The swan fairy, who's name I learn is Bianca, barely speaks on the way to her house. I can't blame her for it. I'm the reason she is now in a terrible mess.

We arrive at a wooden structure nestled high up in one of the trees. Bianca turns to me, an apology cringing on her face.

"You're going to have to climb," she says.

It takes a moment for her words to process, for my gaze to trace up and up and up.

I swallow. My mouth is impossibly dry. "There's no way I can climb that."

"I mean, it's not..." It takes a second for Bianca's gaze to trace over me. Realization settles in her eyes. "I see."

Even if I hadn't just escaped the hungry jaws of monsters, I'm in no physical condition to be climbing thousands of paces above ground. My weak wrists could all too easily cave, and my fingers release their grip on the rough branches. If I don't break a bone from trying to support my weight while climbing, then I will surely fall to my death.

"Maybe I should just wait down here," I say.

"No, we'll figure something out." Bianca's wings flutter slightly as she levitates above the ground. She flies slightly to the right, then the left, pacing in front of the tree.

"Why can't I stay down here?' I ask.

Bianca pauses, her wings slightly moving up and down, just enough to hold her above the ground.

"I... uh... look it's nothing personal," she finally sighs. "It's just that I don't want to risk any of the other fairies seeing you. If any of them know you are cursed and report back to the queen, we both will get into a huge amount of trouble."

"Oh."

"It's not that I'm ashamed of you or anything," Bianca quickly asserts.

I nod. "Of course not." Though my throat tightens, and I can't help but wonder if it isn't true, at least a little bit. I mean, surely she doesn't want to be seen with a murderer, much less a person who looks as ugly as me. My brow suddenly furrows. "What about your family? Will they recognize me?"

Bianca shakes her head. "It's unlikely. My mother isn't on the council or anything. And she isn't one of the Shaded Realm's wardens." She pauses, her gaze drifting to the treetops. "You know what? I can probably carry you up," Bianca says, her face brightening.

I take a step back. "Oh, I don't know about that."

"Sure, there shouldn't be any problems at all. I may look small and delicate, but my wings are strong from flying long distances. And sometimes, I have to move something from one place to another, so I'm much stronger than I appear." She lands on the ground, wrapping her arms around my waist and hoisting me into the air. For a moment, my feet leave the ground, and I'm hovering a foot over the forest floor. Fear ripples through me, sending tingles through my body and constricting my lungs. Then, I come crashing back down. My feet land in a pile of dead leaves with a crunch.

"Woah, sorry. Need to prepare myself better." Bianca's chest rises and falls rapidly, and I can hear her heavy panting breaths.

"I really don't think..."

"Let me try again." She lifts me up again before I can protest further. Her wings beat against the air with a whooshing sound. My feet leave the ground once more, but this time, the distance grows further and further from the forest floor. My eyes settle on the ground, which becomes tinier by the second. Fear, mixed with a strange bubble of excitement, settles in my chest. But it's mostly fear.

My fingers open and close, and a wave of nausea rolls over me. I feel like I might faint, but I try to keep myself conscious. At least then if she drops me, I have a chance of reaching out to a branch to try to break my fall.

We continue up and up. My lungs constrict, and my head starts to spin. The air seems thinner up here, harder to inhale. My head rolls to the side, slumping to the right so that my chin hangs over my shoulder.

Then, a wooden platform comes into view. While the ground grows tinier, this grows larger by the second. With the platform nearly in reach, Bianca's powerful wings beat against the air, propelling us over the side. We hover over the boards for a second before gently floating down to land on top of it. Bianca's clasp around me releases, and I crumple to the ground, my head pounding. My palms strike the rough wood. Blood rushes in my head, making it spin for a second. I feel lightheaded, like I'm about to faint.

I brace myself against the platform for several minutes before the spinning slows, and I can finally see the world around me once more. I look up to see Bianca bending down beside me, her hand outstretched in concern but not quite touching my bony arm.

"Are you alright?" she asks.

My chin dips in a single nod. "F-Fine."

"Bianca?" A female voice calls behind us. I look up to see a swan fairy standing behind us. She is tall with dark brown skin, just like Bianca's, and matching wings. She has long black, glossy hair, descending down her back in an elaborate braid.

"Hello, Mother," Bianca says. "This is Elowen."

The woman frowns, though not unkindly, more out of curiosity than anything else. "Elowen? I haven't seen you around here before."

"I, um, I'm new to the swan fairies," I say.

"What do you mean?" Bianca's Mother asks.

"She comes from a different forest," Bianca quickly cuts in. "She got lost and ended up turned around, which is why she ended up here."

"I see." Bianca's Mother doesn't seem convinced, but for some reason, she doesn't push the matter. "Seems you've been lost for a long time if you've succumbed this far to the wasting disease."

I resist the urge to ask more questions since I still don't fully understand this disease thing Bianca told me about. Instead, I nod, hoping she won't press for more specifics.

"It's been pretty difficult, and I'm very grateful that I found Bianca."

"Yes, it's a lucky thing," Bianca's Mother muses. "It would obviously take many years to be poisoned from the air in the human realm, but you don't want to get too ill. It can have some nasty side effects, and it's very difficult to cure once the wasting disease has set in." I nod, though I'm still not fully processing how the disease works. There's an uncomfortable beat of silence while her mother scrutinizes me. Finally, she says, "Well, you're welcome to stay here until we find a way to get you back home. You can join us when we return to the Shaded Realm. That way we can hopefully start reversing some of the effects. I must say, I've never seen the disease set in this quickly... how long did you say you were gone?"

I swallow. "Actually, it's been several years. I got separated from my m-mother... she died when I was young... and I never was able to find a way back into the realm. The Shaded Realm, that is. I've just been kind of on my own ever since." I hope I sound somewhat convincing. Though in all honesty, what I told her may not be that far from the truth.

Bianca's mother nods. "Ah. Well, come on in and make yourself at home." She motions to the inside of their home nestled high up in the treetops. I walk in, Bianca following behind. Inside, there is a table in a room I presume is their kitchen. There are wooden countertops stretching around that room and cupboards on the sides of the wall. Some herbs, fruits, and nuts are on the counters. In the other conjoined room, there's a rug in the center. Bianca walks over and plops onto it.

"You can sit here, Elowen," she says. "Mother, do we have something she can eat?"

Bianca's mother removes a small, smooth and thin stone from one of the cupboards, which she proceeds to put an apple and several nuts and seeds on. She walks over to me, placing the plate on the floor in front of me. "Here, you can start with this."

"Thank you." I bite into the apple with a snap. Crisp flesh bursts in my mouth as I chew it. As I swallow, my stomach seems to grow more hungry, and I find myself chewing faster and faster. The entire apple is gone in about a minute's time. I shovel the nuts in my mouth next. Soon, my plate is completely empty. My stomach still growls though, starving for more. I almost feel more hungry and faint from lack of food than when I hadn't eaten anything.

"Is... is there anything else?" I ask. I feel bad for eating all their food, but I really do need the sustenance more than I care about politeness.

Bianca turns to her Mother looking up with expectant eyes. "Mother?"

"I can whip something up," she says. She looks me up and down, then shakes her head. She must still be baffled by the degree of this disease's progression.

Unease trickles through me. Based on what she's said, the way she looks at me, it seems that the disease has progressed quite a bit more than I've realized all this time. I've noticed that my illness attacks seem to be coming more frequently, and have been getting worse. My days seem to pass in a constant haze, headaches bearing down on my mind almost all the time. More head spinning, more collapsing to the ground, more nausea. So the question is how much time do I have left?