"...That depends," Nyx says after a long, hanging moment, "on what They want to leave behind. My master had no need of that bit of the human soul that remembers how to love light and laughter. He took that, and my left hand, one piece at a time. Bones through the flesh first. Then the muscle. Then the skin. The tendons he saved to lace through razors, so I could hunt the rats in his Labyrinth. Those blades are still in me."

She looks away. "...But they also take Glamour. The currency of the world of wonder. It's...related to mortal passions, in some weird way, but it's not the same as them. The conventionally human give it off the way light gives off heat, and the Cousins take it. I do too. It's the only coin that the breeze and the meadow will trade in, the currency of the living world. Not even the gods of nightmare can escape having to pay what they owe."