No sorcery, no hidden strength, no appeal to the creatures past the woman's form, her bearing. Her descendance? But he knows nothing of her origin, the blood that smears itself thick within her veins. Perhaps she is part of their ranks, born to the ill-fitting contraptions of a human shape until her inheritance remembers itself.

And in the dark, and blood rains fouling the ground, and Lan Wangji's eyes slanted, searching, what can he see of her hands? No claws, perhaps through her strain. Of her eyes? Controlled, dark-feverish with the survival compulsion of the threat that's barely passed, but not animal, hungry. No black seeps of her, no bone drips down.

"Curses? Winged creatures?" Words stray from him, uncertain. Once, he walked a disciple, the paths of exorcism unknown, interrogations an ambiguity. He knows now to attack a riddle from each corner with needles and thorns, until it reduces itself, shrivels down to seed.

Here, there is a link somewhere, a thread of chains, a sequence. They miss one truth and the ripple-storm of its implications. If the harpies enjoy this woman, it is for a reason, however trifling, lost or little known. "To each consequence, a cause."