Page 114 of Welcome to Fae Cafe

“It’s fine, Lil. Go.” Kate flashed a smile.

Lily said a few more apologies. Minutes later, she jogged out the door and disappeared into the snowy afternoon.

Human Yule music flitted through the space, the sort Cress was growing to adore simply for the nonexistence of ulterior motives even though it was clickety-clangy and there were far too many smashing cymbals.

Cress took Kate’s hand and tugged her toward the fireplace. He’d only ever danced with fairy females before, and rarely by choice. He wanted to know what it would be like to dance with a human, one such as Kate Kole/Katherine Lewis/his mate who still didn’t seem to know it.

Finally, Kate’s smile returned; a real one this time. Cress relaxed and felt the clouds part in the sky outside. A beam of afternoon sunlight glittered over the street as Kate swayed in his grip.

“You dance like a wild childling goat from the haunted woods,” Cress told her. “But I dance well enough for the both of us, so don’t worry your little human mind over it.” He shoved her into a twirl, but she came back rolling her eyes.

“Why am I not surprised? You hate everything about humans, don’t you?”

He caught her and trapped her body to his with his arms. “That’s preposterous, Human. I like many things aboutyou.”

A catchy tune rang through the café next. It didn’t seem fitting for a slow dance anymore, and Cress realized he didn’t know how to move to a song with quick rhythms.

Kate grinned as though she realized. “We don’t have to dance anymore. I’d hate for you to turn into the wild childing goat here. And do you really likemany thingsabout me, Cress?”

“Of course. Most fairies would call it shameful to fall in love with a human, but that didn’t stop me.”

Kate stopped swaying.

A cold wind brushed through the café when someone opened the door. Kate’s-brother-Greyson came in wearing his hideous human Christmas sweater and called across the room to Mor at the counter, “Where’s Lily?”

But Cress only looked at his human mate, who looked back at him with a troubled brow.

“Then stay,” she said.

Stay.

How he hated that word. A word that might have had the power to change the order of the stars in the sky. A word that could break hearts and crumple fairy empires if uttered in the wrong setting.

“You don’t understand what you’re asking of me,” he said. “I will not stay.” It was best she accepted it. He brushed her hair from her face. “Now give me all those kisses you were so willing to bargain away before.”

Kate’s-brother-Greyson turned on the new rectangular mirror device on the café wall to the nightly news. The boy’s face drained of colour, his rhythms elevated, and Cress knew something was wrong even before the rest of the souls in the café came around the tables to watch the moving picture. Humans in the mirror talked of something happening in a vaguely familiar part of the city. Mor turned down the human Yule music to hear.

Images flashed over the mirror to two human police officers on their knees with messy hair and bruises, being held in place by other humans in black masks. The dark room they were in made it difficult to see, but not enough to hide their identities. One of the captured officers was Officer Connor Backs whom Cress detested.

The other was Lily Baker.

Cress’s eyes slid closed. He set down his warm beast milk.

This would steal away precious moments from a day he could hardly let go of. But Kate’s gasp lifted beside him, and her hand squeezed his arm. He knew what he would do even before she asked.

“Save her! Please!” she begged the assassins.

Cress swallowed.

“I can’t lose Lily!”

“Mor.” Cress’s eyes opened, taking in the sky view of the street in the mirror that told him exactly where Lily Baker was at this moment. “Do something about those human cameras so we don’t end up all over the human news like that incident when I fought the Shadow Fairies at the mall.”

The air turned crisp as four fairy assassins marched past human cameras and congested crowds. Officer Riley’s uniform hugged tight to Cress’s body. Shayne slipped three vests from the back seat of a police chariot on wheels and handed one to Mor and Dranian.

The human officers were positioned far back from the building with their measly human weapons drawn, hiding behind chariot doors and shields. They shouted things and strategized. Not one of their weapons looked as menacing as the crossbow Shayne carried in as he fastened his officer vest on.

Cress nodded at Mor, and Mor vanished.

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