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“How are you today?” he asked her, and the female turned in her seat. She smiled when she saw him—she had a lovely smile. Heart-shaped and kind.

“Luc, was it?” she asked. “Sorry to ask—my memory isn’t great. I’m not sure I can trust my own mind anymore even though you come in almost every day.”

“Your mind is just fine,” he told her as he sat on the bed and pulled his backpack around. “So are your legs,” he added, eyeing the wheeled-chair. “You don’t actually need that thing. Why bother with it?” He unzipped the backpack and reached inside.

“Of course I don’t need it. I’m younger than all the people here,” she said, waving toward the other rooms. “But if I tell the staff how good my legs are, I’ll have to start walking everywhere.”

Luc chuckled. “Fair.” He pulled something out of the backpack and held it up so she could see. “I brought you a present,” he told her.

Ms. Hunter turned in her chair to see it closer, eyeing the tight wreath of the crown, the glittering black opals, and the expensive moonstones that had been sacred to the Dark Corner for generations.

“What is it?” she asked.

Luc reached forward and placed it on her head. “It’s something that will ensure you’re never ruled over again,” he told her.

She released a laugh as she balanced it atop her head. It complimented her smooth, pale skin, her silvery eyes, and her pointed ears. “How do I look?” she asked.

“Like someone who belonged at the Queene’s table all along,” Luc said. He tossed his backpack aside and stood, then he reached to adjust the crown, but he paused when her hand came up and rested along his. He found her studying him the way she studied all people.

She cracked a modest smile. “Oh dear. You know, the strange thing about having Alzheimer’s disease is feeling like you know someone but not remembering why,” she said, and Luc frowned. He lowered his hands as she took him in. A second later, she laughed at herself and shook her head. “Maybe I should be worried I’m forgetting something important.”

Luc’s shoulders relaxed. He found his own smile and he stood again, walked around her wheeled-chair, and took the handles. “That would only apply if you actually had Alzheimer’s disease, which you don’t,” he informed her. “You have a simple case of amnesia. And you have nothing to worry about in here. As long as you remember that I’m your favourite caregiver in this place, and they continue to feed you three times a day, and they let you play board games with your friends, and they take you out for long, lovely walks in the park, I imagine it’s much better than whatever life you had that you can’t remember.”

He turned her chair toward the door as she nodded.

“Maybe you’re right,” she said with a sigh, and she laughed again. “You seem clever.”

Luc’s grin widened.

“Now, since you’re so determined to take advantage of these chairs on wheels and get pushed around instead of walking on your perfectly good feet, why don’t we head out for a walk? There’s an ice cream place not far from here that I’ve recently discovered is open year-round.”

Ms. Hunter’s room filled with the sounds of her clapping. “Yes! Iloveice cream.”

35

Lily Baker and Fae Café

The street smelled of freshly ground coffee beans, car exhaust, and new possibilities. The whole city blinked with red and green Christmas lights, and slush coated the sidewalks, bringing in a sweep of fresh winter weather. All the good things about Fae Café seeped out from the door whenever it was opened; the chatter, the smell, the warmth.

Lily stood on the opposite side of the street gripping a burgundy mug and watching customers filter in and out of the café she’d created with Kate; a business built on the desperation to pay bills, dreams of making it in the future, and the promise to look out for each other forever. A place that had become so much bigger and more meaningful than she’d expected the day she and Kate had sat cross-legged in her apartment and had decided to “do their future” together by starting a business.

She shivered as icy air trickled in through the cracks of the slouchy, cream-coloured sweater the Sisterhood of Assassins finally made for her after Shayne had harassed them about it for the last five days. Freida only agreed to give Lily a fairy-yarn sweater if Mycra knitted it, which was a task Mycra took pretty seriously since it was her first mission with the Sisterhood. Mycra’s handiwork was actually impressive though; the sleeves of the sweater were a little too long and hung over Lily’s knuckles, but otherwise, the oversized garment was exactly how Lily would have made it herself.

She wrapped her hands around her warm mug, letting the coffee’s heat sooth the biting chill of winter. If she knew Dranian was going to take this long to hang the Christmas lights, she would have worn her coat.

“How’s that?” Dranian’s mutter was way too quiet from where he was perched atop a ladder all the way on the other side of the street. If his mouth hadn’t moved, Lily wouldn’t have even known he’d spoken.

“What? I can’t hear you!” she called back.

She smirked when Dranian wrenched himself around to scowl at her. “I said…” She watched him take in a large chest-full of air. “HOW’S THAT?!”

The earth shook below Lily’s feet; a few people jumped out of their skin as the roar echoed across Toronto. Lily took a sip of coffee to hide her giggle. She raised her other hand toward Dranian with a thumbs up.

The door to Fae Café swung open and a handsome fairy with styled white hair and a fitted burgundy apron poked his head out. “Come inside before you get sick!” he shouted at her. Then he added, “Scarecrow!”

Lily’s body jerked into motion. She bit back a grimace as her legs brought her across the road, over the sidewalk, and right back into Fae Café. Instantly, the warmth of the space enveloped her, and although Shayne deserved a good swat upside the head for bossing her around like that with his ‘master’ powers, she was relieved to not be freezing out in the snow anymore.

Speaking of Shayne…