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A couple of kids are flinging themselves as high as possible on the swings, as if they’re preparing to take off into the sky. I’ve never seen humans actually fly, but those two seem to believe it’s possible. Their exhilaration trickles into me, tart and sweet as chilled apple cider.

Nearby, a toddler giggles nervously as he careens down the slide to his waiting mother. Two girls sway upside down on the monkey bars.

Playgrounds are perfect for my needs: a good, simple meal.

But I feed much better when I’m in physical form.

In the shelter of a cluster of trees, I solidify wearing a daisy print sundress and my favorite track jacket: rainbow stripes across the chest to represent all the light and color I want to bring with me.

I heard on a TV show once that you are what you wear.

The jacket’s hood materializes already pulled up over my long, vibrantly turquoise hair, which I can’t change and tends to draw attention I’d rather not have. Especially if it starts glowing.

That’s something no human would do.

The fresh spring air floods my newly formed lungs, filled with the perfume of the flowers blooming on a tree by the playground. Magnolia blossoms. Wonderful!

But what I really want to savor is the delight of the romping children. The ravenous prickles inside me are already starting to soften.

I amble closer to the playground and stop near the magnolia tree.

With each whoosh of the swings and clamber up the climbing equipment, I absorb more emotion in little spurts. This boy’s daring eagerness tastes like a sip of spiced hot cocoa. That girl’s dizzy hilarity could be a mouthful of pulled taffy.

The little wisps don’t soothe the deeper burn of hunger very quickly. Once I know I’ve got my balance, I can come more often. I won’t wait until I’m on the verge of starving.

It’ll be fantastic.

A little girl wanders over and gazes up at the magnolia’s luminous flowers. She stretches her hand, but the nearest one is far above her head.

A glimmer of hope flutters in my chest. I can make her happy.

One more bit of joy to make amends for the thousands I’ve hurt.

I dare to step closer and smile. “I can get one for you.”

It’s been weeks since I last used my voice, but the words slide off my tongue with my usual bubbly cheer. The girl grins. “Yes, please!”

The human-ish body I can shift into has many appealing features, from its unique hair to its multitude of soft curves, but it’s hardly tall. I have to stand on tiptoe to reach a flower.

The girl watches avidly. Lucky her, she’ll grow with the passing years. The only thing I can change about my human-like form is what it’s wearing.

As my fingers close around the base of the blossom, a different sort of ache jabs through my ankles and feet—not a hundred needles but one that’s way bigger than any needle has a right to be.

Shadowkind can recover from plenty of injuries that mortal bodies can’t. But some wounds aren’t so considerate.

Suppressing a wince, I hold out the flower. “Here you go.”

The girl plucks the blossom from my fingers with a gasp of delight that melts in my mouth like a gumdrop. She darts away to show off her prize.

Warmth tingles over my scalp. I tug my hood lower over my hair to cover the glow of satisfaction.

On the far side of the park, a procession of vivid colors catches my eyes. People are walking up to a large stone building, the women in swishy dresses, the men in suits.

They give off a cocktail of excitement and anticipation that tingles into me from even this far away.

I study the building. Arched windows, tall towers, intersecting lines carved into stone?—

Oh! I’ve seen this before. It’s a church. They must be coming to a wedding.

My heart skips a beat.

Weddings bring big emotions. Delicious, giddying, fill-me-up-in-one-gulp emotions.

It’s so much easier to overindulge.

I hesitate and then gird myself. I’ll only walk over to the fence between the playground and the church. Absorb the edges of the celebration from a distance. That’s safe enough.

Pleased with the compromise, I stroll over. The wafting festive energy draws me in.

I rest my hands on top of the picket fence. Only traces of the largest emotions reach me, like standing outside a bakery and imagining pastries filling your belly from the scents seeping past the door, but it’s a feast all the same.

The burn of my hunger eases. After another five minutes here, it’ll be nothing but a smolder. Five more, and I’ll be completely sated.

The stream of wedding-goers trickles to a halt. It must be almost time for the ceremony to begin.

A small wooden door on the side of the church opens, and a woman in a poofy white dress steps out onto the narrow lawn.

Her pale hair swirls around her head in a fancy arrangement of overlapping loops. Gold jewelry gleams around her neck and in her earlobes.

I stare at her. What’s the bride doing out here?

How are all the people inside the church going to revel in the marriage if she isn’t in there doing the getting married part?

A current of more concentrated emotion washes over me from her, so close by. Without trying, I can pick up on a sour tang of doubt and a bitter knot of guilt alongside the delicate tendrils of excitement.

Oh no. What does it matter if the people inside are happy for her if she isn’t happy herself?

Is there some way I can help her?

My resolve to keep my distance wavers. I never want to come here and only take.

People who do that… People like that are the reason my feet hurt.

I walk along the fence until I’m directly across from the bride. "Are you all right?”

At the sound of my voice, she startles. She spins to face me with a rustle of her massive skirts and knits her brow. “Are you one of Ted’s cousins?”

I shake my head. “I’m not a guest. You just look like maybe you need someone to talk to.”

The bride droops. “I—I don’t know.”

She presses her hand to her forehead. “I thought I wanted this, but… we haven’t been together for very long. Only a year. Everything’s felt so right , and I didn’t want to wait. But what if I’m being crazy? Who jumps into marriage like that?”

My understanding of human relationships comes mostly from fictional ones on screens, but that gives me context. “You’re afraid you’re rushing in too fast. You might not know him well enough.”

“People don’t normally do this. There’s obviously a reason why.”

Through her uneasiness and shame, the quivers of excitement still reach me. There’s the edge of a richer, more substantial sweetness like a honey-glazed roast.

“He didn’t do anything to make you feel that way, did he?” I say. “He’s good to you.”

A smile lights up her face.

“He is,” she says, and it’s in her voice, in her sparkling eyes meeting mine: the whole roast and a heap of buttery mashed potatoes and caramelized squash besides. “When I’m with him, I feel like I can do anything. And he’ll be right there, cheering me on.”

She lets out a choked sort of laugh. “Even if I went in right now and said I want to wait, he’d just hug me and reassure me that we’ll sort everything out.”

My breath catches in my throat. I haven’t gotten to bask in this especially potent sensation very often. It’s filling in every bit of empty space inside me.

I can repay her for that.

I reach across the fence to pat her arm. “You love him. And you know he loves you. That’s bigger than anything you’re afraid of.”

Humans are strange beings. They’re the ones feeling the feelings, but so often they need to be told what’s inside them before they can recognize it.

A brilliant smile crosses the bride’s lips as a flood of relief courses off her. “You’re right. The worries seem so silly when I think clearly. Thank you.”

She turns and hurries back into the church, nothing but elation radiating off her now.

I sent her on that path. A surge of my own joy swells inside me.

Too quickly, too vast.

Panic jolts through me amid the rushing whirlwind. I only have an instant to push myself away from the fence before the hurricane of happiness bursts out of not just my hair but all of me in an explosion of light.

I crumple in on myself, hugging my knees, willing the blinding glow back under my skin. But it’s blazing too wildly for me to catch hold.

Frantic voices yell. Tires screech. Sparks of other people’s panic nip at me.

A metallic crunch reverberates through the air. The impact of the people hurt by my power stabs right down the center of my body: an acidic spurt of agony, a searing flare of anguish.

A crackling of pain before a life snuffs out.

A sob hitches out of me. I dig my fingers into the grass.

The light starts to contract back into me, and I dive into the first sliver of shadow I can reach.

I shouldn’t have come over to the church at all. I should have known it’d be too risky.

Why didn’t I walk away when I saw the bride?

But she looked so lost…

Now I have more injuries to make up for. More hurt to balance out.

I’ll find a way. There has to be a way. For now?—

A sudden force blasts straight through the shadows to slam into me.

I reel through the patches of darkness. Before I can get my bearings, another blast of the unexpected energy smacks me.

This time it digs in, like fingers clutching around my mind. The force wriggles through my thoughts.

I have the sense of a presence at the other end of that grasp, as if I’m a fish hooked on a lure.

The lure yanks at me. It’s so snagged in my head I can’t do anything except follow.

I stumble through the shadows, a silent wail building inside me. No, no, no.

It’s been years since I felt this sensation, but I know it too well. It’s one of them, one of the mortals with magic.

A sorcerer is reeling me in.

Not just me. As I’m dragged forward with increasing speed, my essence brushes against other beings in the shadows alongside me. We’ve all been caught up in this vast net of sorcerous compulsion.

An impression of words hum through my essence. Come. Come to me.

I squirm and flail, but my ephemeral body won’t respond. It just flows on toward the call.

I’m trying so hard to fight that I barely notice my surroundings until my forward momentum slows.

Alongside the other shadowkind creatures hauled by the sorcerer’s power, I dip under a rusty fence that surrounds a large, mostly empty lot. Weeds sprout up from the cracks in the pavement.

Five figures wait for us by a parked van. Three of them are human; two are higher shadowkind like me. The two shadowkind and two of the humans stand poised around a waist-high metal box.

An icy shiver passes through my being.

I know a cage when I see one.

The third human keeps reeling me in with his magic. When I’m about ten feet away, he loosens his hold just slightly, his dark gaze sweeping over the lot as if he can see us even in the shadows.

He’s definitely not the other sorcerer I’ve known. This man is a lot younger—maybe mid-twenties, as well as I can judge mortal ages. Since all shadowkind pop into being fully grown and unchanging, I don’t have a ton of observations to go by.

Even though he’s younger, he’s awfully strong. His power shows not only in the invisible force clamped around me but in his chiseled jaw and the muscles filling out his broad shoulders as well.

With a twitch of his hand, he flicks a strand of wavy black hair away from his eyes. Then he chants another command in a low murmur I can’t make out.

His magic wrenches me right out of the shadows into my true physical form, not the human-like one I can use as a disguise in the mortal realm.

My translucent body shimmers with a passing gust of wind. It’s nothing but light from the vague shapes of feet to my glowing blob of a head.

All around me, other shadowkind pop out of the darkness too: mostly lesser creatures with their animalistic bodies but a few scattered higher beings as well: an imp with purple skin and spiky ears, a centaur in the midst of rearing his horsey front legs, and a nearly transparent wind spirit whose blustery hair is having a really bad day.

The sorcerer looks only at me.

His voice comes out steady and hard. “That’s the one. Take her in.”