I ought to be grateful my parents didn’t stick burning iron rods down my throat the second they discovered I was no mortal child. But then again, that’s not much worse than being thrown in the dumpster in fifth avenue.

By the time I was seven, I knew how to make leaves look like gold. By the time I was twelve, I mastered pickpocketing. And by sixteen, I was gone. Away from the small town in Pennsylvania where a little mortal girl was stolen, replaced by a changeling.

Not much has changed in the fifteen years since I was kicked to the curb. I still look sickly, with frail bones and hollow eyes. But at least I know how to keep a spell on (even around iron) so I look humanly enough.

That’s why at day I’m Clara something, your local friendly couch hopper. And at night I’m another monster, letting my spell slip away. Stealing children and selling them to wanting faerie mothers.

Look—I am aware of how awful it sounds. Scary faerie, stealing away children from the mortal realm. But it’s not all bad.

The children get to live a life of lavish in faerie land, spoiled and fed like fat cats on a rug. The faeries get to feel the love of a human child, and not one of a sickly vermin. And the mortal parents…well let’s say I only take the children from parents who don’t deserve them.

So call me what you must—but just know that whether human me or not, I always take advantage of the best opportunity’s.

No matter what.