Page 59

No, it wasn’t exactly a trick. It was more of a lousy prank. But it was also a statement to remind Cosmo that Shayne could get to him while he helplessly slept, and therefore, it was worth every drop of ink Shayne had traded his last two arrows for.

Cosmo tugged a chair out and sat down. He looked around the table to see what the breakfast feast options were. Fairies around him began to place hands over their lips to hide giggles and release shallow gasps. It took Cosmo far too long to clue in, and even when he did, he was so confused by the attention that he simply sat there and blinked like a fool.

“Cosmo,” Shayne drawled as he ran a finger over the rim of his goblet. “Do you not even look in the mirror in the mornings?”

That was it. At least a dozen fairies burst out laughing around the feasting table.

Cosmo rose from his chair and touched his face like he knew something was there but couldn’t figure out what it was. He whirled and marched out of the banquet hall, his gaping coat fluttering at his back.

Shayne took a drink of his juice with a smile. It wouldn’t be long now before he had the House wrapped around his little finger and giving him all their precious votes. He decided to help himself to another serving of beast meat. Every bite tasted like victory as the morning sun got higher in the sky, and Shayne eavesdropped on chatter about upcoming Yule festivities to take place in the House. He was particularly interested in the parade.

When he was finished, he dabbed his mouth with a silk cloth and considered what he might do for the rest of the morning now that his one, most-important task for the day was complete.

The banquet hall doors flew open. Someone wasthrowninto the hall.

A female hit the floor and rolled over twice before she caught herself. She whirled around on her knees and clasped her hands together. “Please!” she begged. “Please have mercy!”

Fairies around the table stirred and turned in their seats as Cosmo marched back into the hall. His face was clean, his coat was buttoned, and his expression was contorted with fury.

Shayne sprang from his seat. His hand still gripped the silk cloth, his knuckles turning white around it as Cosmo reached the young female, grabbed her by the hair and hoisted her to her feet as she wailed.

A few fairies of the House cringed, but most chuckled lightly and shifted themselves to watch the show. But that wasn’t the disturbing part, nor was the aggression Cosmo displayed before the table.

It was that the female’s hair was fashioned in a way to cover her ears. It was that her face was paler than a fairy’s, her physique weaker than a fairy’s, and her begging…

She was human.

Shayne threw the cloth to the tabletop. He fixed himself to march around the table and put an end to this horrid show. Everything in his faeborn chest twisted, his muscles flexed to move. But he froze there, his hands at his sides, his chest rising and falling with sharp inhales.

What was he to do? He was not this human’s hero. He would die if he intervened.

When Cosmo hurled the human ten feet and she rolled across the floor, Shayne whirled around. He stared at the back wall as nausea built in his stomach. He could not endure this. But hecould notintervene. He closed his eyes and grabbed a fistful of his hair.

The female shrieked and shouted and begged, filling his ears with pain.

“No,” he muttered to himself. “Don’t even think about it.”

He bit his lips together, trying to think of something else. Why would Cosmo do this here? Was he so angry about Shayne’s prank that he’d decided to take out his wrath upon a human prisoner? Was this all Shayne’s fault?

Curse the faeborn sky deities.

Shayne turned back to the table. He grabbed a solid fruit. He hurled it across the banquet hall. It smacked square in Cosmo’s left eye.

Forget the ink. Now the fool would have a bruise he couldn’t wash away with soap and water.

A chorus of sounds erupted across the hall as the fruit fell to the ground and rolled across the tiles. As Cosmo’s head snapped to the side, his hand flying up to cover his eye.

Shayne followed after his fruit in slow, easy steps, landing himself before where Cosmo was hunched. Conveniently standing right in the way of Cosmo’s reach of the human still cowering on the floor. The smells in the air turned just a little more unbearable, the temperature growing uncomfortably hot. Even the sounds of distant music in the House turned screechy and sharp. Shayne pulled his face into a half-smile so no one would know.

“How cowardly of you,” Shayne said. “If you’re mad at me, take it out onme. Or are you too afraid of my abilities for that?”

Cosmo turned and stood slowly. He dropped his hand, revealing a patch of swelling flesh around his eye. His black hair was ruffled and out of place from Shayne’s epic fruit throw.

When he stared at Shayne now, it seemed different.

“You said you didn’t have a human,” Shayne pointed out.

After a moment, Cosmo said, “I lied.”