Page 61 of Witch Unbound
Wren was sitting on the ground, still singing and swaying from side to side.
“I don’t understand…” Bramble reached out and gently stroked the hair back off one of the children’s heads. “Are they human?”
“I don’t know…I think…I think they might have been human once.” A word bloomed in my mind. “Changelings…”
Bramble looked up at me, wide-eyed.
“I went into the fae realm a couple of months ago to get some children back. A fae had stolen them and Ursula told me that the longer they stayed in Faerie, the more they would be altered.”
“You think these are human children who spent time in Faerie.”
“Yes, Ursula said some would come back changed and the Magiguard would…clean up.” I swallowed the lump in my throat.
Bramble’s eyes grew wide. “Clean up as in…kill them?”
Crap. “I don’t know.”
She scrambled to her feet. “You can’t let them do that. It’s not their fault. They’re innocent.”
The air crackled and several Magiguard materialized down the alley. My gaze zeroed in on Mel. She’d come with.
“Cora.” She led the guards toward us, her gaze dropping to the changelings. “Oh, poor things.”
“Can you help them?”
“Help as innotkill them,” Bramble clarified.
Mel pulled a wand-like instrument from her bag and waved it over one of the changelings, then nodded. “I think we can.” She looked up at the Magiguard behind her. “You’ll need to tranq them.”
Wren continued to sing as the guards administered the drug using a device that reminded me of an EpiPen.
“You can stop singing now.” Mel smiled at Wren. “You did real good, Wren.”
His song petered out. “Poor childrensies. Wren remember. Wren remember the dark tower. So many poor childrensies.”
Mel froze. “What did you say?”
Wren sighed. “Merkle take childrensies there. Bad place. So bad.”
“Wren…would you know where to find this place?”
He shrank away from her and pressed his back to my legs. “Wren not want to find it. Ever. Bad place.”
Mel made a sound of exasperation. “But if you had to find it, could you?”
Wren whimpered and annoyance flared in my chest. I reached down and scooped him up. “You’re scaring him.”
Mel stood and wiped her palms on her jeans. “I’m sorry, Cora. I didn’t mean to.” She looked at Wren. “I didn’t mean to scare you, but we need your help. Ursula went into Faerie two days ago on the trail of more missing kids. She hasn’t come back.”
“Wait…I thought your magic didn’t work on that side.”
“It doesn’t, which is why we avoid crossing over, but the children are witch progeny. An exception was made for their retrieval.”
“I thought changelings had to be human,” Bramble said.
“Yes, so did we, which makes us suspect there’s more to this whole thing. Ursula and her team should have been back twelve hours ago, but we think they may have been compromised. We can’t risk sending in another team, so…”
“You’re going to leave them there?” I stared at her in horror. “That place is fucked up.”
