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I reluctantly got out, and we fought our way across the parking lot.
We’d just made it to the sidewalk outside the storefront when something soft and flabby slammed into the side of my head.
For a moment my heart stopped, until feathers followed by a striped raccoon tail covered my eyes. “French Fry, what are you doing out in this weather?” I struggled with the trash griffin, trying to fold his wings for him so the wind would stop buffeting them around.
French Fry made a cooing noise and tried to crawl onto my shoulder.
Joy darted into Queen’s Court Café, and stood by the glass door, keeping an eye on me from the safety of indoors.
She waved to me, a genuine smile back on her face.
I scowled at her, until my attention was stolen by French Fry, who had stuck his butt up into the air in a stupid attempt to balance on me, and then toppled headfirst over my shoulder.
I caught him, but he’d unfolded his wings again in the process, and the wind nearly tore him out of my hands.
“You silly, bird-brained raccoon!” I growled as I helped him refold his wings. “Why would youpossibly—”
“Is that a trash griffin?”
I looked up, and dropped French Fry on my feet.
Queen Leila—her black hair pulled back in a French braid and her purple-ish-blue eyes wide with surprise—held the door open with one hand. In the other hand she held a pink leash, clipped to the harness of a leopard-sized and shaped feline, except this cat had thick, luxurious fur that was a blinding white, and was dotted with light gray and yellow dapples.
“Uhhh,” I said.
“Come inside, the wind is crazy out there.” Queen Leila yanked the door open wider.
I scooped French Fry off the pavement. “I can’t just leave him out here.”
“Bring him in,” Queen Leila said.
“But I don’t have a leash.” I closed my eyes against a particularly powerful gust of wind. “Queen’s Court Café requires leashes on all pets.”
“Get in,” Queen Leila ordered.
I hopped in without hesitation, still clutching French Fry to my chest.
Instantly, I felt warmer.
The dark blue painted walls dusted with flecks of gold and white paint to represent the night sky matched with strings of lights that crisscrossed over the ceiling gave the café a cozy feel that sank into my bones.
The café had updated some of its photographs of Night Queen Leila and her king since the last time I’d come here, but nothing else had changed.
The smell of coffee still permeated the air, softened by the sweeter scent of apples, which Queen’s Court kept sacks of by the small drive through window.
Queen Leila’s giant cat thing—a gloom, another citizen of the fae queen’s Night Realm—sniffed my legs as I stepped deeper into the café.
The gloom, and Queen Leila, were the only customers in the shop—which surprised me as Queen Leila usually traveled with guards.
Maybe there’s someone here with her, I absently wondered as I felt the silken sensation of fae magic tickle my elbow.Because I feel fae magic, but I’m pretty sure it’s not coming from her.
“Hey!” The barista, I recalled his name was Landon, leaned over the counter. “That bird hasn’t got a leash.” He narrowed his eyes, and his freckles seemed to pop with the scrutiny.
“It’s fine, Landon, he’s with me,” Queen Leila said.
“Doesn’t matter if you’re the namesake of the café. No leash, no entrance,” Landon declared.
Leila rolled her eyes. “Landon…”
