If you’ve never been called to a crime scene where the prime suspect is “the entire staff of invisible house spirits,” consider yourself blessed. You’ve also probably never worked at a place called Flour Power Bakery, whose Yelp reviews alternated between:

  ?????????? “Best croissants ever!”

  and ?? “I think something bit me??”

  When we walked in, the first thing I noticed was the smell—warm sugar, cinnamon, and… bleach. A lot of bleach. Like someone baked cookies and then immediately tried to erase the evidence of a murder.

  The second thing I noticed was that everything was too clean.

  Every countertop gleamed. Every tile sparkled. The glass cases were so polished I could see Lily checking her reflection in them. Even the air felt filtered, like dust motes had been intimidated into staying outside.

  “Brownies,” Elly murmured, eyes narrowing.

  “Like the food?” I asked, stomach growling in response to the cinnamon and sugar smells.

  “No,” she said. “Like the tiny fae. House spirits. Cleaning specialists. Morality terrorists.”

  I blinked. “Morality?”

  “They have very strong opinions,” Lily said.

  “And they hold terrible grudges,” Eury added, stepping carefully so her boot wouldn’t squeak and offend someone.

  A woman in a flour-dusted apron tumbled out from behind the counter the moment she saw us. She looked exhausted, eyes wide and twitchy.

  “You’re the exterminators?” she whispered.

  “Wrong branch,” I said. “We’re more like paranormal problem solvers.”

  She gestured helplessly around the immaculate bakery. “I just wanted them to help clean. But now they’ve unionized.”

  Elly’s head snapped up. “Oh no.”

  “Oh, yes,” the woman said, near tears. “They’ve split into factions. They’re arguing over shift rotations. And they won’t stop reorganizing the inventory based on… I don’t know, some kind of ancient cookie taxonomy.”

  “You mean…” I swallowed. “They’re infighting?”

  “Worse,” she whispered. “They’ve scheduled a vote.”

  Elly swore under her breath—long, melodic, and in a dialect I didn’t recognize. Probably phone-signal-destroying levels of Fae profanity.

  “That means they’re listening,” she said. “Everyone stays polite. Respectful. Do not comment on the cleaning.”

  Naturally, I looked around and opened my mouth. “It’s really—”

  Elly tackled me into Lily before the sentence finished. “Don’t say it!”

  A sudden rustle skittered across the ceiling tiles. Then the walls. Then the flour bin.

  Then twelve tiny heads—each the size of a kiwi, with pointed ears and dough-smudged faces—popped out of hiding places.

  Brownies. They were staring at us like we were late to a meeting.

  “Uh… hi?” I offered.

  “You come (they came for us?) as representatives?” the lead Brownie squeaked, voice high and sharp like a violin string under too much tension, its words interspersed with whispers and comments.

  Elly straightened and gave a formal bow. “We come in peace and in respect, honored hearth keepers.”

  Several Brownies nodded solemnly. Then they saw the rest of us.

  Pointing with a tiny wooden spoon, the leader barked: “The tall one (so tall!) looks like she doesn’t wipe her shoes!”

  Eury glared. “I wipe my shoes—”

  “Historically incorrect (wrong!).”

  Another Brownie pointed at Lily. “The red one smells of temptation and decadence (and cardamom).”

  Lily smiled sweetly and did an air curtsy despite wearing a pair of pants that hugged her backside like a crime. “Thank you.”

  “That wasn’t a compliment,” Elly hissed.

  Then they turned to me. They whispered among themselves. One tapped a tiny clipboard.

  Finally: “He smells like ‘chaos in a sweatshirt.’ (And cheesecake!) He appears unsuitable for housework.”

  “Rude,” I muttered.

  Elly sighed. “Okay, okay. Let’s talk terms—”

  But the room suddenly vibrated with dozens of outraged squeaks.

  If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

  “Terms? (Terms??)” There was a collective inhalation of breath before they continued, “After what you did?”

  Elly froze. “What… did I do?”

  One Brownie pointed. “You explained our ways. To outsiders.”

  She stiffened. “You can’t be serious.”

  “It is a breach (a violation). A—”

  The leader shrieked a word in Brownie-language that made the lights flicker.

  Lily winced. “That… sounded like a slur.”

  Elly’s ears went red. “It was.”

  The Brownies surged forward, shaking spoons and rolling pins like angry raccoons with tools.

  Eury stepped protectively between them and Elly. “Okay. Enough.”

  But the chant had already begun: “We strike. We strike. We strike—”

  And I realized things were about to go aggressively violent on the tiniest scale ever.

  Great.

  The trouble with Brownies is that they look adorable—like you want to put them in a dollhouse and dress them in little overalls. This is a trap. Brownies are the condensed essence of domestic fury. They don’t just clean your house; they judge you for every crumb you ever left behind.

  And right now? They were judging us like we’d committed war crimes.

  The chanting grew louder: “We strike! We strike! We strike!”

  One Brownie leapt onto a countertop, brandishing a toothpick like a spear. Another had a butter knife. A third had a rolling pin that somehow felt like a blunt instrument of destiny.

  Lily lifted her hands diplomatically. “Okay. Everyone just take a breath or three. No need to—”

  “Your aura is too loud,” one Brownie snapped.

  “My—what? Loud? I don’t—”

  “Loud.”

  I didn’t necessarily disagree. Lily exuded calmng pheromones like some people wore perfume.

  Eury stepped forward. “We can resolve this. Put the utensils down.”

  “No,” they cried. “The serpent (snake!) speaks of subjugation.”

  “Try playing monopoly with her. She’s a rules lawyer,” I said. “That’s just her indoor voice.”

  “Dan,” Eury hissed.

  Elly raised both hands. “Nobody wants a… a cottagecore riot. Let’s de-escalate.”

  But one Brownie shrieked, “You taught mortals (humans!) how to greet us!”

  Another yelled, “You probably taught them the secret bow!”

  A third jumped onto a pastry case and bellowed, “Gatekeeper traitor!”

  Elly looked personally offended. “Oh, come on! I didn’t reveal the clap sequence!”

  “You thought about it (she most certainly did!),” they accused.

  At this rate, I could see where this was going: utensils thrown, fae curses unleashed, bakery destroyed, us chasing a swarm of pastry-maker lawsuits until the next century. And, possibly Daniel Mercer, first of his name, killed by a tap-dancing mob of cleaning fae.

  Not ideal.

  So, when a Brownie launched itself toward Lily with a battle cry of “Dust to the unworthy,” I reacted on instinct.

  “Nope.”

  My Null field surged.

  Like popping a soap bubble big enough to contain a temper tantrum convention.

  The magical pressure in the room snapped—every Brownie went stiff mid-pounce, mid-screech, mid-lecture-on-mopping-techniques.

  They dropped.

  Not unconscious—just… powerless.

  Suddenly and deeply normal. As if someone unplugged their metaphysical Wi-Fi.

  The leader Brownie staggered on tiny legs, looking nauseated. “You— (you—) you broke the hierarchy!”

  “…Sorry?” I apologized without knowing what for.

  Without their magic, the group devolved immediately into disorganized chaos, with several tiny voices shouting at each other.

  “Who is in charge?”

  “I thought you were?”

  “I don’t want to be in charge!”

  “No one told me leadership came with paperwork!”

  Finally, the smallest of them squeaked, “We are lost. There is no order. No structure. No union charter. No… meaning.”

  It was heartbreaking in the way spilled sugar is heartbreaking.

  Lily crouched beside one. “Hey… are you okay?”

  “I’m a shell,” it whimpered.

  Eury folded her arms. “Dan, you Nullified their social contract.”

  “I panicked!”

  Elly rubbed her face. “This is why we don’t let him touch stuff!”

  “You touched us with your negative atmospheric essence,” one Brownie said dramatically.

  Eury snorted. “Atmospheric essence?”

  “The aura of cancellation!” One sobbed.

  “Okay,” Lily said, “that does sound like him.”

  I threw up my hands. “Look. I’m sorry. Truly. But can we please talk like adults?”

  The Brownies exchanged glances.

  Finally, the leader nodded solemnly. “We will accept your plea for negotiations. But only because we are too disorganized to continue the coup.”

  Progress.

  Maybe…

  Negotiating with Brownies is like negotiating with angry toddlers who have read the Geneva Conventions cover to cover and have suggestions.

  We gathered at a table that was way too small, and they sat on sugar canisters like judges atop a dais.

  Elly began with a formal apology in High Hearth-Tongue—a language that sounded like jingling silverware.

  The Brownies listened, offended but receptive… until Elly said the phrase: “By right of flame and floor, we seek peace.”

  Every Brownie gasped dramatically.

  “You used the rhyme,” one murmured. “That is a brunch-level apology.” “We accept.”

  Then Eury stepped forward to negotiate actual terms.

  Eury is terrifying at a negotiation table. She turned a bakery table into a courtroom. She was in her element, perked up like a whole cadre of attentive stenographers.

  “We propose a contract,” she said calmly. “Full release from bakery service in exchange for relocation.”

  “Relocation?” the Brownies whispered.

  “We need staff,” Lily said, leaning forward. “Our new business could use cleaning, maintenance, ward upkeep—you’d have your own domain.”

  The Brownies buzzed excitedly.

  “A new home?”

  “A fresh territory?”

  “What are the counter-obligations?”

  Eury laid out the responsibilities: cleaning the shop and the apartment above, basic magical ward upkeep, security monitoring, protection from mundane and supernatural pests, no hexing clients without permission, and a crumb tax negotiable quarterly.

  Brownies whispered furiously. Then the tiny leader spoke: “One condition.”

  “Name it,” Elly said without hesitation. She was all in on this negotiation.

  “You. The traitor of secrets.”

  Elly stiffened.

  “You must give a secret of equal value next year.”

  Elly’s jaw dropped. “You want a debt?”

  “A secret for a secret.”

  “That’s—”

  “Fair,” Eury said crisply.

  “It is the law,” Lily agreed.

  Elly looked betrayed by the universe. “Fine. But I’m not giving you anything from my childhood. Or my browser history.”

  The Brownies cheered.

  The contract was sealed with a ceremonial dusting of powdered sugar (their idea, not ours), and the entire swarm marched out, chanting: “New home! New home! New home!”

  The bakery owner sobbed with relief and promised us free muffins for life. Can I get a hell yeah, for free breakfasts?

  As we walked out, the leader Brownie tugged my pant leg. “Feeder of chaos… listen.”

  I leaned down. “I’m listening.”

  “The shadow that smells of hands is stirring.”

  I blinked. “What does that mean?”

  He tapped his tiny nose. “A warning. From the broken cabinet.”

  Before I could ask another question, he scurried off to join the others.

  I stood there, unease spreading like cold water down my spine.

  Elly came up beside me. “What’s wrong?”

  “The Brownie said something weird.”

  “Oh, Daniel,” she said, patting my shoulder, “everything they say is weird.”

  “Yeah. But this felt… different. There was truth to it.”

  The sky darkened slightly.

  A wind brushed my cheek—cold and dry, like paper sliding across skin.

  Lily frowned. “You feel that too?”

  Eury nodded. “Something’s awake.”

  I exhaled slowly.

  “Great. We’re not even open for business yet, and the apocalypse is already sending us save-the-dates.”