Shayne Lyro and the Secret-y Thing that Happened
Before He Left
Two Months Ago
The floor of Kate’s apartment was filthy. Shayne hadn’t noticed it until he laid upside down on the couch in the living space with his legs up the backrest and his white hair sweeping the floor.
Mor sighed loudly when he came in. He didn’t bother asking what Shayne was doing or why he was upside down. Dranian didn’t ask questions either; he came into the apartment as straight-faced as ever, glanced at Shayne’s toes dancing in the air, and kept walking until he reached the kitchen island with Mor. He pulled out a stool and sat down.
Cress, however, was entirely incapable of passing by without a word.
“Your feet are ghastly, Shayne!” he scolded. “Look!” His finger did an up-and-down sweep of pointing out all the dirt Shayne had collected on his foot-bottoms over the last day. “I shall cut off your feet altogether if you ever —”
Shayne slid his leg over and tried to poke Cress in the eye with his toe. The fearsome, severely over-glorified Prince of the North Corner swatted toward Shayne’s quick feet, missing over and over until he gritted his teeth and pointed at Shayne like he was about to announce something very important. Shayne grinned. It seemed to only make matters worse though, and Cress’s lips thinned as he grappled Shayne’s legs together. Shayne laughed as he was dragged sideways off the couch and tossed into a heap on the floor.
“Agh!” Cress looked himself over in disgust as if assessing his body for damage. He wiped his hands down his shirt to rid himself of Shayne’s nonexistent filth.
Shayne brought his arms up and clasped his fingers behind his head as he watched from the floor. The second Cress moved to take a step toward the counter where Mor and Dranian waited, Shayne stuck out his leg and tripped him.
The squealing of a gracefully falling fae prince filled the apartment. Even Mor pressed a fist against his mouth to hide his laughter this time. Then, through his fingers, he said to Cress, “You know he only does things like that because you react so strongly.”
Cress ripped a cushion off the couch and hurled it at where he must have thought Shayne was. Shayne watched the cushion sail by, fling off the nearest chair, soar into the kitchen, and smash against Kate’s mug collection. Ringing sounds of shattering goblets overtook the apartment, the catastrophe hidden from Shayne’s sight behind the island. Only Mor sprang for the mugs, but he didn’t catch a single one before the whole collection met its end. Mor’s hands remained out and empty as all four fairies went rigid and exchanged looks.
A light croaking sound came from Cress. He slapped a hand over his eyes. “We’re done for!” he shouted. Then he pointed at Shayne with his other hand. “This is why we were told not to engage in shenanigans in Katherine’s apartment anymore!”
Shayne propped himself onto his elbows. “How bad is it?” he asked Mor, cringing.
Mor glanced down toward the floor. “It’s not great,” he admitted. “I’ll get the broom—Cress! What are you doing?”
Shayne scrambled backward when he noticed Cress marching toward him on his knees with a new cushion, his turquoise eyes narrowed and lethal.
“I’m suffocating the problem once and for all!” Cress declared. He lunged for Shayne, holding the cushion toward his face. Mor suddenly appeared, grabbing Cress around his middle and holding him still as Shayne scrambled to his feet. Shayne wasn’t sure why Mor bothered since he was perfectly capable of fending off Cress on his own, until Lily’s voice came from behind him.
“Are you crazy, Cress?!” she asked.
Shayne’s smile widened. He looked Cress dead in the eyes, and he shot him a perfectly timed look of gloating. Cress wouldn’t dare try anything deadly with Lily present.
Lily even appeared in front of him, her back all tense like she was going to protect him from Cress , and thus, fulfilling all Shayne’s hopes and dreams in one single second. It was adorable. As if she could do anything against Cress. She’d be lucky to give him a papercut, and she’d spend all her energy doing it.
Honestly, Shayne just wanted to hug her from behind and squeeze her like a human teddy bear sometimes.
He tore his gaze off Lily’s back when she whirled around.
Far across the apartment, a bug crawled up the wall. Shayne focused all his attention on it. That, and doing everything in his power not to smile right in her face. Because she’d tried to save him.
Oops—a smile slipped out. And a little sniffle-laugh.
“Shayne!” Lily shouted. “What happened? What was that huge crash?”
Shayne settled his gaze on the human he accidentally thought about all the time for no particular reason. How irritating she was to be the one who popped into his mind whenever he awoke from his night terrors. To be the sole provider of the happy thoughts that reminded him what was real and what was a nightmare. Lily Baker was greedy for stealing so much of his brain’s time.
A strand of her maize hair had escaped her ponytail, likely from her race up the stairs. “You have nothing to worry about, ugly Human,” Shayne assured her, patting her on the head. “Now, go do something with that horrid lion’s mane of fur you call hair.”
Lily was pretty when she scowled. Truly picturesque. Her stink-face would go nicely on a calendar, and Shayne wondered if he should take the idea from Mor and create a calendar for the café with all of Lily’s most horrid faces. She’d love it.
“Anyway—” Shayne wrapped an arm around her shoulders and guided her back toward the stairs before she might take a step deeper into the kitchen and spot the sea of mug crumbs on the floor, “—say hi to Officer Greene for me today. Tell him I’ll bring him those tartlets he asked for next time I come in…”
Lily made a sound and moved toward the stairs, but Shayne found himself tightening his grip on her shoulders. She looked up at him with a strange blend of accusation and question as he held her there, tilting his head and scrunching his nose as he inhaled.
“Human, I don’t suppose you’ve come into contact with any fairies you haven’t told us about, hmm?” he asked. His fingers dug in a little as her eyes widened and her lips peeled apart.
“What? No way!” she said with a tone that was wobbly and all over the place.
Shayne whirled her to face him, dragged her forward, and brought his face right into her messy hair. He breathed in, eyeing a loose hair and winding it around his finger.
Two hands came against his chest and shoved him back. He let Lily push him, falling away a step or two.
Shayne chewed on his lip, then he smiled. “Have a good day at work.” It was as sarcastic as sarcastic could be. Lily seemed to know it, too. She looked back and forth between his eyes for a moment and finally grunted, heading for the stairs with folded arms.
Shayne waited for her to leave. Waited until the door swung shut behind her, until her footsteps promised she was downstairs. Then he turned to his brothers.
“Now I’m sure of it. She’s hiding something, and I can’t stop thinking about it,” he stated. “It’s driving me faeborn mad!” He released a long, melodic huff.
Cress scowled. “You always think everyone’s hiding something.” He tossed his cushion weapon back to the couch.
“Just ignore him,” Mor murmured to Cress. “He’s only saying this to get you riled up again. Why do you always fall for it?”
“I’m not just saying it!” Shayne stated. He crossed his arms. “Her hair smells like fairy blood. Why in the name of the sky deities would one of our humans smell of fairy blood?”
Mor sighed and went to get the broom from the closet. When he pulled it out, he started sweeping the kitchen. Large mug chunks went straight into the garbage.
“Perhaps your senses are off,” Dranian mumbled.
Cress nodded. “He’s right. You’ve been living in the human realm so long you don’t know what you’re smelling or sensing or whatever.” He waved a hand through the air as he went to fetch the other cushion.
“Smell this.” Shayne held up the hair he’d stolen from Lily’s ponytail. “Then you decide if I’m going mad for nothing.”
Mor released an exasperated sound and marched across the apartment. He took the hair as if he had a thousand other things he’d rather be doing, and he sniffed it. “It’s normal,” he stated, but his brows pulled together. He blinked down at the hair. Slowly, he lifted it to his nose again, and this time when he smelled it, he inhaled deeply, rolling it between his fingers.
He dropped his hand to his side and glanced off. He didn’t say anything for a moment.
“What is it, Mor?” Cress leaned forward, eyeing Mor’s hand. “Is it plain and normal and all that?”
Mor’s brown-silver gaze became level with Shayne’s. “If you’re wrong about this, and Lily finds out we’re snooping into her human life, you’re going to be the one to pay for it.”
Shayne smiled and thrust a victory fist into the air.
“I suggest lashings as punishment if he’s wrong,” Cress said.
“I’m not wrong,” Shayne promised. “Did you know Lily frequents a secret building across the city? It’s called Desmount Tech —the same company that equips the police force with some very astounding gear—”
“What exactly are you suggesting?” Mor asked.
Shayne grinned again. “I’m suggesting we handle it like we would have in the Brotherhood. We go at night, we infiltrate, we interrogate, and we get the answers we need.”
“And if you’re wrong?” Mor challenged.
Shayne tapped a finger against his chin. “If I’m wrong, Cress can give me six lashings—”
“Ten,” Cress decided.
“Fine, ten. But if I’m right —”
“If you’re right, you’ll just be faeborn right. That’s all there is to it,” Mor cut in.
“No. If I’m right about this, I want you to erase my memories of the Four Corners so that I only know of this place.” Shayne twirled a finger around the apartment.
Dranian nearly fell off his stool at the island, and Cress gasped.
Mor stared though. The Shadow Fairy didn’t say anything—didn’t mention to the others that this was not the first time Shayne had asked him to do this.
“That is preposterous, Shayne!” Cress announced. “Why would you want to forget the things of your youth and childling years? The lessons we learned to evade fairy tricks? Your assassin training? And… all the other important things?”
Shayne held Mor’s gaze. Mor was the one who knew the extent of Shayne’s nightmares. He was also the one who’d endured Shayne’s incessant, obnoxious begging over the last few days to have everything erased in hopes it might cure him of his sleeping torment. Even so…
“I’m not doing that,” Mor stated.
Shayne sighed and stuffed his hands into his pockets. He found a button in there. One he’d stolen right off a snobbish human’s coat. “Fine. I’ll take the just being faeborn right thing. Being right about this is satisfaction enough.” He pointed to Cress. “Unless I can give Cress lashes?”
“Absolutely not!” Cress snapped back as he marched over. “I was once a prince of the North Corner of—”
Shayne threw the button into Cress’s open mouth.
Cress gagged and Mor bit his lips over a smile. He turned his head away so Cress wouldn’t see it.
“Dranian and I will plan our heist for this evening and give you details within the hour,” Shayne said to Mor as Cress spat the button out. Shayne leaned to see past them and called to Dranian, “You coming?”
Dranian slid off his seat without a word and hastened to the stairs.
“I could use a coffee,” Shayne added as he pushed out the apartment door and led the way down. “I call the good chair by the fireplace—”
Dranian rushed forward, and Shayne sprang after him. They shoved each other, fighting for position at the bottom of the stairs. Dranian nudged Shayne aside with his hip and managed to exit the stairwell first, but in the end Shayne latched onto the back of Dranian’s shirt, yanked it so hard it ripped off, and took the opportunity of Dranian going dead-still in the middle of the café with his rippling abs exposed to spring past him and land in the café’s best chair.
The moon was a heavy bulb lighting the sky, marking the path for four fae assassins in black to infiltrate a highly secure building. The whole escapade made Shayne realize that humans were a rather dumb species. Sneaking inside Desmount Tech was nearly as easy as the walk through the city to reach it. The doors weren’t even locked, and several lights were left on inside as if the fools of Lily’s big secret were inviting the fairies to come spy on them.
An itch arose on Shayne’s back as he headed down a curvy hallway. He twisted his arms this way and that to reach beneath where his crossbow was strapped, never quite finding it, until someone else’s fingers scratched the spot. Shayne released a sigh of relief.
“All that twisting was horrendous to watch. You looked like a writhing hogbeast suffering from worms,” Cress explained as he passed Shayne to peer around the hall’s edge. He mirrored the dangerous killer he once was as he inched his way forward to scout for enemies. Once satisfied, he signalled to the brothers behind him that it was safe to progress, and he slowly drew his glimmering fairsaber. A brief beat of pride moved through Shayne at seeing Cress back in murder-mode after all his time in the human realm. Shayne would rather die by a thousand hot flames than admit it, but Cress had always been the best killer among them. There was nothing quite as terrifying as seeing the coldness in Cress’s eyes when he was entering enemy territory.
A strange sound lifted in the hall as they rounded the corner. Shayne looked back and forth in confusion until Mor said, “Cress, are you humming ?”
The sound stopped.
“No,” Cress said.
Shayne felt a grin form. “Was that the theme song of that spy movie we watched last night? What was that movie called again?” He tapped the side of his head, then he snapped. “A Mission Probable!”
“That was not it,” Mor muttered.
“A Mission… Pretend-able?” Shayne guessed again.
“Mission Possible,” Dranian murmured, almost too quiet to hear.
“Ah! Yes, that was it. Mission Possible . Cress, that’s what you were humming, right?” Shayne nudged Cress’s back as they came into a room cloaked in black curtains. “Were you pretending to be that astounding human male who—”
“I don’t need to pretend to be a human, Shayne. I am far more fierce than any human spy…” Cress’s voice trailed off as he flung a black curtain aside and stepped through. Shayne followed and almost walked into Cress, but he spun off to the side, making way for Dranian to bump into Cress’s back instead.
Shayne blinked as blinding lights burned across an enormous space. A few dozen people were quietly moving about, including a small herd of dolled up human females at the far end. Every being was unarmed and seemingly unthreatened by the spies who’d infiltrated their building like the handsome human in Mission Possible . Only, unlike in the movie, this place felt safe and cozy and suspiciously cute.
A large banner hung across the wall that read: LAST DATE. LAST HOPE. LAST CHANCE FOR LOVE.
The quietness was interrupted when a female saw the assassins standing there. Her round face lit up and she rushed for them. The speedwalk triggered Cress’s fairsaber to twitch forward, so Shayne grabbed the sword and yanked it from Cress’s hand. He held it behind his back, and Mor silently took the weapon without a word. Shayne pulled off his crossbow and handed that back to Mor, too. A shuffling sound lifted by one of the curtains where Shayne imagined Mor was hiding all the weapons.
“You must be the bachelors for Last Date !” the human female exclaimed. She did a shameless gaze up and down their bodies. Dranian crossed his arms like he was trying to cover himself. “Wow, the recruiting team deserves a raise!” The female giggled and waved them forward. “Come fill out the forms so we can get started filming! Are you excited to learn which resort we’ll be sending you to? Are you excited to meet the ladies?”
Not a single fairy foot moved. Rather, Cress’s cold turquoise gaze—the one Shayne had been proud to see only seconds ago—landed on him with various tones and threats.
“What did she just say?” Cress asked slowly.
Shayne looked around at the décor, at the cameras, at the new people filtering into the large space. He scratched his head. “There’s a chance ,” he said as he clasped his hands tightly together in front of him, “that we might be in the wrong building.”
A shadowy chill crawled over Shayne’s flesh, making his bones shiver and his limbs prickle with frostbite. He was sure he’d be frozen to the floor by Cress’s ice powers and terrible mood if he wasn’t careful with the next words that came out of his mouth.
“I take back my agreement about the lashings,” Shayne settled on.
“Do you mean to tell me…” Mor said in a way that made Shayne picture him speaking through his teeth “…that we’ve walked onto a dating show? That these humans think we’re available bachelors?”
Cress pinched the bridge of his nose. “Of course they think we’re the bachelors, Mor. We’re unfathomably gorgeous!”
Shayne accidentally grinned. Dranian nudged him, making him snap out of it and force the smile off his face before Cress or Mor might notice.
Cress turned slowly to face the fairies. He raised a finger and held it mostly in Shayne’s face. “We can not be caught trying to spy on Lily,” he stated in sharp, threatening words. “We shall do whatever these humans ask so we blend in. We will not blow our cover— no matter what! ”
“Are you coming?” The same round-faced female returned on her tip toes. She fiddled with her curly hair as she waited. Four sheets of parchment and four ink pens were in her hands. “We can start with the questionnaires.”
“We aren’t prepared for an interrogation,” Dranian murmured quietly. “What shall we do, Cress?”
Cress seemed frozen in place at the sight of the questionnaires. “Don’t tell them any secrets,” he instructed. “And no matter what, don’t reveal that you’re a powerful fairy that could crush their bones and mop this floor with their spilled blood.”
Shayne chuckled and waved a hand through the air. “This is easy. Just be flirty and fun. Say you enjoy things like ‘long walks on the beach.’ That’s fake dating a human 101. I should know since I’ve been fake dating a human for ages now,” he bragged.
Cress glanced over at him. “What does won-oh-won mean?”
“It’s when you’re teaching someone a lesson. You say the topic, and then you say, 101 ,” Shayne explained.
Mor released a growly sigh. “Stop being so suspicious. You two are whispering right in front of that human,” he scolded. He shoved Shayne out of the way and went first. They all watched as Mor approached the human female and took the piece of interrogation parchment she extended toward him.
Dranian turned back for the hall.
“Where do you think you’re going?!” Cress whispered after him.
“I’m going to find the real human bachelors and lock them in a closet so they don’t expose our ploy,” he said back.
Four long hours later, the quartet of fairies stood before a large TV, staring at a collection of interviews all filling the screen at once. ‘Editors’ worked on the ‘clips’ to prepare the ‘intro episode’.
Mor’s interview took up the whole screen for a moment, and the name “ Jeff [No Last Name] ” appeared below, along with: Occupation: Long Walks on The Beach . Shayne nearly lost control of his bachelor facade when he read it.
“Don’t you dare laugh,” Mor threatened. “This is all your fault.”
Mor’s interview disappeared, replaced by clips of Cress’s. Cress had chosen the name: Cresstopher Alabrungerton. And: Occupation: Being a High Prince . Shayne slapped a hand over his face.
“What?” Cress scolded. “It’s not like anyone is going to believe it. Make your lie as close to the truth as possible without actually telling the truth. That’s deception won-oh-won .”
Far down the line of editors, a human snickered. He leaned to the male beside him and whispered, “Did this guy’s parents really make him believe he’s a prince his whole life?”
Mor grabbed Cress’s elbow to hold him still as Cress’s gaze drilled the editor’s back. “Do they think we can’t hear them?!” Cress asked through tight lips.
“Probably,” Mor pointed out. “Most humans couldn’t.”
“Of course I was told I was a prince my whole life! That’s a won-oh-won lesson of prince-ing!” Cress argued, even though no one was disagreeing with him.
Shayne leaned forward to watch as his interview came next. He was the only fairy who’d flashed dreamy smiles and answered the questions naturally.
“You chose the name Thomas Cruise ?” Cress folded his arms. “I wish I’d thought of that.”
“Yes,” Shayne said proudly. “And my occupation is Possible Missions , in case you didn’t notice.” He pointed to the TV screen.
“Hmm.” Cress nodded. Then he said, “Trade names with me.”
“Absolutely not,” Shayne returned, but then he thought better of it. “Unless you lift my lashings punishment. Then I’ll trade with you.”
Cress tapped a finger against his chin as if considering.
When Dranian’s interview appeared, the chatter died off. Shayne, Cress, and Mor all glared at Dranian at once.
“Why did you use your real name?” Mor murmured.
Dranian opened his mouth, then closed it. After a moment, he whispered, “I couldn’t think of anything else.”
“Queensbane, Dranian, please tell me you didn’t put…” Cress gave up when the words ‘ Occupation: Assassin’ filled the screen. The three of them moaned.
Dranian pouted a little. “I’m not as creative as the rest of you,” he muttered.
“Well, we’ve been exposed. Let’s sneak out the back,” Cress decided.
Shayne shook his head. “They’re going to put this on TV. We should destroy everything first.”
One of the editors looked up from where he sat with a horrified face, so Shayne flashed him a smile to promise he was joking, even though he wasn’t.
“No time,” Cress said. “We need to get back to the café before Kate and Lily notice we’re missing and begin to devise suspicions and conclusions. It’s clear one of us performs poorly under interrogation—” he cut a look toward Dranian “—so we’d better hope they don’t ask any questions of our whereabouts this evening.”
“What about the thing Lily is hiding?” Shayne asked as he followed Cress toward the curtain where Mor had stashed their weapons.
“What about it, Shayne?” Cress snapped. “Lily isn’t the sneaky sort. And if I’m being faeborn honest, you’re the sort to take everything too far. So, we’re leaving this alone before my human fiancé finds out and throws an outrageous fit over it.”
“But—”
“I’ll not have you utter another word about it,” Cress stated.
“I second that,” Mor said as he dragged the fairsabers, spear, and crossbow out from beneath the curtain. A few humans murmured questions; one even gasped when they noticed all the pointy arrows and sharp edges.
Shayne sighed. “Fine. I’ll figure it out on my own then. But you’re all going to feel like fools when I prove I’m right.” Shayne yanked his crossbow from Mor and pulled the strap on over his shoulders. He led the way to the halls. “You watch. Finding out everything about Lily Baker is going to be easy-peasy.”
Nothing was easy-peasy after that— except figuring out that Lily was building secret fairy-slaughtering weapons behind the assassins’ backs. That had, as Shayne had claimed, been easy.
Everything else came with difficulty over the next days. Sleeping. Waking up from terrible fits of fighting his blood brothers in his dreams. Experiencing the feeling of being thrown from high cliffs or drowned in the fountain in front of his childling House.
Nightmares. Dozens every night. Over and over. Nightmares that finally drove him to craft a lie about going on a trip; a lie so well planned that not even Mor could see through it. He loudly asked his brothers about the kingdom of Florida, about sunscreen and sunburns and fishing. He purchased new sandals and a ‘beach bag’. He asked about catching fish, even.
“Why do I need to use a fishing pole? I can catch a fish with my bare hands,” he said.
“Because humans don’t catch fish with their bare hands, Shayne. You’ll look preposterous,” Cress claimed.
Shayne smirked because he already knew that. He watched his brothers flutter around the café. He watched Kate and Lily as they whispered things they forgot the fairies could hear. He watched all the people he wished to live alongside forever in their merry little ways.
But he couldn’t do that. He couldn’t live merrily or peacefully as it was while every night he grew more and more mad.
So, days later, he strapped on his navy Brotherhood uniform, hefted his crossbow onto his back, and headed for the gate to assassinate a dream-meddling wench so he could live out the rest of his faeborn life with his humans. It wouldn’t take him long—just a week or two to infiltrate, eliminate the problem, and flee. Then he’d return, move into a box of space with Dranian, and the two of them would live happily ever after.