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For a moment, hope rose within Violet that maybe the pebbles were just that—pebbles. Maybe there hadn’t been as many rocks as she thought. Maybe a few had fallen in here and there over the months and she’d just freaked out when she saw them because of all that had happened. Maybe seeing a pile of rocks would always be a trigger like that.

She made it to the cathedral to find that Mor was gone. The interns hadn’t arrived yet, either. The doors had decided to shut her out today, so she sighed and walked around back. She climbed the ladder, scaled the roof, and made her way in through the bell tower, thankful to at least be in flat shoes this time.

She hung up her jacket and got the kettle going in the kitchen for tea. But when she turned around, she spotted a tiny gray stone resting on the kitchen island. Violet looked around. She couldn’t hear another soul in the cathedral. “Hello?” she called, clasping her hands tightly together.

When nothing answered, she moved for the island and lifted the stone, turning it over in her fingers.

“It’s just chance,” she muttered, annoyed she was freaking herself out so easily. She tossed it in the garbage, fixed her tea, and headed out of the kitchen. But she stopped short when she saw another pebble on the floor. Past it was another pebble. And another one after that.

Violet’s stomach dropped.

Two dozen pebbles made a neat path down the hallway, into the lobby, and around the corner toward the sanctuary. She swore they hadn’t been there a moment ago.

She didn’t realize her hands were shaking until she dropped her tea.

41

Mor Trisencor and the Moment He Lost the Fairy Game

The cathedral repairs last month had taken only a few days, mostly because Dranian and Mor knew how to work hard. Cress helped a little but always seemed to find excuses to disappear. Shayne on the other hand didn’t even hide that he wasn’t helping. He showed up, though, and lounged against the rooftop, basking in the sun and talking everyone’s faeborn ears off while Dranian handed Mor supplies by the strength of his one usable arm. In only two afternoons, Mor had patched the large hole he’d made when he’d fallen through with Violet.

The days went by without trouble after that. The air was clean of mischief.

The interns had fallen into their summer roles with ease. The sounds of clicking buttons from typing machines became the music to which those in the cathedral dwelled. The space often smelled of coffee, fresh literary dreams, and Violet’s repulsive baking. The Fairy Post had released two papers in the past four weeks, the articles written mostly by Violet, but a few by Jase and Remi as well. It freed up a lot of Mor’s time.

Time which he usually spent cleaning up after Violet.

For four weeks straight, Mor had been cleaning up after his human. She wasn’t a messy person, per se. She just had a habit of taking everything out from where it belonged and leaving it in random places for him to find, step on, kick, or accidentally crush.

Even though she’d moved back in with her non-blood-related aunt, she seemed to feel the need to keep most of her belongings in Mor’s cathedral. He pretended to mind—sometimes he huffed, sometimes he made comments, sometimes he fluttered his dark lashes in an eyeroll. But in truth, he liked finding her face paints in his bathroom, and her colourful ink pen collection on his desk, and her hair pins absolutely everywhere. It made him feel as though she was always close by, even when she went out or headed home for the evening.

Some nights she stayed late. He caught her scribbling in a journal by the fireplace in the living area, wearing his slippers and snuggled beneath his blanket. He joined her occasionally, bringing a newspaper or a novel and sitting in the chair opposite to read. And a few times, the interns joined them too, hauling their “homework” into the living space. They usually got nosy and started asking questions they shouldn’t about who Mor was, where he came from, why he was weird, and the like. Mor normally refused to answer, informing them that, “A little mystery is good for the human soul.” It was an odd collection of beings together, doing different things, thoroughly distracting each other, and chatting into the evening until everyone started yawning.

Mor loved it.

There was nothing that would make him think it all might get taken away.

It was Dranian’s designated birthday. Months ago, Shayne had discovered that humans celebrated the day of their birth every year over and over again, whereas in the Ever Corners, no one fussed about the date someone was born apart from using it to count their years of age. Mor thought it seemed like an unnecessary hassle, but he wore the party hat Shayne had provided and showed up at the breakfast tavern nevertheless to eat hog meat and cooked bird eggs with his brothers. He was sure someone was going to put an end to the long list of traditions King Shayne was forcing their High Court to adopt, especially since Shayne had designated himself eight birthdays a year, and the rest of the High Court only got one.

Mor’s phone rang, interrupting their breakfast. He slid the device out of his pocket and pushed a button or two. He held the thing to his ear. “Yes?”

“Boss, someone from The Sprinkled Scoop just showed up asking for a word with you,” Jase said from the other end of the line.

Mor smirked a little. “Does he seem… perturbed?”

“Yeah, a bit.”

“Excellent. Tell him I’ll be there in five minutes,” Mor said.

There was a pause. Then Jase asked, “Will you really be only five minutes?”

Mor smiled. It seemed his interns were catching on to things. “It’ll be closer to an hour. Feel free to tell him to wait by the front door—but don’t give him a chair to sit in. Make the fool stand.”

“Got it.”

Jase didn’t immediately say goodbye or hang up, so Mor waited as he watched Dranian shovel ketchup-covered eggs into his mouth. The auburn-haired fairy seemed entirely unbalanced since he’d injured his arm; even his eating was clumsy. A heap of eggs fell off his fork and landed on the floor. He seemed to debate whether or not he should pick them up and still eat them.

“What’s the problem?” Mor finally asked Jase.