Two
Fae-touched. That’s what they call what I am. In the old days, they believed tiny, mischievous faeries whispered in the ears of boys and girls until they were driven to madness. Aunt Julia tells me the fae are neither tiny nor mischievous. They’re evil, cruel, and twisted.
The things I see in the shadows are pixies and gnomes, pucks, sprites, and imps. They’re the little folk. The actual fae are taller than any man, and strikingly, maddeningly beautiful. None of them ever cross to our world if it can be helped. The pollution, the technology, the iron hurts them, ten times more than they irritate me.
When Julia first told me all that, I thought she must have been joking, spinning some fanciful tale. I even suspected Clary had put her up to it. But I couldn’t deny I saw them—the littl
