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Suddenly, the chain jerked. The pendulum yanked free of my hand and darted ahead, towards a crumbling building at the edge of the fairgrounds. During the peak of summer, the fairgrounds were brimming with events. There were always farm animals and massive butter statues—don’t ask me why.
Any other time of the year, it felt like a ghost town. The empty buildings sat around with no one inside. Vi hesitated at the entrance. Her gaze snagged on a building, a massive center where they usually kept the prize-winning livestock. She shook herself and reoriented, gaze fixed ahead.
“This place is such a magnet for trouble,” Vi muttered under her breath.
“You too?” I asked.
She grunted and rolled her shoulders as if casting off ghosts. I didn’t ask, though I wanted to know.
Before we got any further, I paused and asked my friends to wait a moment. We couldn’t run in blind, or we would be at a disadvantage. I wasn’t about to let that happen. Instead, I looked around for any signs of the small fae.
A nearby door opened and slammed shut making me startle. When my friends didn’t jump, I knew that a fae glamour was at work, hiding the sound. I darted away from my friends to see what had slammed a door.
A gnome-like woman with a dusty apron and a kerchief over her black hair stomped her feet and huffed. She took a small broom and smacked it against the building wall so that it erupted with a cloud of dust.
“Damned humans never come around this time of year. They don’t know how lucky they are that I clean out all the dead spiders before they come back in the summer.” She went on, muttering about how the humans didn’t deserve her service.
Tal had explained many of the small fae to me so that I wouldn’t be a fool when I came upon them by myself. If my guess was correct, from her cleaning supplies, this had to be a brownie. They were a lot like the elves on the cookie packages, except they turned into horrible menaces when they were angered.
I had to be very careful when asking her for help.
“I can feel ya watching me, lassie.” The brownie glanced over her shoulder and glared directly at me. Her eyes widened with surprise. She spun, wiped her hands on her apron, and promptly put them on her hips. “So, it’s the moon-haired princess?”
I nodded. “Have you seen Unseelie around the fairgrounds? They would likely have a human woman and a shifter woman with them.”
“Meeting up with your friends?” the brownie asked.
My brow furrowed. At first, I thought she was talking about Vi and Ness, watching from behind us. Then, I realized the brownie was insinuating that I was looing to help the Unseelie.
I puffed up, offended. Finger raised, I stomped closer to her. “I did not come here to be accosted like this. People need my help, and you are wasting my time.”
Anger simmered like summer sunlight in my veins. For a moment, I relished the heat until I realized where it’d come from. Shame punched me so hard that the air rushed from my lungs. My shoulders dropped. I fought not to hang my head.
“Tell me where I can find my Mom,” I said, voice small.
The brownie snorted. I knew what she was going to say, that my fae mother was long dead.
No shit, I wanted to snap back.
Then the brownie cocked her head. “Ah, you mean the human woman. I forgot they left you like a changeling on the Pack’s doorstep. Fed you to the wolves, in my opinion. That Alvin always smelled of blood.” She tapped the side of her nose. “You get familiar with it when you spend a lot of time around the redcaps. My ex-husband was one.”
Ness sidled up beside me and leaned in to whisper, “Is this how they all treat you?”
I grimaced and nodded. Ness gave me a more appreciative look that basically said:damn girl, I didn’t know you had to put up with this kind of shit.
“I take it you want nothing to do with my court.” I began to turn away to leave.
“Hold up there, missy.” The brownie held out a hand to call me back. “I said nothing of the sort. Don’t be putting words in my mouth. It doesn’t taste all that great, if you catch my meaning.”
I clenched my fists at my sides and stifled the urge to punt the small woman. She didn’t mean offense, but I was tired of having to make excuses for fae who didn’t know the wordsorry.
The brownie lifted her chin and narrowed her eyes at me. “What do you want from me? I mean, in exchange for a place at your pretty Seelie castle. You came here, asking for information about some women, right? If I tell you where they are, will you let me into your fancy little castle?”
Though I wanted to say yes, I paused and considered something she’d said. “I have to confess that I have a number of red caps at the castle already. Are you prepared to live alongside your ex-husband?”
The brownie grinned. Her eyes flashed red. “He’s no longer breathing, so that’s not going to be a problem.”
Taken aback, I stole a glance at Ness. Though Ness wore a look of shock, she seemed impressed at the same time. This little woman had bested ared cap. I’d had a number of them spend the night at my apartment and the whole night had been a raucous nightmare of burps and fights.
