Page 33

Shayne Lyro and That Time He Almost Died

Everything smelled like darkness. Shayne found himself wincing as he stirred awake, as he inhaled the fragrances of death and destruction around him. He smelled smoke, too, but not the nice kind; not the sort from campfires or the warm fireplace at Fae Café. This was something stranger and laced with far more shadows.

When he opened his eyes, he thought he was alone in a long room with bottles lining shelves and various forest herbs tied in bundles by the windows. But when he sat up, his leg bumped an arm covered in tattoos, and he took in the human leaning against the foot of his bed, fast asleep. She wore black clothes now, almost as unfitting for her as the red fairy dress and gold heels had been. The black dress hugging her body was definitely something of Dark Corner fashion, and it had Luc Zelsor written all over it.

Shayne’s first priority became finding Lily something else to wear.

He leaned forward to brush a strand of her hair out of her face, but agony speared through him and he inhaled, grabbing his midsection and realizing that reaching and stretching and all manner of other big movements wouldn’t go well for him for the next little while. So, he studied her instead.

He could still hear her screams. She’d practically turned into a human explosion when Luc had stabbed him.

Speaking of the fox devil, Shayne glanced around the large room to look for him. Even though Shayne had caught on to Luc’s plan the moment Luc had turned his fairsaber on him, he didn’t exactly care for the way Luc had gone about doing it.

Shayne lightly touched his tender stomach, thinking about Lily’s reaction all over again.

He bit his lips together as a smile formed. She would kill him if she awoke and saw him smiling like this, but truly, that had been a lot of screaming for someone who didn’t have feelings for him. Maybe she wasn’t there yet, but Lily Baker was certainly on her way to falling deeply, madly, head-over-heels in love with him. It was only a matter of time now.

But his face changed when he thought back to the moment after he’d rescued her where he’d been bleeding out against that tree and had babbled all that nonsense about “loving her since the beginning” and whatever else he’d said under the influence of potential oncoming death. He stifled a moan. Why did he do foolish things like that? Why did he run his mouth? He sighed, only finding consolation in the fact that she’d tried to shut him up at the time, which meant she’d used her powers of case solving to deduce that Shayne was not in his right mind. Had he been, he would have confessed far more stylishly.

Or, he likely wouldn’t have confessed at all.

He took in the great stone walls around him and the misty forests beyond the windows. He’d certainly never been here before, but after what happened at the border…

This had to be the Shadow Palace. Of all places. Somewhere he never in his wildest dreams thought he’d set foot even once in his faeborn lifetime.

Shayne’s mind raced as he went back to his last memory before he’d been nearly gutted before the House of Lyro and left in the grass to die. He had thought he was dead, truly. He thought he might make it to human heaven after all. But he was alive, and he was here—with Lily.

Queensbane, after all the months of Shayne’s wrestling through plans and tossing them to the wind, Luc-Foxy-Zelsor was the one who’d found a way to free him. Shayne brought a hand to his forehead as he considered what it meant now that his blood family thought he was dead. He dropped his hand to stare at that ring—the one he’d bound to himself, the one that would never come off. The one Hans-Der hadn’t even asked to get back after Luc’s stunt. The one he’d felt sick to slide onto his finger in the first place; a thick chunk of gold that was now powerless. He tugged at it, even though he already knew it wouldn’t budge. And then he laughed because, even though he was free, he would forever have a reminder of his heritage, of the last name he wished to scrub from his life, of his memories of the Ever Corners he’d tried so hard to convince Mor to take away.

“Stupid ring,” he remarked, dropping his hand to his lap.

The doors at the end of the room squeaked open, and in walked Luc wearing an extravagant black coat that was almost as ugly as his other coat had been, and a spindly black wreath-crown with jagged spokes, black opals, and silver moonstones. Luc even carried a large scepter he used as a walking stick that made Shayne laugh. “You look like a clown,” he promised when Luc was close enough, even though Luc was the Dark King and the Shadows who tailed him wouldn’t like the insult one bit.

“I look menacing,” Luc corrected. “Which is fitting since I am menacing. I’m also the one who saved you, in case you haven’t figured that out yet, North Fairy.”

All his loud self-glorifying made Lily stir. She batted her eyelashes as she woke and lifted from the bed. She inhaled slowly, then reached her arms high in the air and stretched.

Shayne clasped his hands together and squeezed them, his faeborn heart nearly bursting as he watched her be that cute. “Stop it,” he warned her, and she looked over at him in question. “You’re supposed to be tough and angry like always.”

She raised an eyebrow, but didn’t ask what he was talking about. Instead, she lifted from her seat and came closer. “Are you alright?” she asked, and he revelled in every bit of concern in her tone. He was obsessing over it too hard to notice that Cress, Mor, and Dranian had followed Luc into the room.

“One of your minions just told me you sent a letter to Queene Levress,” Cress said, taking over the conversation about two seconds after he arrived. He rushed over and put a hand on Luc’s shoulder that caused the trio of Shadow Fairies around him to glare. “What did you say to Levress?” Cress demanded.

Luc carefully peeled Cress’s fingers off his shoulder. “I threatened war,” he told him. “I told her the great Cressica Alabastian was in fact alive, as the rumours claim, and that he was allied with me , the Dark King, and if she ever tried to find you or send one of her assassin guard dogs after you, or if she ever dared to send one of her loser North Fairies into the human realm to spy on you, I’d send the greatest army in the Ever Corners—”

“Second greatest,” Cress mumbled in objection.

“—to the Silver Castle, and she would regret the day she broke the delicate peace between the Dark and North Corners.” Luc shrugged. “Simple.” Then he looked around from fairy to fairy—to human—and back to fairy as a slow, broad smile split his mouth. “Don’t you all want to know how I became King?” he asked.

“Not really,” Cress grumbled. He folded his arms with a slight pout. Mor pressed a fist over his mouth like he was trying not to laugh at him.

“Let’s get one thing straight, Foxy,” Shayne said as he pulled the covers off himself. He turned with a grimace, pain shooting through his whole faeborn body, and he put his legs over the side of the bed. Then he glared at Luc. “You practically killed me.”

“Yes, well, you killed me first,” Luc reminded him. “And I did say I’d get my revenge. We’re even now, North Fairy. And just in case you’re all dying to know, I became King because I slaughtered the Queene of—”

“Eiw.” Lily covered her ears.

“—the Dark Corner on her throne, and then I gave the Shadow Court two options. I told them to gather and vote on whether they’d execute me for treason or to fully King me. It seems I was right about what they’d decide, since I pointed out I was the last living member of the royal family, and my bloodline has remained in power for seventeen generations.” He snapped and pointed. “I’m also not the first one in my family to assassinate a King or Queene to steal the throne. So, I had that going for me.”

“Congratulations,” Mor mumbled in a low voice. It was hard to tell if he was being sarcastic or not.

Luc did a spin so that everyone could see his coat from all sides or something. “You can all thank me now. I fixed everything, like I said I would.” He pointed his scepter at Cress. “I even fixed your thing, when I didn’t have to.” Then he jabbed it toward Shayne. “And yours, North Fairy.”

Dranian clapped, and Shayne shot him a look that made him clap slower and then eventually stop.

The candlelit dinner in the Shadow Palace was every bit as horrifying as Shayne could have imagined. He’d never spent much time thinking about the Dark Corner or its practices, or its decorations, or the things the Shadows considered to be valuable. But it was clear now as he looked down the black tablecloth at the gloomy curtains mostly covering the dim, filtered light slipping through the twisting cloud in the sky outside. Tall silver candlesticks speared the air like broken fingers, holding candles that dripped wax all over the tablecloth. But the cherry on top was the fox sitting at the head of the table in his heavy black crown, now fashioning a new coat with slick black feathers around the collar that seemed to be swallowing him whole. Luc picked at a plate of meat he seemed too revulsed at the sight of to actually eat. If Shayne didn’t know any better, he’d think Luc was secretly plotting to escape this dungeon of darkness, even if it did seem to suit his evil personality.

The rest of Shayne’s brothers, Lily, and Mycra sat around the table, nudging their plates every now and then so wax wouldn’t drip on their food.

Cress leaned over to Mor and didn’t whisper quietly enough, “This is worse than your cathedral, Mor. It’s like we’re trapped in the underworld.”

Mor bit down on his lips, but a smirk still formed. “I think we’ll go home after this,” he said back to Cress. “I’m a Shadow Fairy and even I’m going to have nightmares from looking around this place too long.”

Naturally, Lily was every bit as oblivious as usual about how mighty she seemed as she braved the meat first. She took a bite, and Shayne watched her chew and swallow it. He sat back in his chair and folded his arms, waiting for the sassy remark he knew would be coming next.

Dranian leaned and mumbled something to Mycra.

Cress nudged Mor, then pointed down at something on his plate in disgust.

And then , there it was: Lily lifted her head, glanced down the table at Luc, and said, “If this food makes me feel dizzy, or dance, or do literally anything but be normal, I’m going to shoot your head off.”

Shayne had to plug his nose so he wouldn’t snort a laugh all the way down the table.

But if that wasn’t enough, Lily turned to the others and added, “And seriously, does this taste like garbage to anyone else?”

Luc’s rosy lips spread into a tantalizing smirk. “You’d make a great fairy queene, dear Lily. Only the fearsome ones throw fits over their food.”

Shayne’s smile fell. “Easy, Foxy,” he warned as he reached for his water goblet. “We might mistake that for a proposal.”

Luc shoved his plate away, then lifted his pale hands and folded them on the table. “It can be one if she wants it to be one,” he said. When he smiled, a sweet fragrance rippled down the table, and the candle flames flickered. Everything grew a little warmer, and Lily’s gaze was sucked in Luc’s direction like he held the end of a magnet. Shayne’s fingers tightened around his goblet. It was already horrid enough that Lily was dressed in a sleek black dress from Luc’s palace and had her hair brushed by his servants, but now she was breathing in his furry fox fragrance?

Shayne slammed his water against the tabletop and stood from his seat. “I have something to go do,” he claimed. He turned and marched for the hallway, only realizing once he was there that he’d been gripping his water goblet so hard he forgot to let it go.

As soon as he was in the hall, he peeked around for doorways, certain he could find a room somewhere with something better inside it for Lily to wear. Even if it was burlap.

But he hadn’t taken three steps around the bend when he heard Lily’s hushed voice sail through the dining room and ask, “Does Shayne have feelings for me? Like, for real?”

Shayne’s feet came together on the cold floor. He realized he was stuck there, blending into the rows of ancient fairy statues lining the walls.

Had she actually forgotten how fairy ears worked—again? Did she really not realize Shayne could hear the question loud and clear even down the hall?

It was Mor who replied with certainty. “Sky deities, no ,” he said.

Shayne breathed a sigh of relief. At least Mor had his back. He was lucky Lily hadn’t asked Cress or Dranian. Neither of them would have kept their cool.

“Then why can’t you look me in the eyes?” Lily asked Mor, and Shayne grabbed his hair in his fist.

It wasn’t like she didn’t know. He’d already told her; he’d already yacked his faeborn face off and spewed everything into the air. It shouldn’t have stressed him out to have her flat out ask about his crush after all he’d said already. But still…

Shayne whirled around and tiptoed back toward the dining room. He leaned in, spying around the doorframe just in time to see Mor shove an enormous clump of meat into his mouth which Shayne knew full well was so that he wouldn’t have to answer Lily’s question.

The scheming little detective went on, “When Cress liked Kate, you could all sniff his fairy crush. Shayne can’t possibly like me without you knowing, right?” She didn’t admit to them all the nonsense Shayne had said to her in the woods.

Dranian spoke up out of nowhere, “That’s because Cress had no experience with romance and females and bumbled around like a fool. The inexperienced ones can’t hide it. But Shayne has plenty of experience with females and romance and hiding things and—”

“Never mind!” Lily waved a hand to shoo him off, her face all twisted and bothered now. “I wish I never asked,” she mumbled as she pushed her plate away.

Shayne relaxed against the wall. He wanted to give Dranian a high-five for being the winner of the conversation and for bringing it to an end. It was all good now. It was all safe—

“You’re an open book though, dear Lily.” The sound of Luc’s voice was like a dull knife scratching against a sleek rock. Shayne’s head whipped back to see Luc level his silvery, creepy, unblinking gaze on Lily until she shifted in her seat.

Mor cast Luc a doubtful look. “What are you talking about? I’ve tried reading this human a hundred times. She’s not an open book.”

“You forget that I steal secrets, Trisencor. And I stole all of Lily’s secrets a long time ago,” Luc stated.

“What?!” Lily dropped her cutlery. “When did you steal my secrets?! That is such a violation of human rights!” She pointed at him with her knife. “That’s why no one will forgive you for what you did to Violet, you moron! Un- real !”

Luc sipped his water and leaned back against his glitzy seat. “Then I should add that I didn’t need to steal your secrets, dear Lily. I figured out everything about you long before I stole anything,” he said. “And also—I’m not a human, so your ‘human rights’ rule doesn’t apply to me.” Then he raised his glass toward Mor and Cress. “If you all practiced studying people a little more instead of relying on your fairy senses to tell you things, you might have picked up on her feelings a long time ago.”

“What feelings?” Cress demanded. He leaned forward to see around Mor, and he looked Lily over. “She doesn’t have any feelings. She’s like a lump of rock. She feels nothing.”

“She does, actually,” Luc corrected. “She’s just one of those rare humans who fairies can’t discern, you fools.”

Cress grunted and folded his arms like he didn’t believe it for one second. Mor cast Luc a look of warning, but it did nothing as Luc tapped the table with his forefinger like he was leading some absurd group therapy session no one wanted to be a part of.

Shayne almost barged in and put an end to it. He had the thought to go flip over Luc’s chair with him still in it. He swished out from behind the wall and marched into the room, but he froze in place when Luc said, “Dear Lily, you are so madly in love with that barefoot North Fairy that it’s hard to notice anything else about you.”

The smashing sound of a goblet hitting the floor rang through the room. Shayne didn’t realize it was his goblet. That he’d dropped it. That all the noise was coming from him, and now his feet were wet and his pantlegs were damp with cold water.

He only realized it when Lily’s face turned toward him and her mouth parted, her eyes wide. Her cheeks became pink like all the flowers in the universe blossomed inside them. “I… That’s…” She shook her head. Then she stood like she had something important to say—to him, to everyone. But she said nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing, nothing, and still nothing.

So, Mor spoke up. “That’s ridiculous,” he said in what sounded like a feeble attempt to come to her defense, but he waited with strange, worried eyes like he was also wondering why she didn’t deny it.

“Want to help me out, Dreamslipper?” Luc said to Mycra. “You saw inside her head.”

Mycra instantly raised her hands. “I’m staying out of this.”

And that was it. That was proof enough.

Shayne gasped. Loudly. He slapped both his hands over his mouth, and he pointed right in Lily’s human face.

“You’re in love with me!” He bellowed it for the whole Dark Corner to hear, accidentally producing the biggest smile he’d ever formed.

He found himself moving across the room, pushing aside a chair, kicking over candlesticks and stepping in Dranian’s food as he scurried over the table to close the gap between them—even though she backed away and continued to shake her head like the little liar she was trying to be.

“It’s alright, Trisencor.” Luc was still talking for some reason. “You wouldn’t have been able to sense it. He should have figured it out though.” He might have nodded toward Shayne’s back because he added, “And you call yourself a romantic. Idiot.” He sighed. “That’s why she’d be better off with me.”

“You like me. Admit it!” Shayne demanded of Lily. “Tell me the truth, ugly Human!”

Instantly, Lily stood at attention and blurted, “I do like you. I would take a bullet for you if I had to.” But her jaw dropped, and her mouth hung open. Her hand came over it, and a strange sort of deadly accusation moved across her eyes, telling Shayne he’d done something wrong even though he had no idea what. That was, until he realized…

“Oh…”

Shame. Shame on him for forgetting— again . Queensbane, he was really in for it now.

He grinned anyway. A love confession under the force of enslavement was still a love confession.

“How do you feel about marriage?” he asked her. “Do you want to get married before Cress and Kate and rub it in their faces?”

Lily and Cress growled at the same time, “What?!”

Shayne grabbed Lily’s hands so she couldn’t flee, or hit him, because she was giving off slight ‘ I want to punch you’ vibes.

“No, Shayne!” she said. “I don’t need a guy to take care of me, which is why I’ve always said I’m not getting married—”

“Yes, you are,” he corrected with a chuckle. “And when you do, I’ll take your last name. Mine sucks. Everything Lyro sucks.”

Somewhere behind them, Mor was trying so hard not to laugh, he squeaked. Then, in his low voice, he said, “I apologize, Cress. But this is quite possibly the funniest thing I have ever witnessed in my entire faeborn life.”

“I’ll wear hoodies all the time and push up my sleeves to my elbows,” Shayne promised. “You’ll love it.” He clasped Lily’s hand and tugged her back to the table, then he nudged Dranian out of his seat so he could sit beside her— Lily —the human who loved him so much she could die. Who probably was having a hard time keeping her hands off him now that they were engaged.

Females.

“This is outrageous!” Cress stated. “That does not count as a proposal! I’m getting married first! I call the human right of dibs!”

“We’ll see,” Shayne said.

Luc rubbed his temples at the end of the table. “Oh dear. You’re all exhausting sometimes,” he muttered. “I was planning to return to the human realm, but in this moment, I’m considering just being King and ruling over my subjects with an iron fist. It would be less annoying than dealing with all of you.”

“You’re returning to the human realm?” Mor asked in surprise. “Will the Shadow Court allow that?”

Luc sighed. “I’m King, Trisencor. I can do what I want. Besides, I have a job now in the human realm to go back to.”

“What job? I didn’t hear of any job.” Cress looked around the table like he was trying to figure out if anyone else knew about it.

“I already told you; I rescue puppies from trees and save babies.” Luc lifted his goblet and took a long drink. “Oh—” he lifted a finger “—didn’t I also say I volunteer in an old-people’s-home or something?” He tapped that same finger against his chin. “I don’t remember.”

Mor rolled his eyes and folded his arms. “You and your lies,” he said. “Just once, I wish you’d tell us the truth straight up.”

Luc smiled devilishly. “One day, Trisencor, you will see just how many times you thought I was lying when I wasn’t.”

“Will you still be living in our apartment with me and Dog-Shayne?” Dranian murmured.

Shayne’s head snapped toward him. “Who is Dog-Shayne?” he asked. “And what do you mean ‘ living in our apartment ’?”

“Of course,” Luc replied to Dranian. “I just spent the last weeks pretending to be in two places at once, and I’ve discovered I’m good at it. My fellow Shadow Fairies never even realized I was gone. It won’t be that difficult to check in every now and then and do some King-ish things. Throw a few royal fits. Maybe snap a few necks while I’m at it.”

Shayne watched Lily wince and shake her head.

“Let’s go home, then,” Cress decided. “Immediately. I’ll lose my faeborn-cursed mind if I stay here any longer.” He glanced up at the vaulted, web-covered ceiling heights of the Shadow Palace.

At the mention of home, warmth spilled into Shayne’s chest. “Home,” he whispered to himself. It drew Lily to glance over at him. He smiled as it settled in that he was going there, back to the human realm, back to Fae Café, back to the box of space he’d promised to share with Dranian, back to wearing his burgundy apron, and enchanting coffee drinks. Back to peace and simplicity. Back to everything he loved. And especially, back to where he belonged.

A hand slid into his beneath the table. His gaze darted over to Lily, and he realized he’d maybe reached human heaven for a split second when he caught her smiling. “You’re such a child,” she whispered, filled with all the endearing, ‘I’m-completely-obsessed-with-you’ feelings she would totally deny later.

“And you’re not as ugly as you think, ugly Human,” he told her.

Her face changed like she couldn’t decide if that was a compliment or not. “I told you not to call me that.”

“Ah, you’re right.” Shayne nodded. “I think I agreed to call you Messy-Haired Scarecrow from now on, didn’t I?”

She pulled her hand out of his. “Shayne,” she said flatly.

“Scarecrow?” he asked in all innocence.

Lily rolled her eyes, but there was a teensy smirk on the corners of her mouth. Shayne stared at that mouth of hers, with its little quirking movements and its bad habits of lying and being sassy. He’d never wanted to kiss anything so bad. She’d probably shove him off if he tried it in front of everyone though since she wasn’t one for public displays of affection—something he would have to make her change her mind about since he was excellent at public displays of affection.

Yes, he’d kiss that mouth very soon.