Chapter Seven
Ash
Gillie had already come up with the recipe for the brew to keep the branches for my new arm alive and malleable. He’d bought some ingredients at the market, he told me, but most he’d already had.
Nua had gone out and collected the branches. When I’d asked if I could go with him, he’d ruefully told me that it wasn’t safe yet, which made anger flare for a second before I pushed it back. He was right. I was quickly getting better with my dagger, but I knew I wasn’t good enough to fight off the Carlin’s guards yet. Or any of her sons, if they were looking out here for me too. Or any other Folk who may have been lurking. Or wild animals. We were in a forest, after all.
I desperately hoped that a new arm would make me feel just alittlemore in control of my life. My fate. Make me feel even a little bit safer and more capable of looking after myself. I was grateful for Nua and Gillie, but surely I couldn’t stay here forever. This was their home. I was the intruder sleeping in their living room.
But where would I go? I had nowhere anymore.
Would I be able to find my way back to my dad’s cottage? Would Nua help me get there? Would I even be able to live there anymore, like this?
I had to kill the Carlin first, though. And her sons. And I was most likely going to die in the attempt, so I supposed it didn’t matter if I didn’t have a home.
“What do you think she did with my arm?” I asked Gillie as I watched him adding ingredients to the cauldron over the fire. I wished I had my pewter potioncraft cauldron for him to use. And the drachmsmith candle.
Once I was used to my new arm, I was determined to go and get my stuff from the cottage.
Gillie grimaced. “Best not to think about it, lad.”
I hesitated, looking down at the table and spinning my warm mug of tea in my hand.
“I thought… I thought I felt my fingers grip my ankle,” I told him, face getting hot. “After Balor cut it off. When I tripped over it.”
I flushed deeper, but Gillie didn’t laugh. He just nodded and glanced over.
“Fae flesh stays alive for a while, and it always wants to cling to its owner. If you’re quick enough, it can be reattached with no lasting damage.”
I exhaled. “So if I’d grabbed it, we could have reattached it?”
“Possibly.” He grinned over at me. “But who needs that old arm? We’re making you a better one.”
I smiled, getting up from the table to join him at the cauldron. The urge to do potioncraft was even stronger now, and my gut clenched with yearning as I stared into the cauldron.
“Can I help?” I asked, then admitted, “I kind of miss doing this.”
Gillie chuckled. “Yes, we saw you out there growing your herbs. The potion you poured over them worked well, eh?”
I flushed with pleasure and shrugged.
“Nua knew you’d be a drachmsmith the first moment he saw you,” Gillie said conversationally as he handed me his notebook with the brew recipe written out. “You were a sweet lad.”
I flushed deeper, and it only worsened when Gillie grinned over at me.
“All man now, though, eh?” He gave my backside a friendly smack, making me jump. “Go and get me the bansith hair, would you?”
I set the book down on the butcher’s block and walked over to Gillie’s apothecary cabinet, scanning the labels on the fronts of the tiny drawers.
“The potion I made before Balor knocked me out had bansith hair in it,” I said absently as I spotted the right drawer and pulled it open. I grimaced slightly as I pulled out a clump of hair and took it over to him. “What’s a bansith?”
“They’re unseelie fae.” Gillie glanced over at me as he took it. “Did you ever come across any tall, grey-skinned women with long black hair?”
I nodded, remembering the pair I’d seen in the trooping procession that had stolen me, and the two I’d witnessed stumbling drunk and singing out of the tavern one night.
“They’re bansiths,” Gillie said, adding the hair to the cauldron. “Omens of death. They wail when one of the Folk dies. If you ever see one washing your clothes, you’re shit out of luck.”
I swallowed. “Good to know. But what about… What about Ankou and his death hound? I saw him as well. And he was there when I was running from the Carlin’s palace. He followed me for a while.”