Page 44 of Welcome to Fae Cafe

He had never smelled something so beautifully intoxicating in his entire faeborn life.

“Is this poisoned? Are there any tricks hiding in thisfreshly baked chocolate chip cookie?” he challenged.

The old woman shot him a scowl for even suggesting such a thing, and for some reason Cress slammed his mouth shut and sat up a little straighter.

“Why in the world would you ask me that?” Thelma Lewis tilted the metal jug to fill a goblet with steaming water, and Cress eyed thefreshly baked chocolate chip cookie. His insides ached to try it. His mind warned him not to.

“Where I come from, tricks are hidden in everything. If you’re not careful, you’ll have your memories stolen, your back stabbed, and your whole life taken away.” Still, he lifted the cookie and turned it over, studying the flat underside.

A goblet of tea was set before him, giving off the warmth of peppermint that reminded Cress of spearflower petal soup back home. The old woman’s chair creaked when she sat down across from him.

“I’m sorry to hear that. It sounds like you come from a terrible place. I’m sure your life hasn’t been easy,” she said, and Cress’s turquoise gaze darted up to her.

He watched her sip her own goblet of tea.

He watched her lift a paper cloth to dab her mouth afterward.

He watched her arms shake as she lifted herself and fetched a cup of honey from the cupboard.

Cress’s hand tightened around hisfreshly baked chocolate chip cookie.

He rarely got stuck on questions, but he could think of nothing else now: Why didn’t these humans appear cruel? Was this old human woman only pretending to have a kind smile and weak arms? Was she the one who trained Kate Kole to act innocent and to kill? Cress’s gaze slid to where the woman had stashed the weapon by the front door.

Mor thought Kate Kole was only clever by accident, and that she had help. Cress eyed the old woman’s back, wondering if she’d been thathelpthe whole time.

“Why don’t we play a game?” Cress suggested as the woman returned and set the honey before him. He tried not to notice that it smelled the same as Kate Kole in this house—warm honey and powdery hair soaps. “How about we ask each other three questions. They can be any questions at all, but wemustanswer honestly.”

“Sure. How about we start by telling each other our names?” the old woman suggested, and Cress lost his smile again.

“What?” he growled. “Ourrealnames?”

“Yes. I’m Thelma Lewis. But most people just call meGrandmaLewis.”

Cress felt his veins thicken with power as he opened his mouth to speak this human’s name, to command her to tell him everything about Kate Kole and her accomplices, but the old woman spoke again first.

“Let me ask you the first question. Who raised you to believe that everything in the world is a trick and everyone is trying to hurt you?” she asked.

The hairs on Cress’s arms lifted as he realized how dangerously close he was to breaking a fairy law. Queene Levress would cut out his tongue if he mentioned her to the humans—especially human assassins.

“That I cannot say,” he admitted.

“Well, so much for answering our questions honestly. You have‘a hard upbringing’written all over you, son. It doesn’t take an old, experienced woman to see that. You have scars on the back of your hands and coldness in your eyes. I can only imagine the things you’ve seen.”

Cress looked away and took a sip of his tea.

“I have two granddaughters, you know,” she went on. “My oldest, Katherine, would scold me for inviting you in. She’s not even the cop in our family, yet she’s the most protective of me.” Thelma Lewis glanced over at the photos of a human family resting atop the windowsill. “She’s been through a lot, like you have.”

A strange silence dragged through the room, and Cress took a large gulp from his goblet this time. He winced. Human tea was repulsive—it tasted of old leaves and dirt. He took the bottle of honey and squeezed a long amber stream into the tea.

“You assume too much. I have not had a difficult upbringing. I have been given riches and glory my whole life,” Cress finally said.

“But you were raised to believe that everyone is trying to hurt you,” the woman said. “It seems like your mother didn’t show you the kindness of the world.”

Cress opened his mouth, then closed it again. He took a tight-jawed sip of his honey-filled tea. Then he said, “I was taken from my real mother when I was a childling. The woman who raised me is the one you’re referring to. The one who made me wary of tricks.”

“Ah. So, you lost your mom like Katherine did.”

It was Cress who glanced over at the photos this time. He glared at them. He had done research on his human target, but he hadn’t learned until now that Kate Kole had lost her mother.

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