Page 10 of Sincerely, Secretary of Doom

The fairy loudly barfed.

Humans in the front row screamed and wrestled out of their chairs to run as the incident turned projectile.

Kate’s-brother-Greyson turned white.

Cress laughed.

Somewhere in the crowd, a vomit-soaked female was shouting threats at Shayne. A contest banner was ripped down as panicked humans tried to run in too many directions.

Dranian was plugging his nose when Cress looked in the rearview mirror. Cress felt an ounce of sympathy for the fool, knowing that of all his assassins, Dranian had the most acute sense of smell.

The Prince drove Shayne’s chariot on wheels back toward the café, holding his breath while Shayne moaned and dozed off in the back seat. Finally, Cress couldn’t take it anymore.

“That is aghastlysmell, Shayne!” he roared. He was sure he needed to roll down the window and spew at the next car passing by himself. “Can you not… hold it in?”

“Hold it in? What in the name of the sky deities are you talking about? You want me to hold in my smell?” Shayne asked.

Kate’s-brother-Greyson released a snort-laugh. He was the lucky one who got to sit up front with Cress. Dranian was trapped in the back with the hotdog monster.

The rearview mirror filled with flashes of red and blue, and Cress eyed it suspiciously for a while until Kate’s-brother-Greyson seemed to notice them.

“Woah! You need to pull over, Cress,” the human said.

“Pull what over?”

“The car! You’re getting pulled over!” Kate’s-brother-Greyson pointed toward the side of the road, so Cress inched the car that way and crawled it to a stop. “Put your window down,” the human added when Cress sat there and did nothing.

Cress sighed, thinking only of a hot shower that might rid him of Shayne’s horrid smell. He hit the button and the window lowered. A human police officer was already standing on the other side, waiting.

“Do you know how fast you were going, sir?” the officer asked.

Cress raised a brow. “Precisely as fast as I wanted to. Why?”

“Were you speeding, Cress? You’re not supposed to go fast. It’s against the law here,” Shayne mumbled from the back seat.

The officer leaned to look in the window. The fairy assassins lounged around, waiting for this encounter to be over. Dranian was still plugging his nose, and Shayne was covered in faeborn-cursed vomit. Kate’s-brother-Greyson, though, looked frozen and panicked beneath the officer’s stare.

“You weren’t speeding,” the officer told Cress. “You were holding up traffic.”

“Holding up…” Cress blinked. “Are you trying to tell me I was going too slow?!”

“Yes. Way too slow. This is a busy city, and you’re going to cause an accident if you drive like that. Can I have your license and registration, please?” The officer eyed the fairies in the back seat.

“I don’t have any of that nonsense. It’s for humans,” Cress announced. Kate’s-brother-Greyson slapped a hand over his eyes and pursed his lips.

Finally, Shayne leaned forward to help. He nodded toward Cress. “Don’t worry about him, Officer Alwing. He’s got several raging human mental illnesses.”

The officer raised a brow in concern. “Does he?”

“Just let Officer Lily Baker deal with this. She knows all about his…condition,” Shayne added, and Cress turned around to glare into the back seat.

“You know Officer Baker?” the police officer said.

“She’s my girlfriend,” Shayne lied, flashing his lovely fairy smile.

The officer blinked at Shayne for a moment, and his own aged face broke into a smile. “Shayne!” he said. “I didn’t recognize you back there. The last time I saw you, you were all dressed up and… wearing shoes.”

“Lovely to see you again, officer.” Shayne slumped back in the seat and forced another smile onto his exhausted, sick face.

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