Page 9 of Sincerely, Secretary of Doom

“—are all the evidence I need. Humanslikewatching a deadly assassin bake things. So, if I catch you rolling your eyes again, Dranian Evelry, you’ll be the next thing I use the eggbeater on.”

A low growl lifted from Dranian’s throat, but the fairy assassin reluctantly went back to his filming, keeping his eyes steady.

Cress cleared his throat to begin his show again. “Now, as I was saying, roll out the fat dough clump—”

“Why must I be the one to do this?” Dranian’s monotone voice interrupted again. “You should get Shayne to film your cooking show for the humans.”

“Shayne said he was busy, Mor still hasn’t returned from the secret mission he refuses to tell us about, our human females are away on Kate’s book tour, and Kate’s-brother-Greyson is with Shayne in whatever unbeknownst corner of the human world he’s run off to. I had no other option for an assistant but the faeborn fool before me who can’t keep his eyes from rolling back into his head. Now help me finishCookery with A Fae Princeso we can both be on our way. That’s a command.”

“By fairy law, you can’t command me anymore, Your Highness.” Dranian was growling again. “Shayne is the King of our new High Court. Didn’t you see his announcement?” the fairy asked as he jabbed his thumb into the camera’s button.

It was Cress who rolled his eyes this time. As he did, his gaze settled on the window, through which humans milled back and forth, some stopping at the breakfast tavern across the road in small herds. “That is preposterous. I wonder what our allegedHigh Kingis doing right now anyway that was so important he needed to steal Kate’s-brother-Greyson and leave me with the grumpiest fairy in all of existence?” the Prince asked.

“We could go spy on him,” Dranian suggested with a shrug.

Cress’s mouth twisted to the side as he thought about that. “You’re chatty today,” he commented, dragging his gaze back inside. He debated. Then he said, “And that’s an excellent idea. I think I like it when you’re chatty.”

A newspaper was left on one of the bistro tables by the window, sticking out from beneath one of Kate’s novels. Cress sauntered over to it, eyeing the paper’s title. It was Mor’s latest scroll of articles. Even though Mor had been scribingThe Fairy Postfor months now, Cress hadn’t bothered to read any of them. Mor’s writing was horrendous. It was an outrageous expectation for a gifted poet-prince to be forced to read measly information articles. But his curiosity got the better of him when he spied a black and white painting on the newspaper’s cover with the title: ‘WARNING TO HUMANS AND FAIRIES ALIKE’ below it. He nudged the book out of the way to see the picture in full, and what he saw made him draw back a step.

A painting of a fairy filled the front of The Fairy Post, though the bottom half of his face was covered with a black mask. The creature’s eyes were shadowed with a certain violent hunger that dug old memories out from the places Cress had buried them deep within his faeborn soul. The fairy’s ears were strikingly pointed. And if he had to guess, Cress imagined the creature’s eyes were brown and laced with a ribbon of silver, though the black and white picture could promise no such thing for certain.

“Queensbane,” Cress muttered. “What exactly was Mor working on when he left us two weeks ago?” He turned to face Dranian still by the camera with a new worry in his fairy bones.

Dranian’s face didn’t change much—not even curiosity could move the fairy’s ever-scowl—but he walked to where Cress was and glanced at the newspaper. Cress heard the change in Dranian’s tone when he mumbled, “Who in the name of the sky deities is that?”

“Perhaps we should go find our High King,” Cress said, tucking The Fairy Post under his arm. The Prince looked up at the street again with fresh eyes. “I’m curious if he’s gotten through to Mor.”

Cress gaped up at the large sign hanging before the congregation of humans that read: HOTDOG EATING CONTEST.

“This isnotmore important than my cooking show!” Cress growled. “Where is ourHigh King? He’s due for a royal beating!” As he said it, Cress spotted Shayne marching onto the dais with a wide grin where eight thrones were evenly spaced apart before a long feasting table. Seven large, jiggly humans walked up alongside him, and Cress bristled at the sight of his white-haired assassin parading among them.

Humans began to laugh.

“Get off the stage, muscles!” an audience member shouted, and Cress eyed the man in the blue hat. It seemed the human’s jest had been directed toward Shayne. Cress glanced back to the stage to find Shayne taking a seat on one of the thrones. “Can you believe that guy? What is he, a CrossFit champion? He’s not even going to finish his first hotdog. What an idiot,” the human in the hat added.

Cress’s cold, turquoise gaze narrowed on the human.

“Should I go stop Shayne before he embarrasses—”

“Let’s sit,” Cress interrupted Dranian. He kept his eyes pinned to the back of the human’s blue hat as he weaved through the chairs and took the seat directly behind. That hat was where Cress’s lethal gaze stayed as platters of hotdogs were carried out and laid before each human—and Shayne—at the feasting table.

“You guys came! Cool.” Kate’s-brother-Greyson appeared and scooted into the seat beside Cress. “I was going to do this,” he explained, “but Shayne wanted to compete so badly that I let him have my spot.” The human grinned. “I had to beg the people running the contest to get gluten free buns for Shayne though. They weren’t happy about it. And Shayne still complained that the bread would kill him, but I convinced him he wouldn’t have an allergic reaction to—”

Dranian stood up so fast, his chair toppled over behind him and into the humans in the next row. “Your Majesty!” he shouted over the group in a panicked tone. “Don’t eat the bread!”

Shayne waved when he spotted Dranian. But what he didn’t do was keep himself from stuffing his face with bread-coated-meat-tubes the moment a whistle was blown.

Cress and Dranian watched in horror as Shayne slid not one, not two, not three, buttwelvehotdogs down his faeborn throat in a matter of minutes, leaving the rest of the humans in the contest behind. “How repulsive,” Cress said. “This competition is utterly horrifying.”

“Yeah.” Kate’s-brother-Greyson grinned and leaned back in his chair with folded arms.

“Wow,” was all the human in the blue hat in front of them had to say about Shayne’s performance.

Cress released a gloating grunt. “He’s my friend,” he loudly announced. “Well, actually, he’s my subject. Some would think it’s the other way around—” he cut a glance at Dranian “—but—”

“Shhh!” Kate’s-brother-Greyson smacked Cress’s knee and leaned forward with a wild expression as the contest came to its conclusion. When a bell rang and those on the stage stopped eating, Kate’s-brother-Greyson jumped to his feet, thrust his fists into the air, and released a magnificent battle cry over the throng.

A human judge climbed the dais stairs at the front as the crowd clapped and cheered. Cress sighed and joined in, slapping his hands together in the odd human fashion. When the judge announced Shayne as the winner and brought Shayne to stand before the audience, Cress cheered a little. He kept his satisfied smile on, casting subtle glares at the blue-hat-human in the row ahead, until Shayne leaned forward an inch with a pale face and a strange look.

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