Page 95 of Caging Darling

“Right.” I pull the blanket to my chest, tucking my knees into myself. “She uses a set of communication tiles John made for her. They’re fairly effective, but there were plenty of conversations I would have liked to have with her that she simply didn’t have the words for.”

“Mm,” says the Nomad, pressing his lips together in a firm line.

I arch a brow at him. “What? You’re not feeling compassion for the faerie you wish to kidnap and exploit, are you?”

The Nomad stares at me for a moment. “There’s no financial reason for me to wish for the faerie to be unable to speak. I might be considered cruel by many, but I’m not unnecessarily so.”

“The Sister deemed taking her voice necessary,” I say grimly.

“And your brother John? What compelled him to attempt to provide her with one?”

“Common decency?” I scoff.

“I didn’t mean to offend,” says the Nomad. “Especially when speaking of the dead.”

I bristle. “How did you know that?”

“Astor keeps me informed, though he didn’t know how it happened.”

“I found him hanging from a tree with a noose around his neck,” I say.

The Nomad pauses. “And did he tie that noose himself?”

I stare at him blankly. “I’ll let you draw your own conclusions about that.”

Sensing I’m done with this subject, the Nomad crosses the room toward the trunk at the end of his bed. He sits atop it, then looks off toward the far wall. Most people’s eyes would be glazed over, but not his. His are as keen and sharp as ever. Plotting.

“If you’re lying to me regarding not knowing Tink’s location, you’ll regret it, you know,” he finally says, breaking the silence.

“I’m not afraid of you,” I say.

The Nomad cuts his eyes toward me. “That’s because you don’t feel as you should.”

I wish he was wrong. I wish the reason I don’t fear him is because I’m brave. But he’s right. I simply don’t feel much except for a weariness so heavy, I welcome anything that would allow me the permission to put it down. Even if I’d be putting it down forever.

“Are you blaming me for turning it off?”

The Nomad shakes his head. “No. No, sometimes turning it off is the only way to survive.”

“Still, your threats do little good.”

The Nomad hunches over, placing his hands on his knees so that his elbows crane outward. “I’m not threatening you. I’m simply informing you that if you fail to hand over Tink’s whereabouts, whether that’s by choice or ignorance, you’re not going to like the alternative.”

I’m not in the mood to feel fear, so I say, dryly, “The anticipation is killing me.”

The Nomad snorts. “Do you know what folly is, Wendy Darling?”

“Are you about to try to boil it down to one thing?”

“Folly is taking a hatchet to the forest and hacking away at the brush when a trail has already been forged.”

My mouth goes dry. “You think someone would have already tracked Tink down.”

“She’s a valuable commodity. Not to mention with those wings of hers, it’s not as if she would have been able to hide easily.”

My mind whirls, panic bubbling inside me as I picture a band of traffickers grabbing my friend, leaving Michael playing in a corner, unattended and uncared for.

I feel as if I’m going to be sick.

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