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The human escape artist dropped into a chair like a rock and leaned forward on her kitchen’s feasting table. Mor chewed on the inside of his cheek. Truly, she appeared dead. She was just slightly too far away for him to hear her rhythms, but the twitch of her pinky finger told him she hadn’t yet died. Not that he would have rushed in to save her anyway, rude as she was with her name calling, trespassing, and tossing pens and ink at his face.

The air grew a pinch chillier. The human hot season seemed to forget its job for a moment as a dark presence breathed past Mor. Mor kept to his side of the street, his chest tightening as a hint of that deadly, alluring, dangerous scent from his past crawled over him.

“There you are,” Mor whispered to himself.

A second later, a fairy folk in a scent-cloaking coat similar to Mor’s appeared at the side window of Violet Miller’s house. Though the fairy’s hood was up, his rich, ruby-red hair peeked out ever so slightly. He peered into the house, watching the human falling asleep on the table.

Mor tapped his chin. “That was far too easy,” he muttered. “Fool.”

With that, Mor turned and continued his stroll, back the way he had come. The only disappointment he felt was that he would not be there to witness what would happen to the ruby-haired fairy when he tried to touch Violet Miller.

As he left to watch from a distance, Mor prayed to the sky deities the human would resurrect her power to repel fairy flesh in time, lest she become the next victim of the nine tailed fox.

9

Violet Miller and the Most Epic Blog that Might Ever Exist, Maybe

The world was spinning. Violet waited for what felt like hours before she could move. And even when the iron supplements slowed her mind to a normal speed, she still felt groggy and weak.

She stood to get another glass of water. And some toast. And jam. And three cookies. And a handful of almonds. Everything she could get her hands on, really. The tip of her nose felt numb and prickly. She flicked it, trying to get the feeling back as she scarfed back more food than her body would have been able to handle at a normal snack time.

As she lazily spread jam over her second piece of toast, she grumbled about her blood sugar problems, her iron deficiency problems, her handsome-vampire-aka-Master-of-Doom problems.

When she lifted her eyes, she startled at the sight of someone looking into the house through the garden window. The butterknife slipped from her fingers and clattered over the floor as she tried to decide if she was dizzy and delusional or if there was actually a peeping Tom on her property. But she blinked, and the figure was gone.

Still, she stared at the window, not really seeing the flower-covered fence outside, or the lengthy crack in the glass, or anything. She was sure she’d spotted glittering, metallic-red hair and a set of eyes that looked like…his. The Master of Doom’s.

Violet swallowed and glanced at her toast.

She hadn’t imagined it. Just like she hadn’t imagined anything at the cathedral.

Someone out there had tried to wipe away her memories. Again.

Violet shoved the plate of toast away and headed for the front door. She dragged an old pair of heels out of the closet and threw on a business jacket over her wrinkled, grass-stained, two-days-worn summer dress to try and look somewhat decent. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d looked this messy so many days in a row.

She wouldn’t go to the police. She couldn’t show her shameful face to any reporters either after what she’d said when she was let go from The Sprinkled Scoop. She could never go back to the cathedral again—she wouldn’t even if someone paid her to. But she couldn’t stay home, either. What if the Master of Doom had the means to track down where she lived? She paused at the front door and glanced back at the kitchen window. Then she turned and jogged back through the house, up the stairs and into her room. She grabbed her laptop. A moment later she pushed out of the house and headed back to the bus stop.

Zorah’s gasp filled the entire hospital waiting room. “Did you bring me a bubble tea?” Her ‘excited voice’ was so loud, Violet cringed. The waiting room was packed today; a mother with a sleeping baby shot a look at Zorah’s back.

“Aren’t I the best niece ever?” Violet held a cool drink toward Zorah, but she had to wait like that as Zorah quickly dragged her contact lenses off her eyeballs in front of the whole room, stuck them in a case, and pulled out her nerdy glasses. She slid the glasses on as she took the bubble tea.

“You know, that might really gross some people out,” Violet said, casting a repulsed look at the contacts’ case.

Zorah waved a hand through the air. “I need to wear contacts when I perform surgeries. And who would be grossed out by contact lenses?”

Violet could think of at least one person.

“Have you eaten lunch?” Zorah asked. “I’m starving.” She took a loud slurp of her bubble tea.

“I was going to go hide out in a café and write an article. We can go together?” Violet looked warily out the hospital windows before they exited. The parking lot was busy. She scanned the nearby faces for anything out of the ordinary. She had, after all, fled a complete hostage situation. Or was it a hostage situation? She’d been grabbed outside the police station, but technically the guy had offered her a job.

Regardless, it was taking every ounce of her self-control not to freak out about it and start yelling the whole story to Zorah. She would wait until Zorah was sitting down before she told her of the horrors.

“Let’s go to the one with the salad bar. I feel like salad and donuts.” Zorah veered onto the sidewalk, chugging her tea until the cup was empty and only the tapioca pearls were left in the bottom. She twisted off the lid and tipped the cup back, clawing the gummies into her mouth with her lips like a horse.

“It’s a miracle people believe you’re thirty-five,” Violet said as she tried not to watch the spectacle. “We should start telling people I’m your aunt instead.”

“Sure.” Zorah tossed the empty cup in a garbage bin outside the café as they reached the entrance. “But no one would believe you’re older than me.”