2. Kira

2

KIRA

" T his isn't fair! I have rights! You can't just spirit me the fuck away!" I pound on the bars of the wagon, screaming until my throat is raw, desperate for someone, anyone, to help me. "Just wait until my father gets through with you all and whatever sick shit this is!"

The wagon driver, a tall, spindly figure draped in a patchwork cloak, turns to glare at me with eyes like polished obsidian. They snap long, bony fingers in an impatient gesture and suddenly my wrists are bound in front of me, wrapped tightly in shimmering gossamer threads that bite into my skin. Another flick of those gnarled fingers and my cries are cut off as a strip of the same material seals itself over my mouth, reducing me to muffled whimpers.

Exhausted, hoarse, and defeated, I slump against the rough wooden walls of my prison, hot tears streaming down my face. My mind is reeling, struggling to process the impossible turn my life has taken.

This can't be real, I keep telling myself. Any moment now I'll wake up in my cozy bed, the smell of coffee drifting in from the kitchen, the sounds of Brooklyn stirring to life outside my window, but I don't wake up. The ropes chafing my wrists, the ache in my shoulders from the unforgiving boards, the metallic rattle and clop of the wagon rolling over uneven ground - it's all terribly, viscerally real.

Wiping my damp cheeks against my shoulder, I force myself to take deep breaths around the gag, fighting down the panic threatening to overwhelm me.

Okay Kira, I tell myself sternly, you need to keep it together. Focus.

Slowly, I manage to wrestle my churning emotions into some semblance of control. Lifting my head, I peer out through the gaps in the wagon's side, trying to get my bearings, to make some sense of where I am.

Probably drugged and taken somewhere upstate.

At first, all I can see are flashes of color and movement as we trundle down what seems to be a crowded marketplace. But as my eyes adjust, the details start to filter in and I feel my jaw go slack beneath the restraining cloth.

It's like I've tumbled into a fever dream, my mundane reality fracturing into a phantasmagoria of the fantastic and bizarre. Everywhere I look, wonders assault my senses in a dizzying kaleidoscopic riot.

Stalls line the winding cobblestone paths, displaying wares beyond imagination. I glimpse glowing fruits that pulse gently like caged hearts, crystals that hum and sing with resonant voices, slender vials filled with liquids that swirl with shimmering miniature galaxies.

There are bolts of fabric in hues I have no name for, their patterns writhing subtly like living things. Intricate clockwork devices whir and flutter, books with pages that turn themselves, hovering a handspan above their open covers.

And the beings that move among this cornucopia of mystical delights... I can only conclude that they must be the Fae, for nothing in the human world could ever be so beautiful, so terrifying, so utterly alien. They come in an array of shapes and sizes.

I see statuesque figures with skin like polished alabaster, clad in gowns of clinging spidersilk and crowned with wreaths of living flowers. Lithe, androgynous beings with hair like sheets of liquid mercury and eyes that flash like cut gems. Squat, gnarled creatures that put me in mind of ambulatory driftwood, their faces a mad profusion of knots and whorls.

I watch a quartet of nobles in elaborate brocade and ruffles bartering with a mischievous-looking sprite over an ornate blown-glass bottle imprisoned in a dizzying framework of twisted golden wire. Pixies flit overhead, winking in and out of sight like drunken stars, trailing glittering motes in their wake.

Despite my fear, I can't help but be mesmerized by the sheer alienness of it all. It's like I'm a dull gray moth transfixed by the coruscating dance of a legion of prismatic butterflies.

As the wagon threads its way through the bustling throngs with uncanny smoothness, never jostling more than a hair, I become slowly aware of the attention I'm attracting. Fae of all descriptions pause in their errands to stare, some with curiosity, some with an acquisitive gleam that makes my blood run cold.

A few even approach the wagon, hailing the driver in lilting singsong voices that slip through my mind like ribbons of cool silk, leaving behind only a vague impression of meaning. They gesture to me, their tones cajoling as they reach into the folds of their improbable garments to produce glittering tokens that wink and flash in the light that seems to emanate from the very air here.

The wagon driver rebuffs each in turn, shaking their head dismissively and pointing with a pronounced air of smugness toward a soaring structure in the distance that falls somewhere between a palace and a cathedral, all sweeping organic curves and jutting buttresses crusted with baroque ornamentation.

My heart plummets as the import of their exchanges gradually dawns on me. I'm not a guest or even a prisoner. I'm a commodity, a trinket to be auctioned off to the highest bidder. These unnerving beings see me not as a person but as a possession, a bauble to squat on a shelf in some Fae version of a curio cabinet.

A suffocating wave of helpless despair crashes over me, drowning the last embers of my fraying composure. I slump bonelessly in my enchanted bonds, not even bothering to brace myself as the wagon rounds a corner in a slow gliding arc, bringing that grandiose auction house into full view. The structure's central dome swells above the surrounding spires and turrets like a gravid moon, its surface scintillating with all the colors I've ever known and a few I'm seeing for the first time.

Will I be claimed as some cruel noble's plaything, a capering monkey to amuse the court of an alien king? Transformed by eldritch sorceries into something no longer recognizably human? Consumed in some decadent banquet, an exotic entree to tickle jaded Fae palates?

The gruesome potential outcomes reel through my head in an endless stuttering loop of steadily mounting horror.

All I can cling to is the desperate prayer looping in my head, a mantra just shy of madness. Please, I silently beg any power that might be listening, let this be a dream. Let me wake up. Wake up, Kira. Please.

Please wake up.