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“Well, we’ve been exposed. Let’s sneak out the back,” Cress decided.

Shayne shook his head. “They’re going to put this on TV. We should destroy everything first.”

One of the editors looked up from where he sat with a horrified face, so Shayne flashed him a smile to promise he was joking, even though he wasn’t.

“No time,” Cress said. “We need to get back to the café before Kate and Lily notice we’re missing and begin to devise suspicions and conclusions. It’s clear one of us performs poorly under interrogation—” he cut a look toward Dranian “—so we’d better hope they don’t ask any questions of our whereabouts this evening.”

“What about the thing Lily is hiding?” Shayne asked as he followed Cress toward the curtain where Mor had stashed their weapons.

“What about it, Shayne?” Cress snapped. “Lily isn’t the sneaky sort. And if I’m being faeborn honest,you’rethe sort to take everything too far. So, we’re leaving this alone before my human fiancé finds out and throws an outrageous fit over it.”

“But—”

“I’ll not have you utter another word about it,” Cress stated.

“I second that,” Mor said as he dragged the fairsabers, spear, and crossbow out from beneath the curtain. A few humans murmured questions; one even gasped when they noticed all the pointy arrows and sharp edges.

Shayne sighed. “Fine. I’ll figure it out on my own then. But you’re all going to feel like fools when I prove I’m right.” Shayne yanked his crossbow from Mor and pulled the strap on over his shoulders. He led the way to the halls. “You watch. Finding out everything about Lily Baker is going to be easy-peasy.”

Nothing was easy-peasy after that—exceptfiguring out that Lily was building secret fairy-slaughtering weapons behind the assassins’ backs. That had, as Shayne had claimed, been easy.

Everything else came with difficulty over the next days. Sleeping. Waking up from terrible fits of fighting his blood brothers in his dreams. Experiencing the feeling of being thrown from high cliffs or drowned in the fountain in front of his childling House.

Nightmares. Dozens every night. Over and over. Nightmares that finally drove him to craft a lie about going on a trip; a lie so well planned that not even Mor could see through it. He loudly asked his brothers about the kingdom of Florida, about sunscreen and sunburns and fishing. He purchased new sandals and a ‘beach bag’. He asked about catching fish, even.

“Why do I need to use a fishing pole? I can catch a fish with my bare hands,” he said.

“Because humans don’t catch fish with their bare hands, Shayne. You’ll look preposterous,” Cress claimed.

Shayne smirked because he already knew that. He watched his brothers flutter around the café. He watched Kate and Lily as they whispered things they forgot the fairies could hear. He watched all the people he wished to live alongside forever in their merry little ways.

But he couldn’t do that. He couldn’t live merrily or peacefully as it was while every night he grew more and more mad.

So, days later, he strapped on his navy Brotherhood uniform, hefted his crossbow onto his back, and headed for the gate to assassinate a dream-meddling wench so he could live out the rest of his faeborn life with his humans. It wouldn’t take him long—just a week or two to infiltrate, eliminate the problem, and flee. Then he’d return, move into a box of space with Dranian, and the two of them would live happily ever after.

6

Shayne Lyro and the Present

A dull pulse was trapped inside Shayne’s head. He peeled his eyes open, finding the dining room empty for once. Most of his fingers were broken, creating an obnoxiously painful sensation he couldn’t fix while his arms were tied down. The first thing he’d do once he got out of this chair was snap all his fingers back in place so the bones could meld and then he’d use his fresh hand to punch Kahn-Der in the face.

A coarse, quiet laugh escaped his lips.

Ifhe ever got out of this chair.

Old food littered the table by his feet. Not only had his brothers turned him into a centrepiece, they’d eaten their meals around him: morning, midday, and evening. They must have thought he’d be jealous at the sight of their crispy hogbeast meat and berry pudding. But as it was, he felt no hunger, even though having meat and vegetables thrown at him was the closest he’d come to eating anything in days.

His throat was too raw to shout anymore—he’d done enough shouting, insulting, egging the three other Lyro descendants on over the long days, but there was one thing he had not tried to nuisance them with yet, and that was his horrible singing voice. He wasn’t sure he had the strength to use it, but he cleared his throat, wincing when he was reminded how tender it was. And he began to gift the House of Lyro with a ballad in a raspy, high melody that could hardly be called a melody at all. “Kahn-Der is a coward,” he sang, “and Jethwire is bad at playing the flute. And Massie is seriously messed up. None of the Lyro brothers are handsome, except forone—”

The doors to the dining room opened. Kahn-Der wore his lamellar armour again and carried his long sword. Shayne slumped back in the chair, finding his energy spent after just a few lines of his song. His eyes slid closed too, and his heart grew weak at the mere sight of his brothers returning. He stifled a moan as he considered what torment they had in store for him today.

He missed hot coffee and butter tarts. He missed sleeping in on weekends and taking pointers from cheesy romance novels read by the fire. He missed arguing with human store owners about why he couldn’t enter their store in bare feet.

Today, and yesterday, and the day before that, there were moments when he’d wished for death, followed by moments he’d wanted to destroy Kahn-Der so badly he dreamt about it during the restless minutes of sleep he’d managed to find. He wondered if the sky deities would grant him one wish after he took his last breath. He wasn’t sure exactly what he’d wish for, but he knew there was something in his faeborn heart he wanted. Unfortunately, he couldn’t quite pinpoint what it was. Maybe he was just too tired to think right.

“Cut his vines,” Kahn-Der instructed, and Shayne’s eyes slid open. His gaze settled on his eldest brother whose crooked smile gloated like he’d beaten Shayne in this game. Like he’d enjoyed every moment of pain and discomfort he’d brought the former heir. Shayne had watched the oldest Lyro descendant do his fair share of terrible things in his years—stealing, murder, conspiring. Deep down, Shayne supposed he’d always hoped he’d be able to face off with him some day and annihilate the brute. The Ever Corners would be better off without Kahn-Der in them.

Massie hopped onto the table with a dagger and cut the vines in rigid strokes. Shayne’s arms fell onto his lap. He raised his hands to study his strangely bent fingers. Then he started snapping them all back into place. “Faeborn-cursed monsters,” he muttered beneath his breath as he fixed himself up.