Gruagach.
According to the Book of Brigid, they were benevolent creatures who inhabit human homes and bring health and prosperity to the families they favor. They were invisible to humans, capable of changing their sizes, and carried out their duties at night. In return, they expect a single bowl of cream.
I thought about a conversation Drayce and I once had about making unfair bargains with faeries. These creatures provided a lot for so little, but when offended, they can bring misfortune to a family for generations and survive on their misery.
The gruagach wore a smock made of sackcloth that he belted around the middle with a rope. As soon as our gazes met, the thick brows over his eyes rose, and he swept himself into a low bow.
“Your Majesty, what brings you to these humble kitchens?” he asked.
“We need to speak to looking Nessa,” said Osmos.
Behind him, the door swung open, revealing a kitchen even larger than the pantry, consisting of plaster-covered walls that curved up into a vaulted ceiling. A room-full of gruagach wearing white tunics paused in their duties, each one of the creatures’ heads turned toward us.
The gruagach who spoke to me first wrung his long-fingered hands. “Did the breakfast we made displease you?”
Osmos cleared his throat. “Her Majesty merely wishes her to scry for a lost soul.”
The tension in the air eased, and the gruagach turned back to their work, chopping vegetables at long tables, turning spits at the huge furnaces arranged along one of the walls.
“Nessa works at the fruit table.” The gruagach swept his arm toward the open door.
The door behind him swung open, revealing a kitchen consisting of plaster-covered walls that curved up into a vaulted ceiling. A room-full of gruagach wearing white tunics paused in their duties, each one of the creatures’ heads turned toward us.
Osmos and I entered the kitchen’s moist warmth, our footsteps echoing across its vast interior. Light-footed gruagach of varying sizes scurried in and out of wooden doors, to and from the long preparation tables, preparing ingredients with metallic instruments that glinted in the light of the stoves.
To our left, a six-inch female with straw-like hair marched along the center of a table shouting orders to a quartet of tall gruagach who looked carved out of twigs.
The scent of onions frying in butter hung in the air along with the mouth-watering aroma of roasted meat. We walked down the side of the room furthest from the spits, where arched windows provided dim illumination compared to the sun-drenched bedroom where I left Drayce.
At the back of the kitchen, another six-inch guagach stood on an upturned teacup, firing instructions to a pair of identical males whose mouse ears twitched as they arranged sliced fruit on a large tart.
“This must be her.” Osmos pointed his horn toward the smaller guagach.
I strode over to the table. “Nessa?”
An elderly female with mouse ears protruding from smoke-colored hair stared up at me through mismatched eyes. The left shone like a tiny amethyst, while the right was as clouded as milk. Deep lines stretched from her potato-shaped nose to a mouth that was as broad as a frog’s.
“Your Majesty.” She held the sides of her white smock as she curtseyed. “How may I assist?”
“I heard that you’re a powerful seer.” I tried to keep the tremble out of my voice. “We need to find a lost soul.”
Nessa wiped her hands on the front of her smock. “Do you have an object that belongs to the person?”
I turned to Osmos, who floated a bead of blood in his outstretched palm.
“Is that enough?” I asked. “Or do you need something larger like a lock of his hair?”
Her eyes fixed on the glistening blood. “With one drop, I can locate its owner, but only if he wishes to be found.”
Some of the tightness in my chest loosened. I gave the gruagach a sharp nod, and she jumped down from the upturned cup and landed on the table’s wooden surface.
She stepped on the palm Osmos placed on the table and directed him past a group of gruagach peeling the layers from green onions with knives as thin as parchment. The vegetables reminded me of the oak sprite, who was probably still in pain from the torture.
Sizzles and hisses and sloshes of cooking filled the air as we passed a seven-foot-tall gruagach who stirred a bubbling cauldron of stew with a long, wooden paddle. I tore my gaze away from the sight and sighed.
The old me would have killed the sprite, not bothering to keep her alive for a fresh round of torment, but my heart had hardened since inhaling the Queen of the Banshees. I had absorbed her power, her sadism, her thirst for vengeance, but retained a human conscience that gnawed at me for following my fae instincts.
Osmos pushed open a door of horizontal planks held together by wooden cross-braces that led to a cupboard. The mingled scents of cinnamon and nutmeg and cloves filled my nostrils. It reminded me of barmbrack, a fruit bread we used to serve on Samhain.
Pushing aside the pang of nostalgia for Father, I followed Osmos and Nessa inside a space that was no larger than six-by-six feet. A wall lantern flared to life, illuminating wooden bowls, each shimmering with liquid.
My gaze caught a black-framed mirror. “What’s that?”
“A seeing-glass.” Nessa jumped down onto the shelf and walked to a shallow bowl filled with a clear, dark liquid too thick to be water and with too many ripples to be a syrup.
She held onto its wooden rim and closed her eyes. With a deep breath, she raised her shoulders, pursed her lips, and stretched out long, spindly fingers. “Place the tribute on the pool.”
Osmos dropped the bead of blood, which hovered six inches above the liquid.
The light flared and flashed, and the seeing-glass clouded with smoke. I turned my attention to its surface, where a dark figure
