It looks like the place where you could buy Love Potion Number Nine. I'm not entirely convinced those aren't eyeballs in the jar on the shelf.

It's not until several steps in that I see the woman. Old, but at the same time ageless. In the low light, she sits at a table, sorting out what look like small bits of leaves. She's wearing a hood and doesn't look up.

"Piss off, angel. You know I don't make deals with your kind."

I look at Shiro. He's hardly reacted.

"Yes, I'm aware. But my friend wants to talk to you," he says.

I'm actually less sure I want to talk to her than I had been before.

She looks up, and what I can see of her face turns surprised.

"A changeling…"

She reaches across the table and pinches my face, angling it this way and that. I really wish she wouldn't.

"How much do you want for her?"

Shiro pulls her hand off me and I could not be more grateful.

"We're not doing that."

"Keep your filth off me!" She yanks her hand out of his grip, wipes her wrist on the tablecloth.

By now her hood has fallen, and I can see the pointy tips of her ears.

Shiro had told me she was one of the fair folk, but I still wasn't prepared to see that.

"That's some poor company you keep," she says to me, pulling her hood back up. "What do you want?"

I'm kind of scared to talk to her.

"I was hoping… can you tell me about the fair folk?" I finally say.

"They're terrible."

Okay, great.

"Can you maybe tell me a little MORE than that?"

"If you're more specific."

Man. I had a LOT of specific questions five minutes ago but it's so hard to focus on them now.

"Where do they live?" is the first one I can get out.

"In a separate realm, you toad."

She's gone back to her work.

"Why do you hate them so much?"

She scowls.

"Ask me something else."

I nod towards Shiro.

"Why do you hate HIM?"

"Why don't YOU?"

That might have been rhetorical but I'm going to answer it anyway.

"Because he's the first person to see me for what I am and actually give a shit."

"Well. You'll learn," she says.

I hate it when adults say shit like that.

"So… is my real family in the fairy realm?"

"You think you're going to be welcome there? They wanted a HUMAN more than they wanted you."

I also hate getting my questions answered with more questions.

"Why did they want him instead?"

"Do I look like I still TALK to those animals? Why would I know what they noticed about him?"

"Noticed?"

"They're a tasteless lot, but they don't take just ANY human. They want someone who's good for something." She sneers a bit. "One of the few wise trades they make."

I think Shiro is doing all he can not to snap at her.

There's a very faint impression of her pointy ear coming through the hood. I'm having a hard time not staring. Should MY ears be pointy like that?

"If I'm a fairy, why don't I look like one?"

"Simple."

She turns around, breaks open a bottle, turns back.

She's looking back at me with Shiro's face, and a grin like I've never seen on him. Suddenly I realize how scared my parents must have been on the day my eyes changed.

"They didn't even give you a GIRL to live as," she says, not quite in Shiro's voice. "They really don't care about you."

I'll have time to be upset about that later. Right now I'm too disturbed by that face.

"Okay, that's enough," Shiro says.

She smirks pointedly at him. I think he might be more upset about this than I am. And she's enjoying it.

"And what are you going to do about it?" she taunts.

"Please…" I can't believe I said that.

"Hmph," the witch frowns. She cracks open a small vial and looks like an old hag again.

I want to leave, but I won't. I've never met anyone who knows this much about the fair folk. Not even Shiro.

"Why don't I remember being a fairy?" I ask her.

"You don't know anything, do you?"

"Well, nobody exactly gave me a handbook!" I snap. I get kind of nasty when I'm scared. My memory's a bit foggy but there's a chance I've bitten a few EMTs in my day.

"Of course you don't know anything. If you did, you wouldn't be a very convincing replacement, now would you?" She pauses to tie together a bundle of leaves. "They have ways of making you forget."

"So… who was I?"

"Another thing you expect me to know," she glances up to glare at me. "You could have been anyone. But one thing I DO know," she says with a scowl, "Is that you weren't anything that anybody wanted. Maybe a royal bastard. Maybe a troublemaker."

My heart is pounding.

"Is there any way of finding out?"

"By returning your memories? Not here, that's not a spell I can cure. And even if it was," she hunches over the table, "do you really want to remember everything you had that was taken away from you? You might have lived there for centuries, where the people you loved most didn't care enough to keep you, even after all that time."

"I could be centuries old?"

"You could be older than your angel."

I look at Shiro.

"Am I?"

He shakes his head.

"I don't know."

It's quiet for a bit. The only sound is the witch rustling her ingredients. There are bottles all over this place; she's been here for a long time.

"So… are you doing magic right now?" I ask her.

"Combining my magic with that of the natural world," she says. "It's a basic skill."

"Is it something I can learn?"

"I'm not going to teach you."

"That's not what I asked," I snip back. I wouldn't want to spend that much time with this old hag anyway.

"It's not just the servitude they want out of their humans," she says. "It's the spare parts."

Wait, WHAT?

"Spare parts?"

Shouldn't she have mentioned that a while ago?

"They don't harvest enough to kill. Generally."

I'm feeling sick.

"Don't give me that look," she says. "Nothing comes free, and magic is no exception. It would be hard to teach a changeling who doesn't respect that."

Yes it fucking would be. Maybe magic's not the kind of thing I want to do.

What's been happening to Matt this whole time?

"I want to bring my brother back home," I say involuntarily.

He's not even my brother. Where did that come from?

The witch laughs. It's not good-natured at all.

"You're a smart little whelp. I would love to help deprive them of something that's theirs."

I hate the way she says it. But I can feel it. This is what I've wanted for a long time. It's what I wanted coming in here, what I've wanted since the day I learned what I was.

I had no idea. I wonder if Shiro did.

"I can send you to their kingdom," the witch says, getting up and perusing a shelf behind her. "If you're quick, you can take back your human."

"How will I find him?"

She gives me a look.

"Don't tell me you don't know what he looks like."

I move a bit closer to Shiro.

After a while the witch sets a small bottle on the table.

"This one. This elixir will send you to the fairy realm for three hours."

I look at it, and I look at Shiro.

"I want him to come, too."

She grumbles and decants it into two smaller bottles.

"One and a half. You want your human back, have his hand in yours as the potion wears off."

My god. Is this a thing that can really happen? The real Matt, he might be alive somewhere.

What are his parents gonna think? Would they still want ME?

But I can't go back without him. I would never forgive myself now that I know there's a chance.

I hope he's alive.

My brain's going all sorts of places but the witch interrupts.

"Do you really want to walk around the fairy realm looking like that?"

She holds up another vial, watching me. It's the same sort of vial as from before.

"What's that do?"

"It will turn you back into the girl you always were."

I reach for it carefully, trying not to brush her ugly hand. I'm shaking.

It's cold. It's easy. Suddenly all my years of suffering seem worthless.

It's quivering inside with ripples.

Is it better to pass as a girl or as a human? Would my parents even know who I was? Which parents? Who the fuck am I?

Maybe today's not a good day to make this decision.

But what if I was beautiful?

I'm having really bad dysphoria right now.

"I… I don't know…"

"Well, give it back if you're not going to use it," the witch motions. I feel calmer when it's out of my hands. I don't know what I would have done. It scares me, and at the same time I'm pissed that I didn't have this option years ago.

I have pretty well had it here and I want to finish our business and get the fuck out.

"Is there any other fairy stuff I should know?"

"Don't touch any iron."

"Yeah, okay, I got that one."

I pick up the two small bottles.

"You're going to pay for that, aren't you?" she says.

I don't like the way she said that.

"Depends on what you mean," I say.

"Shame you're fresh out of feathers. A couple of THOSE would have done."

I see Shiro tensing beside me.

"What do you want?" he says.

I see now that she's holding a knife.

"Considering how much an angel can bleed? Not much at all."