Shayne burst into the café gripping his crossbow. He took one look at Mor, snarled, and stormed back out to the street. His white hair disappeared past the windows.

Cress instructed in a quiet voice, “Stop him.”

Dranian left.

Even though Mor’s curls were a mess, his eyes watery, and his tongue destroyed, he glared.

Finally, Cress glared back.

“If you ever try to trade yourself for me again, I will kill you on my own, you fool,” he promised. He grabbed Mor’s hand and dropped the ice into it.

Mor lifted the ice to his mouth in silence.

Cress picked up his sword handle as he stood. He marched past Kate to the apartment stairs without so much as a glance, and he disappeared into the stairwell.

Kate slid the medallion into her pocket and moved for the sink. She filled a glass with water. When she carried it over to Mor, he was staring off through the window.

“I don’t know what happened,” Kate said, her eyes glossy, her mouth pinching together. “But please don’t ever do that again.”

Mor accepted the water. He brought it carefully to his parched, cracked lips, and he sipped, wincing as it drained into his mouth.

Kate looked back at the stairs where Cress had left.

A bargain.

“You for them, Prince. That was the bargain.”

Cress was unapproachable for days. He and Mor cast each other glances when they thought no one was looking. Mor remained silent, but his sweep strokes turned into long, rigid movements that flung dirt against the walls when he wasn’t paying attention. For the first time, Dranian appeared to be the happiest fae at Fae Café, which was saying something.

Kate caught the fae gathering around the bistro tables late at night, pulling out notes and pages torn from books. They argued, they got angry, they broke chairs—only to have them fixed again before morning—and they planned. But they never told her why.

They all went quiet when she drew close, so she started leaving the café as soon as it closed each night, and she stayed up in her apartment where Shayne had strictly instructed her to live again from now on.

The tension seemed to drain a little after a few days. Mor started rasping out short answers to questions and Shayne was becoming himself, blowing kisses to customers and drawing clever pictures on the chalk board. Usually he drew coffee, cookies, or cake, but sometimes his drawings were unfathomably inappropriate, and Kate had to scrub them off in the morning before customers came in.

Kate caught the assassins chuckling about something in her apartment on Sunday afternoon when the café was closed. It was the first bout of laughter she’d heard in days. She listened through the door for a few minutes before pushing her way in.

Greyson was there. Her brother slid a heaping plate of hot dogs over the counter toward Cress, Mor, Shayne, and Dranian sitting at the island chairs.

Cress picked one up and jiggled it. “What is in this meat tube, exactly?” he asked with a peculiar face.

Greyson chuckled. “You don’t wanna know.” He stuffed half of his own hot dog into his mouth. “Are you sure you don’t want a bun?” he asked through the mouthful. His hotdogs were the only ones with buns.

“We don’t eat that poison.” Cress nodded toward the open bag of hotdog buns on the counter, and Greyson nodded.

“Ahh, you’re doing the gluten-free thing. Cool.”

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