Shayne Lyro and Paper Cranes
Red fire rained from the sky as the paper birds burst into flame and plummeted toward Shayne every two seconds. He growled when a cinder burned across his back, but he kept his eyes open, half his attention on the human shooting her fairy-killing gun at fae hunters wearing the colours of his former family. She was supposed to stay on the hill. She was supposed to stay back and hide with Mycra. But somehow she’d been sucked into the cursed middle of the army along with him.
Dranian in Cress’s stolen skin was a sight to behold. The fool raced through the hoard with his fist turned to stone and punched everything in sight—deer and fairy. He thrust his spear into a neck, then shot himself into the sky. Shayne wanted to laugh, wanted to tell Dranian he was better at being Cress than Cress was. But smiles were a luxury for whoever survived this chaos, and Shayne couldn’t find his laugh amidst the fear of his own family destroying the things he cared about most.
A head of silken red hair flashed before him, appearing and then disappearing in the blink of an eye. Luc stabbed fast and ruthlessly; Lyro’s allies didn’t know what had hit them. The fox barely stood still long enough to impale a duo of fairies at Shayne’s back before he was onto the next victim. But Shayne saw him stop before a silver-brown-eyed fairy. Luc’s opponent had a fairsaber raised, but after he stared at Luc for a moment, he dropped his blade and surrendered. Luc’s lips curled into a smile, and he disappeared again in a flash. It was suspicious—
Shayne almost yelped when Luc appeared before him with a crossbow in his hands. “For you, North Fairy,” he said, extending the crossbow and a quiver of arrows. “I know it’s your favourite.” There was an edge to his words as he tapped a very specific spot on his chest where an arrow had once pierced.
Shayne grunted and took the bow. The second he did, Luc was gone again, leaving a path of destruction through the hunters until one of them managed to toss a net around him. Shayne watched, raising his crossbow to fire as Luc was bound, asking himself why he wanted to save Luc, when Dranian appeared and ripped the net clean in half with Cress’s brute strength. So, Shayne slung the crossbow onto his back and drew up his fairsaber to slash a nearby hunter instead. The fairy fell off his deer, and Shayne stole it, mounting the creature in one leap and turning it to face his blood brothers watching from the hill.
Jethwire and Massie seemed comfortable atop their reindeers, uninterested in getting purple blood on their hands and hanboks. Even their hair was neat—Massie’s long locks were in a tight topknot high on his head with not a strand out of place. Words that desperately needed to be said burned on Shayne’s tongue. But his attention snapped to Lily when her shriek rang through the fight. She was flat on her back; she raised her gun as she scooted backward over the grass, firing and levelling a hunter. Then she rolled up to her feet and switched out her gun’s cartridge. She was shooting again before she stopped to blink.
Shayne cut up a few more hunters before he could look back at her.
Astoundingly, Lily didn’t look afraid, but Shayne could rarely catch a tone past her well-sealed fortress of emotions to know for sure. He realized this was the first time he’d seen her fight. It was the first time he wondered if maybe she really could take care of herself…
Lily went to fire, but no bullets came out. She tried again.
Click .
Her face paled as she lowered her gun. As she padded down her sweater pockets. As she watched a hunter in black armour racing toward her on a deer with his spear out.
Shayne abandoned his blood brothers and grabbed his reindeer’s antlers, veering the creature toward the hunter eyeing Lily instead. In one smooth motion, he pulled his feet up and leapt from the deer’s back. He lost his fairsaber when he collided with the hunter and ripped him off the saddle. They both plummeted to the ground and rolled twice before Shayne jammed his knuckles into the fairy’s eyes and stole his sight.
“That’s what you get for looking at one of my humans,” he informed the fairy.
Ahead, Dranian appeared at Lily’s side, holding up a stone forearm to deflect an arrow. Shayne climbed to his feet and marched over, but when he saw Lily’s brows pull together, when he heard her rhythms change from pounding and fast to slow and strange, he halted.
She looked around like she was lost. Her pretty, messy hair fell across her face as she did a full turn, searching desperately for something.
“Lily,” Shayne called sternly.
It worked—she snapped out of it. But only for a moment.
Dranian held off the Lyro forces best he could, but he looked over his shoulder at Lily in question as she stood there. As her gaze detached from Shayne again and drifted across the hoard of red, up the hill, and fell upon the two descendants of the House waiting there. Like they’d called her name.
Shayne looked to the hill.
Jethwire and Massie had dismounted their reindeers. Jethwire held a flute to his lips. The music was silent, but as he inhaled, then blew, Shayne knew he was playing it. He also knew that no flute was completely silent. That it always played for an audience, even if it was for an audience of one.
Shayne’s gaze snapped back to Lily. He broke into a run.
Across the grass, Luc was captured again. The fox fought ruthlessly to free himself from a tetrad of vine lassos. Just past him, Mycra was forced to her knees, a hunter grabbing a fistful of her hair to keep her still. She still kicked outward and snapped his knee, inviting three other hunters to leap on top of her and pin her down.
“Lily!” Shayne caught her shoulders and turned her around to face him.
Dranian tore into the skies the moment Shayne reached them, aiming for Mycra as Luc tore from his restrains and unleashed bone-snapping chaos upon the hunters who’d captured him.
Shayne put his hands over Lily’s ears. “Look at me,” he said to her. “The siren-song will only get louder if you listen to it.” He knew she couldn’t hear what he said through his hands, but he said it anyway. A fiery paper crane spiralled down, burning across his arm. He gritted his teeth, shaking it off and keeping his gaze on hers.
Lily looked back and forth between his eyes. Her hair had mostly torn from its ponytail, her cheek was flecked with fairy blood, and her flesh was slick with sweat. Still, she was quite possibly the prettiest thing Shayne had ever seen, and thus, he knew she was an appealing target for any fairy with a spec of greed.
“Why are you here, Lily Baker?” Shayne muttered.
He released her ears only long enough to slay an approaching trio of fairies in red and black. Then he swung around and put his hands back on her ears again. But this time, Lily said in a quiet voice, “I’m fine, Shayne. Let me go.”
He bit down on his lips. “Never.”
A growl lifted to their left. Shayne glanced over to find Luc flipping a fairy onto his back with a repulsed sound. Luc raised a brow at Shayne and Lily as if wondering what Shayne was doing holding Lily’s face instead of fighting, but then he seemed to decide he didn’t care. He picked up a spear off the ground and hurtled it across the hill. It slammed into a hunter who sailed at least ten feet before he fell.
“Foxy,” Shayne said. He nodded up the hill to where Jethwire had stopped playing his flute to cast Shayne a devilish, crooked smile. “Get me up to them. And then come back and take our human far away from here. This fight is over.”
“Oh dear.” Luc sighed. “This fight is barely half over. Learn math.” He waved a finger around at all the remaining hunters.
“Luc,” Shayne said, using the fool’s real name for the first time. He cast the fox a solemn, pleading look. He was too proud to ask an egotistical nine tailed monster for help in any situation, except for this one.
Luc released a loud huff. “You all seem to ask a great deal of me, you know. If you had any idea how powerful I’ve become, you’d think twice about bossing me around.” He grumbled the last part as he walked over and grabbed Shayne’s wrist.
Shayne pulled his crossbow around as he was torn into the wind. Luc dumped him so fast, he almost didn’t catch himself on his feet. But when the hill formed around him, Shayne already had the crossbow pointed at Jethwire’s back, right against the fairy’s spine.
“Call the hunting party back to the House. Or I’ll make sure you end up like Kahn-Der,” Shayne said.
Massie looked over at Shayne with a startled face; Jethwire didn’t move a muscle.
“Brother,” Jethwire greeted. “Did you think this was over just because you left the House?”
“I’d hoped so, but no, I didn’t really expect that.” Shayne nudged the tip of the arrow a little harder against Jethwire’s back. “Call off your hunting dogs,” he said again.
Jethwire obediently raised a hand, and the hunters who noticed stopped their pursuit, mounted their deer, and headed away. Many hadn’t seen though.
“Perhaps my best bet is to finish you both right here. Save me the trouble of having to do it later if you follow me again,” Shayne thought aloud.
Massie’s slow grin appeared. His sparkling eyes narrowed on Shayne’s crossbow like he wanted to see if Shayne would really shoot Jethwire through the back. “I imagine you know how our father wouldn’t sleep until he destroyed you if you did that. He’s still sore about Panola. I wonder what he’ll do when he finds out about Kahn-Der.” Massie twirled a silver dagger over his fingers. Shayne hadn’t seen him pull it out.
“Perhaps he’ll throw a celebratory feast now that his oldest and most incapable son no longer craves his inheritance,” Shayne guessed. “We all know Kahn-Der was a greedy hog. Which one of you is going to get his enormous, excessively decorated bedroom? Hmm?”
The hunters congregated at the foot of the hill. Dranian retreated at the other end of the valley, soaring into the air with Mycra in his arms. Dozens of dead hunters in red coats spotted the grass; the battle’s ending almost looked laughable. Dranian and Luc had caused all this destruction, and now Jethwire and Massie had finally seen what Shayne and his allies were capable of.
He decided this unbearable subject of conversation was over. He had other words to use against his brothers, other things he needed to address now, but then Massie said, “She’s pretty.”
Shayne’s fingers tightened on the trigger of the bow. His mouth opened, but he didn’t ask who Massie spoke of.
“Your human,” Massie said anyway, nodding down the hill to where Luc pulled Lily to himself. The fox took one last look up the hill before he vanished with her, and Shayne breathed a sigh of relief. Massie turned an inch toward Shayne—his strange smile was still there. Shayne was tempted to shoot it off. “Did you know you were in love with a human?” Massie asked.
Shayne’s finger faltered on the crossbow trigger. He nearly fired the arrow through Jethwire right then and there.
Massie’s warped smile only grew when Shayne forced a laugh. “Nonsense.” He wondered if he ought to just leave—he could cast his important words at these fools another time.
“It’s true, Brother. When our dreamslipper informed us you had a fairy crush, that you dreamt of a golden-haired female, we thought to send a few tunes of invitation into the wind to see if we could draw her to us and meet her in person. It took us a while to realize the reason she never came was because the two of you were in another world entirely and she couldn’t hear it. Because she was a human .” Massie tilted his head. “How foolish you must feel for letting her come here.”
“Give me your flute, Jethwire,” Shayne demanded.
“It’s too late,” Jethwire replied. “All the tunes are already floating through the wind, searching for her weaknesses and desires. They’ve been waiting for her since last year’s snow. And you brought her here to face them.”
Shayne flexed his jaw. “What do you want?” he asked.
“You know exactly what we want, Brother,” Massie said, his smile disappearing. “And why you can’t kill us.” He reached over and pushed the nose of Shayne’s crossbow down.
Jethwire finally turned around. “And you know why we will keep coming, regardless of the supposedly dead Prince of the North being in your company. We’ve been trying to decide for months if we should tell our High Queene he’s alive and has been in hiding,” he added. “You’d better consider our deal quickly. Our father returns in three days, and by then it’ll be too late. If he learns you’ve fled, you know what he’ll do.”
Shayne took a few steps back. He scanned his brothers, calculating his best shot. “This conversation is over,” he said. “I need time to think. Don’t even dream about capturing Cressica Alabastian for a reward, or sending more hunters to drag me back, or luring in that human to use as bait.”
Without waiting for a response, he fired an arrow into Jethwire’s leg. It punched through and speared into Massie’s leg, too, pinning them together and finally splattering purple blood on their precious hanboks. Jethwire wailed a shriek and stared down at his leg in horror. Massie’s blue eyes twinkled as he gazed at the blood.
“That’s so you can’t snatch me up as I leave,” Shayne stated. He slung the crossbow onto his back and turned to race over the hill.
The colour shifted in the sky, darkening from aqua to a navy-gray and filling with rainclouds. It seemed Dranian didn’t know how to control Cress’s weather powers yet. Shayne inhaled the icy turn of the wind as he met the trees, and only when he was behind the cover of a trunk did he stop to catch his breath and peek back at the dozens of remaining fairies in his family’s colours. His hand found its way into his pocket, his fingers curling around a paper crane. He drew it out to read it again, despising the words just as much as the first time:
Neither of us wish to be the Lyro heir. This is your birthright, Brother.
Return to the House to take your place, and we won’t have our scouts pay a deadly visit to your humans in the tavern across the gate called Fae Café.
Did you think we didn’t know about that?
We had your dreams hostage for months. We know everything. We know about Kate Kole, Violet Miller, Greyson Lewis, and especially Lily Baker.
Come home and bring our dreamslipper with you before this gets unpleasant. We’d hate to do to your humans what we did to all those fairies who crossed us in our childling years.
Jethwire it was clear she was loving this hugging business by how she didn’t try to pull away from him. “But it’s okay if you’re not fine,” he said. “No one’s invincible. If you want to cry—”
Her hands came against his chest, and she shoved him back—he let her, as usual. She wasn’t that strong, which was part of her charm. “I said I was fine,” she repeated.
Shayne nodded. “Right, right. You did say that.” He reached for his crossbow and lifted the strap back over his head, fastening it slowly as he held her gaze. “Feel free to use my robust, shapely shoulder to cry on when you change your mind.”
He flashed her a smile. Not because he needed it, but because she did.
When he turned, he planted his attention on Mycra. “Pretty Fairy,” he called. “I need a word.”
Luc raised a brow. He looked between Lily and Mycra. “Well, that’s rude,” he said. “Calling one of them pretty and the other ugly.”
“No one asked you, Foxy Luc,” Shayne stated. “I have my reasons.”
The sound of Lily’s teensy feminine grunt lifted behind him.
“I’ve met the person who owns this body,” Mycra finally said, still looking at Dranian in Cress’s skin.
“You have?” Dranian asked.
“I crossed him many years ago.” Mycra’s expression turned wary. “He led a raid that killed someone I cared deeply about.”
“Ah. What a relief. I was about to make you explain why you were ogling Cress,” Shayne stated. “He’s taken, you know.”
Mycra’s bright eyes expanded, and Dranian blushed, turning Cress’s shapely jawline redder than anyone had probably ever seen it. Shayne smirked, wishing he could have taken a selfie with him and put it as the background image on Cress’s phone.
His smile fell though when he thought of Cress’s phone. Of Cress. Of Mor. Of Kate, and Greyson, and Violet. When he thought of what Cress and Mor might have to face soon because of him. He imagined them fighting off the Lyro scouts in the street outside Fae Café. They would be all right as long as Mor airslipped to the Sisterhood’s yarn store and called in a favour. Cress would have to hold them off until the Sisterhood got there…
In Dranian’s body.
Shayne ran a hand down his face. He turned to Luc. “You know the first thing Mor and Cress will do once they realize who’s responsible for this little body-swap robbery is try to figure out where we are. If they get even an inkling we’re in the Ever Corners…” He couldn’t finish the sentence or fathom the thought.
A broad smile took over Luc’s face. “Oh dear. You mean the High Court of the Coffee Bean may finally come to my rescue?” He batted his lashes. “It’s about time.”
Shayne’s lips tightened. He’d spent three hundred and thirty-six dollars in the human mall on ‘vacation wear’ to support his lie of going on the exact sort of fun-filled beach holiday he’d read about in a magazine—all so that no one would actually come here . “You might not care, Foxy, but if anyone in the North Corner reports seeing this body and thinks this is Cress—” he nodded to Dranian “—we’ll have far more than my family chasing after us. The whole Brotherhood of Assassins will take Dranian captive for Levress and we’ll never get him out of the Silver Castle. It’ll be goodbye forever.”
Luc shrugged and began carefully rolling up the sleeves of his over-the-top imperial coat. The threading on it was so detailed, it made Shayne go cross-eyed to look at. “Then I suppose Prince Cressica had better hurry here if he wants to get his body back in one piece,” Luc said.
Dranian’s red face turned white instead, and Shayne stifled an eye roll. “Don’t be so dramatic. I was careful to cover my tracks when I left the human realm, so unless someone hands them a map, they won’t find out we’re here,” he promised. “And you’re trying way too hard with that coat. Is this your attempt to dress up as a king for Halloween? Because Halloween is long over,” Shayne said.
Luc only smiled. Then he pulled out a tiny piece of human-world bread from his pocket and flicked it at Shayne. It hit Shayne’s stomach and fell to the ground.
Shayne grunted. “You’ll have to try harder than that to poison me,” he said. He turned to Mycra. “I’d like a word,” he repeated without missing a beat. “ Now , dreamslipper.”
Mycra’s expression changed when he called her that. He was the best at nicknames, and that last one held implications he was sure she’d pick up on.
Sure enough, Mycra swallowed and nodded. She headed into the trees and broke into a jog. Shayne followed, keeping a few paces behind. Once they were far enough away that Dranian’s and Luc’s fairy ears wouldn’t pick up their whispers, Mycra slowed to a stop and turned to face him.
“What exactly did you tell my family?” Shayne asked immediately. “Actually, what did you tell my brothers, specifically? And does my father know about the humans, too?”
“I told them only what you dreamt about,” she said. “Dreamslipping is a complex art and originally, I wasn’t told to investigate. I was only told to send you nightmares that would drive you home. But you fought against me by pulling your happiest thoughts into your slumber. Most often you dreamt about…” She glanced back toward the way they came.
Shayne shook his head. “I know what I fought back with,” he said, stepping toward her and grabbing his hair. “You told them about that?”
“I just told them about the humans and your feelings toward them. And I told them about the other fairies I saw—the North Prince, and the Shadow Fairy. But I never told them about Dranian. As soon as I realized he was still with you after all these years, I stopped telling them anything.” Mycra bit her lower lip. “I’m sorry, Shayne. It was my job. I didn’t know we’d become allies. Honestly, I thought if you ever returned to the House, you’d try to kill me.”
Shayne paced in a circle. “You should have warned me the first day we met. I had no idea.” He pointed back toward the clearing. “How much do they know about her ?”
Mycra swallowed. “They know you need her,” she admitted. “They know that if they can get her, they’ll control you.”
Shayne’s exasperated groan echoed through the woods. “Don’t you understand the position you’ve put me in?! Simply killing off Jethwire and Massie isn’t an option anymore! If they’re gone, my father will only be more desperate to get me to return for the chair as his last living inheritor. So I can’t leave them alive or they’ll go after my humans, but I can’t kill them either!”
Mycra nodded and clasped her hands together. “I know. I’m sorry.”
Shayne squatted and grabbed his head. “I’m going to have to go back to the House,” he realized. His heart felt like it had turned to faestone, sinking deeper and deeper into the pit of him. “I’ll never return to the café, will I? I’ll become the next Lyro High Lord. I’ll be trapped in that seat forever.”
He’d saved Mycra Sentorious. He showed her mercy after she’d haunted him. And when he realized how Dranian felt about her, he was glad he did it. But she hadn’t told him the greatest danger of all. Shayne had to find out this way; from a paper crane.
When Shayne found it within himself to look up at Mycra again, he saw a large tear sailing down her cheek and something broke within him. He closed his eyes, grappling every loose thought and reeling them all back in. “I’m sorry, too. This isn’t your fault.” He stood. “This is my family. You were their prisoner, like me.”
“Don’t apologize to me,” she said. “I sold you out to them. I’ll help you fight them if I must. I’ll do whatever it takes to free you from their grasp.”
Shayne cast her a weak smile. “You’re afraid of them. Admit it.”
Mycra closed her mouth. It was answer enough.
He looked down at the mossy rocks beneath his feet. “You’ll go back to the human realm with Dranian and Lily. You’ll keep my Dranian safe. You’ll be there for him when I can’t,” he said. His throat grew thick. “And if I ever hear of you hurting him, with your dream powers or in any other way, I’ll…” He shook his head, feeling too uncreative to be clever.
Mycra’s face changed, her eyes turning sharp. “You’ll what?” She waited. “You’ll haunt me?” she guessed. “Will you torment me, Shayne Lyro? Will you make me go mad?” She took a threatening step toward him. “Because those are all things I could do to you. You might know Dranian now, but I’ve known him longer. I’m his fairy guard.”
Shayne folded his arms as he listened. He didn’t spot any lies in her tone, but she was an actress; he’d seen it. “I still know very little about you,” he pointed out. “And what sort of fairy guard abandons such a vulnerable fairy? Where were you when he suffered in my House? Where were you when he shook and trembled beneath the weight of his fears all these years? Where were you when his arm was taken?”
Mycra fell back a step like she’d been slapped. Her mouth hung open.
A cluster of blossom bugs floated by, spiralling in the breeze. Shayne watched one land on her cheek, but she didn’t seem to feel it.
After a moment, Mycra cleared her throat. Then she said, “I’ll be his lost arm. I’ll be his strength and his weapon. He doesn’t need his arm when he has me.”
Shayne squinted as he thought that over. He knew he’d taken it too far with his comments, but he needed to know for sure she was going to stand by his friend. Finally, he nodded.
“And I’ll find the fairy who took his arm,” she went on, “and I’ll destroy the culprit from the inside out.” She vowed it with all the ferocity of a scorned beast.
A slow smile spread across Shayne’s face. He couldn’t have orchestrated that better if he’d tried.
“Perfect. You pass,” he said. He held up a hand in the direction of the others as if to allow her to go first. “Let me know if you need any help finding the culprit. I’m happy to point you in the right direction.”
As he followed Mycra back to the others, Shayne went over the words of the note sitting heavy in his pocket. The terrible decision he had to make hung before him like a black cloud.
And he only had three days left to make it.