Page 11

Luc Zelsor and the Thing He Did Right After His Visit to the Dark Corner

Five Days Ago

No matter how many times Luc scrubbed his fingers with soap, he couldn’t get the purple out from beneath his fingernails. He tossed the scrubby brush away and grabbed the sides of the sink to rest, dragging his lovely gaze up to peer at his reflection in the bathroom mirror.

Considering how many fairies he’d just executed, he didn’t look half bad. There was a light speckle of bruising along his neck, but his face was untouched, and that was possibly the most important part. His hands though…

He raised his hands and grimaced at the cuts. A blueing bruise wrapped his thumb, too. It had nearly been broken clean off, but it seemed to have melded okay now that everything was reattached.

The apartment was quiet with Dranian off on his adventure and Dog-Shayne staying with clingy Beth. Luc smoothed down his scarlet hair and brushed his teeth for the road as he revelled in the silence. It had been so loud in the Shadow Palace. His ears still rung. His eyes stung too from all the pesky smoke.

He only had one thing left to do before he returned to the Corners of Ever, and that was to get some protection. He wasn’t sure how things were going to land for him in the near future, if all was well or all was lost. It would depend on the vote. And once that was decided, he might need a rather terrific bodyguard.

Luc airslipped from the apartment and headed down the street where snow lightly dusted the roads and shop owners were stringing up Yule Celebration lights. He scanned the shops’ windowsills, trying to remember where he’d seen a basket of forest debris that morning as he was passing by. It took him a few minutes, but he spotted the basket inside a ‘loose-leaf tea’ shop.

Luc chuckled at the thought. Loose leaf tea. Wasn’t all tea made of loose leaves?

He nudged his way in and coughed to fetch the attention of the shop owner. But the man was in the far back helping a customer, and Luc was short on time. So, he waited until no one was looking. Then he reached over to the basket of forest debris—shelled nuts and fruit—and he slipped a walnut into his sleeve.

He turned to go with his prize.

“Merry Christmas!” the store owner called after him as he left.

Luc flashed back a smile and waved. The door slid shut behind him and he stuck his hands into his pockets as he headed down the road toward a small café with a purple awning and the scent of a pretentious North Prince’s ego wafting out of it. Luc lifted the nut and sang a sweet, magical tune into its ear. Then he slid it back into his pocket and crushed the shell in his palm, spilling its yummy fragments out.

Fae Café had its fireplace going when Luc walked in. He hesitated at the door when he sniffed the wave of Shadow Fairy inside. “Oh dear,” he muttered. He hadn’t expected Mor to be here. Everything got more complicated when Mor was around.

Nevertheless, Luc pushed his way in and offered his sweetest smile. He accidentally saw Mor first, and his smile faltered.

“Trisencor,” he greeted anyway, “I see you have a new holiday menu.”

Mor’s judgemental gaze settled on Luc as he slid onto a stool at the counter. A cringeworthy green apron was draped over Mor’s muscular frame now instead of the tacky burgundy ones his High Court usually wore.

“What are you doing here, Luc?” Mor asked. When he folded his arms, it sort of seemed like he was flexing.

“I came for a coffee, naturally. Don’t you know I drink coffee now?” Luc eyed an enormous slice of blueberry pie at the end of the counter.

“Don’t you know you can go somewhere else to get it?” Mor said right back.

Luc pointed to the pie. “Can I have that?”

“No.” Mor slid the pie away a little further. “That’s Cress’s. So unless you want your last fox life crushed beneath a faestone elbow, don’t touch it.”

Luc smiled. “I wouldn’t dare.”

Mor looked like he was stifling an eye roll as he rotated and fetched the coffee pot. The second his back was turned, Luc slid a chunk of walnut from his pocket. He reached across the counter and stuffed it inside the pie, right between two gooey blueberries.

“I’ll ask again,” Mor said as he turned back around with a filled paper cup. He reached for a lid and fastened it to the top, then he slid it across the counter to Luc. “What are you doing here?”

“I was in the neighbourhood. Isn’t that what humans say?” Luc said as he received the coffee and took a whiff of the delicious bean scent.

“That’s not an answer.” Mor picked up a newspaper, rested it on the counter, then leaned forward and began to read like he’d suddenly decided Luc was no longer there, or was more likely waiting for Luc to leave.

Luc sighed. “What do you want to know, Mor? Fine. I was rescuing puppies from trees and saving babies,” he said.

This time, Mor didn’t stifle any of his eye roll.

“Don’t you know I volunteer in an old-people’s-home now, too?” Luc went on, and Mor shoved the newspaper aside. He bit his lips together like he’d run out of ideas of how to ignore Luc.

“Luc,” he said. Surprisingly, it wasn’t said with distain or annoyance. “Are you really going to keep living with Dranian?”

“Yes.” Luc lifted his coffee and took his first sip. He gagged. “This is black,” he stated. “It’s horrid.”

Mor let out a long breath. He took the coffee back and mixed in some sugar and cream. When he returned with Luc’s coffee, it was clear the quiet barista had something to say. So, Luc tried his drink while he waited. This time, it was delicious.

“I still don’t think I can trust you,” Mor admitted. “And I’m not sure what to do about it, since we’ve established I can’t kill you. And I’m worried that grumpy fool has actually taken a liking to you, which is absurd.”

“Ah.” Luc nodded. “It’s absurd to you because you abandon people, Trisencor. Dranian, on the other hand, is loyal.” He took another sip of his coffee and stood from the stool. “And no, you can’t trust me. Not with anything— except , you can trust me with Dranian. Someday I might even prove it to you.” He dug into his pocket and pulled out a few pebbles for payment. “Here. Put these in the register and tell whoever asks that they’re gold.”

Mor blinked slowly. “I’m not doing that,” he said.

Luc shrugged. “Your loss.”

In one sweep, Mor flicked all the pebbles off the counter. They splattered onto the floor and bounced everywhere.

“Queensbane, what is this mess?” A low voice filled the café, and Luc beheld the great Cressica Alabastian emerging from the staircase in an exceptional, perfectly tailored navy suit. The Prince looked like one of the rich characters in a TV series as he fiddled with his cuffs, as he glided over the floor, as a sunbeam soared through the window like a spotlight, and Luc could have sworn a gust of wind breathed across the room and fluttered Cress’s shiny hair in slow, wispy motions. Music came from somewhere too, and Luc was sure no moment could be this flawless without magic.

Luc’s smile broadened. The North High Prince was perfect.

The idiot was in for a great surprise.

“Look at me in this suit. I think I’ll wear this every day, Mor,” Cress stated, too self-absorbed to notice Luc standing there.

“If you get one drop of pie on that suit, Cress, you’ll lose your mind and we’ll all be hearing about it until Spring. Take it off and don’t you dare put it back on again until your wedding,” Mor scolded. He yanked the pie plate away before Cress could get it, and Luc frowned. “Promise me,” Mor demanded, holding the pie at bay.

Cress sighed loudly. “Fine. I won’t.”

Luc grunted a laugh. He knew a lying face when he saw one. He sipped his coffee as he turned to go, and he glanced over at the clock beside the calendar on the wall, calculating the long journey through the wind ahead of him.

He’d just pushed his way outside when he overheard Mor murmur to Cress, “I told Dranian to move out of his apartment. I told him he could live with me.”

The door slid closed, but Luc’s delicate ears tilted back to hear Cress reply, “Dranian can handle himself.” Cress sounded distracted, like he was still ogling at his suit. “He’ll tell us if he needs us, Mor. We all have an agreement now to not keep secrets, and Dranian is easy to interrogate. Also—he hates your cathedral.”

Luc stepped to the side, keeping out of sight of the Fae Café windows. He waited. He wasn’t sure why; he had a place to be.

“I suppose,” Mor replied. “But I’m just nervous with Dranian after he went against those Shadow Fairies on his own. I wouldn’t be able to handle it if something happened to any one of you and I wasn’t there to do something about it.”

Luc’s fingers curled around a brick in the wall at his back. He accidentally broke a chunk off and it smashed to the sidewalk. A middle-aged human female started as she walked by until Luc flashed her a sweet smile filled with fox charm. She relaxed and dipped her head in greeting, blushing as she left.

Once she was gone, Luc closed his eyes, leaned his head back against the wall, and sucked in a slow lungful of air.

What a herd of losers.

Their barefoot friend was flirting with death, likely going to die. And now Luc was going to be the heartless fool who’d stared Mor in the eyes and hadn’t said anything about it.

“Why do all these North Fairies keep ruining my life?” he asked the sky deities.

He had no interest in helping or saving the High Court of the Coffee Bean. But maybe there was a tedious, ever-whining part of him that sort of wanted to prove something.

When Luc peeled his eyes open, his gaze settled on the bakery across the street where fresh loaves were being wrestled into plastic bags and placed on shelves. He was getting a little tired of using enchantments on everything, but one last one wouldn’t hurt.