None of that disturbed her.

No, there were two other pieces that were ringing in her head—two things she couldn’t comprehend. Couldn’t abide.

One: How did they find her?

Humans weren’t supposed to set foot in their territory. They shouldn’t have even been able to see her in the thicket. Somehow, they did.

But there was something more pressing than that.

Two: What did they do to her wings?

She could weakly wiggle her digits in spite of whatever poison they’d shot into her, and she could breathe, and if she really tried, if she really concentrated, she could even move her arms and legs a hair’s breadth or two.

But her wings—

They were numb. Motionless. Still there—but useless for now.

If she were human, if she shed tears, she would have been sobbing. But fairies didn’t weep. So she lay still, bound by the poison in her veins, thinking the most ancient and powerful prayers she could remember since her tongue wouldn’t work to speak them.

Prayers for strength. Salvation. Retribution. Healing.

She wouldn’t say the prayers for mourning just yet.

There were too many things about this that didn’t make sense. Humans and fairies had spent so many years living in a delicate balance, perhaps even a wary harmony. Why strike now? And why strike a nobody, a low-class fairy like her, who could have nothing to offer them?

And so the third biting worry came to light: What did they want with her?

She didn’t need windows in the still-rattling cart to tell her that the light was changing outside. Soon, it would be twilight, and if the poison’s hold on her limbs would just fade a little more—

Then they’d find out what they were dealing with.

Because she was a Night Fairy, and once the sun dipped below the horizon, they’d have something to contend with.

So she lay in wait, fighting the poison. With each passing moment, she could feel more strength returning to her fingers. When they came to put their filthy human hands on her again, she would be ready.

Slowly, their blunt, unpleasant human language grew a little clearer and stronger, and the rattling wagon slowed to a stop. Crunching footsteps outside. A shift in the dimness as the wooden doors swung open, revealing the armed men who had ripped away her freedom.

“Don’t look it in the eyes.” It took her a moment to understand their guttural words. It. They meant her—she nearly wanted to laugh as she realized that they feared her very gaze. They had been taught to fear fairykind, just as she’d been taught to fear the humans.

She wriggled her fingers again, or tried to. They moved sluggishly—still too weak, too stiff.

She fixed her eyes on the view of the sky instead, heartened by the sight of the moon and stars gleaming above. Just as she’d hoped, just as she’d prayed for, she felt her strength beginning to grow just by looking.

You humans are no match for fairy magic. She tried to open her mouth, and this time, though her tongue felt thick and heavy and dry, it worked.

“Stay away.” She planted her palms to the wagon floor, barely sensing the splinters digging into her skin from the rough wood. They didn’t understand the fairy tongue, but it didn’t matter. When she met the gaze of her nearest captor, her meaning was clear.

“It’s awake. It’s up.” His voice was rising with alarm.

“You should fear me.” She could still feel weakness in her legs—but they didn’t know that. She crawled forward just a touch, like she meant to, like she preferred to move that way. Let the human men think of her as a feral beast. Better that than to be trapped among them.

The one who had spoken backed away.

Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted one of the men drawing a knife. She turned to him, baring fangs.

Fangs she didn’t usually display, but moonlight magic—shadow magic—did wonders to spook those of simple mind. The dagger in his hand began to shake.

Then, a word caught her ears, whispered among the men to her other side, one of too many she didn’t understand, but the only one that mattered—

Wings.

She didn’t feel it.

Not in the way humans felt things—with visceral, radiating pain or the physical sensation of a knife ripping through the flesh of her wings.

No, this she felt within—a blow so stunning to her very existence that every drop of strength seemed to seep out of her in an instant, sending her reeling into the floor of their accursed wagon.

Her wings. Her wings.

Did they bleed? She’d never hurt her wings before, had never been so careless as to leave them exposed and open to attack—but more so, no fairy would ever dream of disabling another fairy’s wings. She tried to perceive a wet swath of blood coating her back, but she couldn’t.

She couldn’t feel it.

The humans clambered in now, their voices harsh and urgent and ugly, their fear banished. One pulled a black bag over her head, stealing her sight, deadening her hearing, and even interfering with her sense of smell. A rope bound her arms to her sides, but they did not bind her feet. A scream rose up in her throat when they pulled her up, forced her to stand, but she didn’t know if she was truly screaming or not.

Her wings.

Her feet struck the ground outside the wagon, and her knees buckled beneath her. I can’t. But the humans couldn’t hear that, couldn’t see that. They just stood her up, yanking on the rope that bound her, tugging her forward.

How could they?

She stumbled forward, unable to resist the pull of the rope that dragged her with them. What were they going to do to her? What did they have planned? Did it even matter? What could they possibly do to her now that was worse than what they’d already done?

The terrain changed beneath her bare feet, and heavy arms guided her through a door. She was inside now. Inside the world of humans. Trapped, like one of their domesticated beasts.

Wounded. Bound. Hemmed in and useless.

The physical sensation arrived, belated and unwelcome—sticky dampness, spreading over her back.

“Look at that. They do bleed.”

Harsh, guttural, sickening, cruel, wrong.

She did not need to understand his words to know what he saw leaking down her skin. What grisly travesty had been committed against the things that made her who—what—she was.

Further in. The world of stars and fireflies and moonlight—banished by walls of stone.