I’ve told this story all wrong. There are things I really ought to have said
about growing up in Faerie. I left them out of the story, mostly because I am a
coward. I don’t even like to let myself think about them. But maybe knowing a
few relevant details about my past will make more sense of why I’m the way I
am. How fear seeped into my marrow. How I learned to pretend it away.
So here are three things I should have told you about myself before, but
didn’t:
1. When I was nine, one of Madoc’s guards bit off the very
top of the ring finger on my left hand. We were outside, and when
I screamed, he pushed me hard enough that my head smacked
into a wooden post in the stables. Then he made me stand there
while he chewed the piece he’d bitten off. He told me exactly
how much he hated mortals. I bled so much—you wouldn’t think
that much blood could come out...