Page 27 of Sincerely, Secretary of Doom

“Truthfully, Human, I don’t particularly like you either,” he admitted. He didn’t have to remind her how she’d snuck into his home, called him names, thrown pens at him, and after all that, she’d just arrived at his front door, pounding her fists against it like a childling. “You are the absolute worst,” he added.

She released a disgruntled sound and folded her arms. She hugged them to herself tightly as she worked her jaw, looking him up and down with a mix of expressions. She appeared to be calculating.

“But you need me,” she said with a note of challenge in her voice.

Mor grunted. Though, he did need her. Desperately.

“You need me, too,” he said. “I gather, by your first venture into my abode, that you’re in need of employment. I gather you need coin to eat, as well as lodging.”

The revulsion that filled her human face was nearly offensive.

“I would neverlodgehere in this hut of darkness and despair,” Violet promised.

Mor bit back his retort and smiled through thin lips. “Perfect. It’s settled then. You come here to work and keep The Fairy Post alive, and I’ll pay you whatever you like to do it. Then you can leave in the evenings.”

“Perfect,” she mimicked, and Mor noticed her rose-coloured nails dig a little deeper into her flesh. “I can’twaitto get started.” Her sarcasm was ripe, and Mor hissed a laugh.

“Don’t get too excited. Just because we need each other doesn’t mean I have to make things comfortable for you here. I imagine you’ll see all sorts of atrocities from now on that will turn your insides,” he said.

“Is that a threat?” the human asked as Mor picked up the cleaning bucket again.

“IfandwhenI threaten you, Violet Miller, you will know without having to ask,” he promised, turning away to carry it to the coffee table.

She still didn’t move from her favourite spot, as though her heels were glued to the floor.

A pair of fluffy slippers with kitten beast ears rested on a stool by the broken fireplace. They were one of the things Mor had stolen on his way out of the café, back when the morning air was still chilly, turning the wood floors cold. If Kate had noticed her slippers were missing from her apartment, she hadn’t bothered to call him and complain about it. Maybe she hadn’t yet realized.

Violet finally moved. She inched toward the stool and lifted one of the slippers, casting Mor a judgemental look. It was very female-y. In fact, most of her looks were rather feminine in nature. It wasn’t that Kate and Lilyweren’tfeminine, but Mor hadn’t caught those two wearing dresses often like the one Violet Miller fashioned now. This human was a different sort of female—dark polished lashes, golden earrings, coloured nails. Plum-red lips. Pretty in a strange, colourful way.

Her personality was garbage though.

And worst of all, she wore masks; one of over-the-top boldness to hide her fears, and another mask of colour to hide her real face. For a moment, Mor wanted desperately to see what she looked like without face paint. He wondered how different she might appear if she let her hair be its natural way without forcing its shape. He imagined she might be a different sort of pretty.

“Did you steal these from agirl?” Violet asked in a tone that told him she was trying desperately to be mean, likely the result of the energy and fear channelling through her veins. The rhythm in her chest was loud and wild even though she seemed to be pinching her face to keep it composed.

Yes, she was a few seconds away from a full-fledged human meltdown. And trying very hard to make Mor feel foolish for owning slippers that resembled something a female might wear.

The joke was on her though. “Yes. I stole them from a girl,” was all he said.

She didn’t seem to know what to say about that as he began tidying up around the fireplace, kicking aside brick chunks and wiping the stone crumbs from his fireside chair. His catastrophic fight with theintruderseveral days ago had destroyed nearly the whole main level and basement of the cathedral. What a faeborn disaster.

An old Fairy Post rested on the end table beside the chair. Mor picked it up and scanned his reports from last month.

“Oh. Well, that’s… super weird.” Violet tossed the slipper back where it belonged. “What kind of weirdo steals from girls?” Even though she mumbled the last bit, it wasn’t all that quiet.

“You’re making small talk because you’re terrified of me,” Mor said, flipping the page of the newspaper. “That’s far more weird.”

Violet didn’t reply for several seconds, so Mor glanced up. Her face said it all. Moments ago, she had been determined to verbally assault him, and now it seemed she’d lost her tongue. All because he admitted to stealing a few patches of a memory. Queensbane, she looked at him like he was a monster.

He closed the paper.

“I searched for you,” he said.

She blinked. “What?”

“On the human internet. The web of information. Your name—Violet Miller. I searched for it yesterday with the buttons.” He didn’t mention that he’d also called Lily and asked her to investigate Violet Miller. Lily claimed there was no information on Violet, and that the whole city had already tried to place her several years ago. But Mor hoped Lily might be compelled to look deeper since he’d asked.

“With the buttons,” Violet said quietly to herself, shaking her head. “You talk like you’re a hundred years old.” She bit her lips after she said it. Swallowed. And then, “Are you?”

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