Welcome to Fae Cafe (High Court of the Coffee Bean Book 1) by Jennifer Kropf

Author:Jennifer Kropf [Kropf, Jennifer]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Winter Publishing House
Published: 2023-10-02T18:30:00+00:00

22

Prince Cressica and The Last Five Days

It was exactly five days ago that Cress saw them for the first time. Midnight dawned over the human city, bringing forth the monsters Cress had been sniffing out since he picked up their trail in the academy library. He followed the path to a much larger public library on the cusp of the city where traces of fairies were left in the spaces between books and mixed into the dust on the shelves, along with a flirtatious, menacing wickedness that had haunted Cress’s dreams for many faeborn years.

The brand of the Shadow Fairies.

He refused to believe it until he saw them for himself.

Cress waited for two hours tucked atop a shelf until they came. Faeborn folk of the haunting sort drifted into the quiet space with no candles, lanterns, or torches. Their ears hosted a sharper point than Cress’s, their tattoos were painted on thicker, and their eyes…

Silver and brown, just like Mor’s.

A thousand fast memories of battle, narrow victories, and dreadful losses washed through Cress’s mind as he pulled himself further into the shadows, watching the band of seventeen fairies congregate in the middle of the room. They wore the darkness of night and held the menace of beasts in their faces.

What in the name of the sky deities were fairies of the Dark Corner of Ever doing here among the humans? Cress’s hand drifted toward the winged handle of his blade in his back pocket, but his fingers froze as one more fairy joined the rest; one Cress knew the mad-minded scent of all too well. The very one who had been the reason Cress despised fairy nobles of the East.

Bonswick pulled thin gloves onto his pale hands as he joined the congregation, and it was as though Cress was back in the Silver Castle, guessing at what the glassy-eyed fairy’s secrets were.

Cress rolled to his feet in silence and raced on padded toes toward the window before his Northern scent might sweep across the library. He leapt through the opening, his body turning as weightless as feathers as he glided on the wind a good quarter mile. He cooled himself to stone and sank back to the ground, landing with a thud.

He whirled to ensure he had not been followed. Only dark streets and distant sounds met his senses—the air was clear, open, and honest. He grimaced at the long crack he’d made in the street from his landing.

For the next hour, Cress jogged through random streets, slipping into every alley, racing through every park, brushing his scent across every landmark and lamppost.

When he was satisfied with his complex web of traces, the Prince headed for the trees.

“Why does everything of the sinister and magical sort always happen in a library?” he muttered to himself.

His mind was haunted. He saw the Queene smile cruelly as though she was there with him. He felt her phantom presence crawling on his shoulders like a glass moonbug. Levress ruthlessly guarded the gate herself. Cress would be a fool to believe she did not know about the Shadow Fairies in the human realm.

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