It was no monster. No giant, hungry horror that wanted nothing more than to gobble her up and leaver her bones for the crows to peck. It was just a boy. A human boy, by the looks of it. Amidst the swirl of outlandishness, he looks almost out of place in his normalcy. Perhaps this is how Riley herself looked to the monsters. Maybe that's why they want her out so much. Point is, she needed to speak to this boy, to hear his story. If it is the same has her own, maybe together they would have an idea on what exactly happened to steal them from their homes and into fairyland.

As the two talked outside, Nina scurried about the room, her nose alive. She must sense something. Riley picked her up and pulled her away from the cupboard she was scratching at. In a world like this, it was best not to mess with things not understood. Then, as she struggled to hold onto the wriggling Nina, a voice rang out, somewhere in the room.

The voice went back to the head of a mouse, poking shyly out of a breadbox. Riley turned to watch it. The little mouse raved in short bursts of words, sounding as mad as a hatter. Who should she trust? This little mouse, who she doesn't know in the slightest? The wind-up fox outside, who has never seen her? One thing she does know, she must speak to the little boy. She began opening drawers and cupboards, looking for anything to shorten the gap between the two of them. So close, and yet so far. One cupboard she opened yielded what she was looking for. A platter of delicious looking cakes, which Nina dove for with the ferociousness of a tiger. Riley snatched up the plate and scraped off the cupcakes with her hand, albeit with a little hesitation. She didn't realize how hungry she was. The cakes looked so good . . . but what if they were fairy poison? No, she had to concentrate. Focus on the task. She lifted up the empty cake plate and heaved it at the window separating her from the boy. That ought to make things easier.