Page 74 of Sincerely, Secretary of Doom

The moment the bathroom door was shut with Lily inside it, Violet set down her coffee, grabbed her phone off the nightstand, and dialed the interns. She bit her nails as she waited for the call to go through. Remi picked up on the second ring.

“Hang on,” Violet said, dialing Jase next to form a three-way call.

“Hello?” Jase’s voice filled her ear.

“I need you two to meet me back at the cathedral. I don’t know what Mor said to you, but this isnotover. We’re going to write this story. The world needs to know about the fairies.” And their heartless tactics. How they could give false hope and abandon people all in the same breath.

Lily came out of the bathroom in her uniform and Violet hung up the phone. She tucked it away and climbed out of bed, looking around at the small apartment with a tiny kitchenette as she came out of the bedroom. Bar stools lined a short island that was covered in tiny piles of trinkets—coins, marbles, pens, straws, and other random objects. Violet recognized some of the pens from Mor’s cathedral office.

There were also personal belongings strewn everywhere like many people were living in this space.

“You can stay up here if you want to be alone, or you can come down if you want to be around other people. Just don’t leave the building or you might get whacked with a macaron,” Lily said, leading the way to a stairwell.

Violet followed, overcome with the sounds of cutlery and chatter in the stairwell. At the bottom, she found herself in the café—the one she’d been in last time. Coffee drinkers were scattered around the tables, some chatting in pairs, and others reading novels by the fireplace as they sipped iced lattes. A bookshelf was behind the counter and Violet wandered over to it. She hadn’t noticed the books in Fae Café before. Some of them were scuffed like they’d been read a hundred times.

A loudsmacksounded through the shop, and a few customers jumped. Violet turned toward the noise, spotting Shayne’s white hair through the window. He stood on the sidewalk outside, his arm winding back with a muffin in his grip. It looked like he was about to hurl it at the Yarn & Stitch store across the street.

Violet rushed through the café and pushed out the door, knocking it off a small bell. “Wait!” she shouted at Shayne.

He paused, mid-throw. He looked surprised to see Violet there.

A pink pastry fell out of the sky and pelted Violet on the cheek. “Ugh!” She whirled at the impact. When she pulled her hand away from her face, her fingers were sticky with icing.

Shayne grinned. “That’s what you get for getting involved,” he said.

“Involved in what? And Shayne, why are you doing this? One of those women is dying because of me,” Violet objected, wiping the icing from her cheek with her sleeve. She looked up at the clouds, wondering where the pastry had even come from.

Shayne snorted. “Of course she is, Human. That’s why they’re mad!” He carried on with his throw, hurtling the muffin at the Yarn & Stitch window. It splattered into three pieces against the glass. Across the road, a girl in yarn clothing with big curly hair and bug-eye glasses gasped and cast Shayne a horrifying death look. Four women from the Yarn & Stitch were outside in total—one of them held a basket of macarons. The others reached into the basket and threw the desserts back at Fae Café.

Shayne sprang over to Violet and yanked her out of the crossfire, nudging her back into the café ahead of him. He shook crumbs out of his hair as he came in. Then he declared to the room, “I’m tapping out.”

Dranian nodded from the counter. He removed his apron and walked by without a word, grabbing a tray of pudding cups on his way out to the street. Violet watched as Dranian started throwing them at the knit-covered women, splattering the bug-eyed glasses girl right in the mouth.

“How long has this food fight been going on?” Violet asked, eyeing the tea stains and spongy macaron splatters smearing the windows.

“It’ll end soon. It’s going to rain any minute. They’ll give up and go inside to save their ugly knitted vests.” Shayne dragged a half-empty coffee to himself and sipped.

“Who’s going to clean all that up?” Violet asked.

“Oh, we will—Dranian and I. We don’t have a choice. Kate was our master a while back, and she told us we had to clean up the messes we make here. Though, technically she let us off the hook, but we like to pretend she didn’t.” Shayne headed to the counter, and Violet followed. “Anything to drink, Human?” he asked her, and Violet shook her head.

By the café door, Lily tugged on her police vest. She pushed the door open a crack and yelled, “Coming out!”

All the fairies on both sides of the road paused, lowering their arms and their dessert ammunition. Lily walked down the sidewalk, nodding ‘good morning’ to one of the gaping neighbours as she passed. The second she was out of range, the macarons and pudding began flying again.

“I don’t get it. Why all the hatred between you and the knitting store?” Violet asked.

“Oh, this is nothing. You should have seen the snowball fight we started with them back in February when they first moved in across the road.” Shayne drank his coffee again. When Violet brought her attention back to him, she saw he was eyeing her over the mug. He licked his lips and sat on the nearest barstool, turning to face her and patting the stool beside so she’d sit too. He started talking before Violet was seated. “Are you all right, Human? And what exactly happened to Mor?”

Violet cringed at the mention of his name, trying to push thoughts of Mor away. “I don’t know,” she lied, turning to face the counter. “Are you actually concerned about me? Or are you really just making conversation to learn about Mor?”

Shayne shrugged and ripped a paper towel from the roll by the sink. He handed it to her and nodded to the drying icing on her cheeks. Violet accepted it and began scrubbing.

“Maybe a little of both,” Shayne said.

Dranian took a macaron right in the nose outside. He growled a slew of unusual curses so loudly that everyone could hear it through the windows. Violet wondered why the customers weren’t weirded out by the catastrophic food fight outside, but maybe the regulars were used to it.

“Where is Mor?” she finally asked flat out, hating herself for caring. “Why isn’t he here?”

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