Page 154 of Caging Darling

A single tear rolls down Tink’s cheek.

Peter can’t help himself. No self-control, that one. “Please,” he begs. “It was the Sister who wanted to take your voice, not me.”

Tink cocks her head at him, her expression unreadable.

It’s that moment that Peter realizes he won’t get an answer from her. That she can’t give him one.

Peter’s face falls, and Tink grins.

She removes the blade from his mouth, and Peter, fool that he is, lets out a sigh of relief. Lets his head hang.

Tink brings the blade down at his back.

There’s the ripping of patagium first, then the crunching of bone. Peter lets out a wail, and the Nomad has to hold him in place, because Tink is strong, but the bone holding Peter’s wing in place is as thick as my forearm.

On the first strike, the bone at Peter’s back doesn’t break from its place.

I gag, clutching my palm against my mouth, but I can’t bring myself to look away. Not when blood spatters Tink’s face, mixing with her tears.

She hacks and hacks and hacks. Until finally, the wing falls. It hits the ground like leather, folds up over itself. Peter’s weeping now, hunched over. He begs.

Tink just stands there, her chest rising and falling with exertion. She stares at his other wing. I brace myself for the carnage, but Tink doesn’t move. She just stares at Peter’s remaining wing for the longest time.

And then hands the blade back to the Nomad.

At first, there’s a glimmer of relief on Peter’s face.

That’s because he’s a fool.

I wonder how long it will take him to realize what she’s done. That she’s not only rendered that wing useless without its other half, but that it would have been kinder to sever both. He’ll feel the weight of that wing all of his days, the absence of the other in its shadow. It will pull at the muscles in his core, forcing his torso to compensate for the lack of balance. I hear John’s voice in my head, rattling off all the maladies the single heavy wing will cause Peter in the future.

Not to mention, where will he go?

Fae ears are simple enough to hide with hair or contraptions. But Peter will go nowhere without being recognized. He will no longer be able to hide. Not in the shadows. Not anywhere. His single wing will attract not only attention to his fae state, but to the fact that he is weakened.

Tink has marked him for captivity. For a trafficker waiting to capture an oddity.

He thanks her, because he’s too stupid to recognize it.

The Nomad isn’t. He shoves Peter, now passed out, to the ground, uninterested in him now that Tink stands before him. He’s examining her with a sharpness in his gaze. Not so much an assessment, but a hunger.

She flinches under his scrutiny.

And then Tink falls to her knees, her face in her hands as, silently, she weeps, the closure she’s been craving not nearly enough.

I stand and watch as the Nomad crouches and scoops her limp, weeping body into his arms. She surrenders her strength, all the fight having fled from her body.

“Don’t fret, Wanderer,” he whispers. “I’ve got you now.”

“Wanderer?” I ask, the breeze carrying what’s left of my voice.

The Nomad turns toward me, Tink slumped against his chest, exhaustion and grief having pummeled her to sleep. There’s a dare in his expression, a challenge for me to ask my next question.

“She doesn’t know you,” I say, then carefully, watching the protectiveness with which the Nomad grips my friend, the mingled gentleness in his touch. “But you know her.”

The Nomad’s eyes twinkle. “What’s it to you, Wendy Darling?”

I bite my lip, suddenly rent in two directions. There’s a part of me that knows I should try to stop him. Try to keep him from whisking away my friend, who so clearly fears him.

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