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Shayne slid his leg over and tried to poke Cress in the eye with his toe. The fearsome, severely over-glorified Prince of the North Corner swatted toward Shayne’s quick feet, missing over and over until he gritted his teeth and pointed at Shayne like he was about to announce something very important. Shayne grinned. It seemed to only make matters worse though, and Cress’s lips thinned as he grappled Shayne’s legs together. Shayne laughed as he was dragged sideways off the couch and tossed into a heap on the floor.

“Agh!” Cress looked himself over in disgust as if assessing his body for damage. He wiped his hands down his shirt to rid himself of Shayne’s nonexistent filth.

Shayne brought his arms up and clasped his fingers behind his head as he watched from the floor. The second Cress moved to take a step toward the counter where Mor and Dranian waited, Shayne stuck out his leg and tripped him.

The squealing of a gracefully falling fae prince filled the apartment. Even Mor pressed a fist against his mouth to hide his laughter this time. Then, through his fingers, he said to Cress, “You know he only does things like that because you react so strongly.”

Cress ripped a cushion off the couch and hurled it at where he must have thought Shayne was. Shayne watched the cushion sail by, fling off the nearest chair, soar into the kitchen, and smash against Kate’s mug collection. Ringing sounds of shattering goblets overtook the apartment, the catastrophe hidden from Shayne’s sight behind the island. Only Mor sprang for the mugs, but he didn’t catch a single one before the whole collection met its end. Mor’s hands remained out and empty as all four fairies went rigid and exchanged looks.

A light croaking sound came from Cress. He slapped a hand over his eyes. “We’re done for!” he shouted. Then he pointed at Shayne with his other hand. “This is why we were told not to engage in shenanigans in Katherine’s apartment anymore!”

Shayne propped himself onto his elbows. “How bad is it?” he asked Mor, cringing.

Mor glanced down toward the floor. “It’s not great,” he admitted. “I’ll get the broom—Cress! What are you doing?”

Shayne scrambled backward when he noticed Cress marching toward him on his knees with a new cushion, his turquoise eyes narrowed and lethal.

“I’m suffocating the problem once and for all!” Cress declared. He lunged for Shayne, holding the cushion toward his face. Mor suddenly appeared, grabbing Cress around his middle and holding him still as Shayne scrambled to his feet. Shayne wasn’t sure why Mor bothered since he was perfectly capable of fending off Cress on his own, until Lily’s voice came from behind him.

“Are you crazy, Cress?!” she asked.

Shayne’s smile widened. He looked Cress dead in the eyes, and he shot him a perfectly timed look of gloating. Cress wouldn’t dare try anything deadly with Lily present.

Lily even appeared in front of him, her back all tense like she was going toprotect him from Cress, and thus, fulfilling all Shayne’s hopes and dreams in one single second. It was adorable. As if she could do anything against Cress. She’d be lucky to give him a papercut, and she’d spend all her energy doing it.

Honestly, Shayne just wanted to hug her from behind and squeeze her like a human teddy bear sometimes.

He tore his gaze off Lily’s back when she whirled around.

Far across the apartment, a bug crawled up the wall. Shayne focused all his attention on it. That, and doing everything in his power not to smile right in her face. Because she’d tried tosavehim.

Oops—a smile slipped out. And a little sniffle-laugh.

“Shayne!” Lily shouted. “What happened? What was that huge crash?”

Shayne settled his gaze on the human he accidentally thought about all the time for no particular reason. How irritating she was to be the one who popped into his mind whenever he awoke from his night terrors. To be the sole provider of the happy thoughts that reminded him what was real and what was a nightmare. Lily Baker was greedy for stealing so much of his brain’s time.

A strand of her maize hair had escaped her ponytail, likely from her race up the stairs. “You have nothing to worry about, ugly Human,” Shayne assured her, patting her on the head. “Now, go do something with that horrid lion’s mane of fur you call hair.”

Lily was pretty when she scowled. Truly picturesque. Her stink-face would go nicely on a calendar, and Shayne wondered if he should take the idea from Mor and create a calendar for the café with all of Lily’s most horrid faces. She’d love it.

“Anyway—” Shayne wrapped an arm around her shoulders and guided her back toward the stairs before she might take a step deeper into the kitchen and spot the sea of mug crumbs on the floor, “—say hi to Officer Greene for me today. Tell him I’ll bring him those tartlets he asked for next time I come in…”

Lily made a sound and moved toward the stairs, but Shayne found himself tightening his grip on her shoulders. She looked up at him with a strange blend of accusation and question as he held her there, tilting his head and scrunching his nose as he inhaled.

“Human, I don’t suppose you’ve come into contact with any fairies you haven’t told us about, hmm?” he asked. His fingers dug in a little as her eyes widened and her lips peeled apart.

“What? No way!” she said with a tone that was wobbly and all over the place.

Shayne whirled her to face him, dragged her forward, and brought his face right into her messy hair. He breathed in, eyeing a loose hair and winding it around his finger.

Two hands came against his chest and shoved him back. He let Lily push him, falling away a step or two.

Shayne chewed on his lip, then he smiled. “Have a good day at work.” It was as sarcastic as sarcastic could be. Lily seemed to know it, too. She looked back and forth between his eyes for a moment and finally grunted, heading for the stairs with folded arms.

Shayne waited for her to leave. Waited until the door swung shut behind her, until her footsteps promised she was downstairs. Then he turned to his brothers.

“Now I’m sure of it. She’s hiding something, and I can’t stop thinking about it,” he stated. “It’s driving me faeborn mad!” He released a long, melodic huff.