“A selfish part of her wished it would, wished that her mother would come and turn on a light and banish the monsters. That wouldn’t be breaking the rules, would it, if it was only the thundering of her heart that did the waking?”

Growing up among humans as a changeling, Wren is terrified at the sight of Lady Nore, Lord Jarel, and Bogdana, whom she believes to be monsters. By extension, she is repulsed at the sight of herself after Lady Nore strips away her human glamour. This view of herself persists as she grows older, and is a regular point of conflict throughout The Stolen Heir.

“I do not know what I would do to my unfamily if they pushed me away again. I am no safe thing now. A child no more, but a fully grown monster, like the ones that came for me.”

Wren’s self-perception is negative. Her fear of rejection and belief that she cannot be loved as a fae cause her to hide from her human family, her unfamily. She lives passively, afraid to seize what she desires, because she fears how she’ll be received.

“When the Court of Teeth ventured south, to war with Elfhame, Bogdana did not come with us. I thought to never see her again and was sorry for it. If there was one of them who might have looked out for me, it was her. Somehow that makes it worse that she’s the one at my heels, the one hunting me through the streets.”

The storm hag Bogdana was a passive mother figure to Wren during her childhood, but despite her faults, Wren cares for her. She is the only person Wren misses from the Court of Teeth, making the hag’s pursuit yet another hurt that Lady Nore has inflicted on her daughter.