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were—
ahem
—underdeveloped. After spending several moments doing an excellent imitation of a fish out of water, I managed to heave myself to my left side.
    The view from this side was less than inspiring. The hut was small and round and just one room. In the center were a fire pit and a small opening at the top of the hut to vent smoke.
    There were no other objects in the room. Several leaves cut into long strips hung over the doorway in a kind of makeshift curtain. I was alone in the hut, but there were surely guards posted outside. Well, I wasn’t going to lie here and wait for them to come for me.
    I still had my wings. I tested them out to see whether my captors had restrained them. Unfortunately, they had. I felt some kind of cord pulling on them. There was no way I’d be able to fly like that. I was trussed up like a Sunday turkey, and I couldn’t move at all unless I flipped over and did an impression of an inchworm.
    Crawling on my belly hardly seemed like an efficient method of escape. But if that was the only option available to me, then that was what I would do. Nobody had ever taken me prisoner before, and I was a little insulted.
    Plus, I had pretty much been spinning my wheels since I’d landed on this stupid planet. Now that I knew where the portal was, I wanted to get to it.
    The first order of business was to get out of these bonds. If I had endless time and energy, I could probably figure out a way to pick the bracelets apart at the molecular level. But I did not have endless time or energy. So I did what I do best.
    I set the hut on fire.
    My palms faced outward even though they were bound behind my back. So all I had to do was call up some fireballs and make sure my hands pointed at the walls.
    Soon the hut was smoking. Very quickly the flames spread, and in a short time the whole hut was ablaze. The heat of the flames got uncomfortably close pretty quickly, and I rolled toward the exit.
    A guard rushed in, his face set in lines of surprise. His hood was pushed back against his neck, and I could see the pointed tips of his ears.
Faerie,
I thought.
    He looked from the flaming wall to me. I widened my eyes and tried to look helpless. I flopped my feet up and down a couple of times so that he would know what I wanted. He seemed torn for a moment, unsure whether he should douse the fire or save the prisoner.
    I heard shouts and cries outside as the fire spread. The guard seemed to make a decision. He knelt beside me, hovered his hands over the bracelets that bound my ankles and said something in that musical language I’d heard earlier. The bracelets clicked apart, and the guard put his hands under my shoulders to help me to my feet.
    He wasn’t stupid enough to release my hands or my wings, but that was okay. I could work with this. I stumbled as he dragged me out the door, both of us coughing from the smoke that now billowed out of the hut.
    Several faerie were running toward the blazing structure carrying containers of water that sloshed onto the ground. The guard pushed me to one side so that I fell to the ground again. I rolled over and sat up, glaring at him.
    He pointed his finger at me and said something in a firm voice that was likely some variation on, “Stay here. Don’t move.” Then he ran in the direction the other faeries had come from, probably to help with the fire dousing.
    The faeries trying to put out the flames took very little notice of me except to shoot me a quick glance and get on with their business. That suited me fine.
    The hut was isolated from the rest of the village, which appeared to be made up of several structures considerably more elaborate than my prison. The village was set in a large clearing, and my hut was right on the edge of the forest. That also suited me fine.
    I scooted backward on my bottom toward the underbrush. Leaves scraped against my back. I waited until I thought everyone was engaged with the blazing hut, then went a little farther, until I was