the Wheel and the Wing
On the volcanic island of Abietta, Mitka spends his days in the airport lobby—not to fly, but to watch. A paraplegic mask-carver with no ticket and nowhere to be, his disability makes him invisible to the powerful—and visible to Desde, a harpy who has watched him longer than he knows.
Desde has wings where arms should be, a hidden surveillance room behind the terminal walls, and a past tangled with Denis—the human mayor who once loved her, then built his career denouncing her kind. When Denis is shot mid-rally and the island fractures into factions, Mitka flees abroad to work for his uncle. He tells himself he's escaping. What he's really doing is trading—and the weapons he sells will find their way back to Abietta. Desde remains on the island, interrogating prisoners and learning to wield power the way Denis once did.
Four years later, with the island reopening, Mitka boards a plane home. It's hijacked by rebels armed with guns he supplied. Desde, rogue and unannounced, clings to the landing gear and catches him when he throws himself from the hatch. The fall should kill him. Her talons don't.
Now bound by debt and desire, they orbit each other through smuggled letters and tapped lines. She catfishes him through a dead rebel's account; he barters for prisoners at her family's table. She knows what he sold. He knows what she's become. Every choice they make—to love, deceive, and weaponize what they are—drags the island closer to eruption. And the volcano is listening.