“Things have been busy here.” Lucien poured himself some tea. “Sheep tore through the fence just yesterday. I had to replace it for the second time this winter.”
The estate was a working farm. Babcia and Bapa had hired farm hands to tend to the animals in their absence, but had let them all go once we’d gone into hiding, as we didn’t want some servant running off and telling everyone where we were. That meant the share of the farm chores fell to all of us.
It was a good thing. We needed a distraction. We’d promised to go searching for the Unseelie stone, but to be honest, with me out of commission and things being what they were, we’d all been too depressed to start looking for them, even while on a deadline. The various farm creatures around the property had given my friends something to do in the meantime.
“I have to say, none of you would make very good farmers,” Bapa grumbled.
Lucien gave a chuckle, and I realized now how similar their accents and mannerisms were. They sat in the same way, moved in similar ways, even had similar expressions.
How hadn’t I figured out Lucien was my father? I should’ve known the moment I met Bapa. I just hadn’t put two and two together.
“Yes. Stefan nearly smothered himself with wool trying to pick up that ram. And just this morning, Ethan fell on his face trying to wrangle the cows into the pasture.” Delmare laughed.
A noise burst up from my belly and out my throat. I didn’t recognize it, because it wasn’t familiar, until I realized what Delmare had said was funny. It was the first time I’d laughed since… well.
But itwasfunny. The thought of my dignified mate clumsily clomping through the muck after a herd of bovines only to gosplatin the mud was hilarious. It made me crack a smile, though it didn’t last.
Lucien chuckled. “I daresay your mate didn’t find it as funny as the rest of us did.”
“Speaking of the cows, we should leave out some cream for Bumble,” Babcia added. “The good stuff, from the best cow.”
“Bumble? Is that the funny creature in the hallway?” I asked. “It was some big brown furry thing.”
“Oh, yes, that’s our brownie. He’s taken care of this estate for ages,” Babcia said.
Brownies were a type of faekin. They were obsessed with cleaning things, and usually bound themselves to one family for generations. But I didn’t think they still existed.
“I thought brownies were extinct. Didn’t they disappear after the Seelie and Unseelie war?” I asked.
“When the Unseelie left Malovia and went into hiding, they took many of the other faekin with them, including brownies, and others,” Babcia explained.
“Bumble keeps the house tidy, and helps with the cooking and laundry,” Bapa said. “He kept things up while we were living in Malovia.”
“You mean there are other faekin here in Ireland?” Delmare asked in surprise.
“And Scotland,” Bapa replied. “The Unseelie were worried the Seelie would try to exterminate the other faekin like they had the dark fae, so we hid them in Celtic lands— brownies,sidhe, and many other types of faekin.”
Ethan had told me long ago that no fae knew if our distant relatives— the brownies, and other faeries— had survived the Seelie and Unseelie conflict, and no one knew if they still existed. That they were indeed still alive gave me a tiny bit of hope that the world could get better, for as terrible as it seemed right now.
“Bumble is a gentle soul. We pay him in milk and honey. Brownies are usually loyal to one family their whole lives, and being immortal, that is quite a long time.” Babcia sipped at her tea. “Though they remain at the houses they clean out of their own free will. If you put them out of sorts, they leave. We make sure not to cross Bumble. He does this own thing, and we do ours. Giving orders to a brownie is a sure way to find your china rearranged.”
“Or broken,” Bapa added with a huff.
“What about thesidhe?” I asked. “You said that the Unseelie brought them here, but whatare they, exactly? Ethan told me once that they were fairies of the underground, but failed to say more.”
“Thesidheare descendents of the Seven Gods themselves,” Bapa explained. “They’re a noble race of great beauty and power.”
“Aren’t thesidhetechnically demigods?” Arthur asked.
“Yes.Sidheis the fae word for demigod,” Babcia said.
I’d rarely heard about demigods. We’d touched on them as a topic at Arcanea University, but demigods were rumored to be extraordinarily rare, so we hadn’t covered it much. “Demigods don’thaveto be descended from an actual god, right? One can be created by two powerful supernaturals.”
“That is true, but thesidheare different, as they directly have god-blood and are born of one of our goddesses, being Milonna, Neva, or Vesna,” Babcia replied. “Thesidhehave a goddess mother and a mortal father, but they still identify as demigods.”
“But demigods aren’t limited to the fae,” I said.
“From what I know, demigods can be from any supernatural race, but to be asidhe, you must have fae-goddess heritage. And thesidheare more powerful than any fae alive. Even you, Emma,” Bapa said around his pipe.
