"She said nothing," he snarled at the sluagh. "Undo it. Now."
"Is that an order, Gwynn?"
"Fynd nawr."
"Oh, no, you don't want to banish me right at this moment. If you do, I can't reverse what I've done."
I struggled to make sense of her words as I gasped in agony. I was only dimly aware of Gabriel's arms around me, his grip supporting me.
I couldn't feel my legs. No, that's a lie. I felt the dead weight of them, memories of those early years flying back.
"Undo it!" Gabriel roared. "Now!"
"But I am. I'm undoing what I did. That's what your lover figured out, Eden. The question isn't what we can do, but what can we undo."
She lifted her hand again, that casual gesture, and I could sense my legs dangling as Gabriel held me aloft.
"Is that the threat, then?" I said, still wincing against the ebbing pain. "You'll undo the cure? Rob me of the use of my legs?"
"Oh, it's not just your legs, Olivia. Your condition was more severe than the doctors could bring themselves to tell your parents. By this age, you would have been in a wheelchair, unable to move the lower half of your body, unable to regulate your bladder and bowels. You would have lung issues. Loss of skin sensation. The list goes on."
"All right."
That echoing laugh again. "Ah, but with such arrogance comes a bit of actual strength, doesn't it? Right now, you're madly working through the worst case, whether you could deal with that. Which is why we didn't simply threaten it, Eden. Yes, we can reverse the cure. We can also ensure your father spends his life in prison for the murder of Gregory Kirkman. And we can take your lovers. Both of them. Notice that I do not say 'kill' them. I say take them. Which I think you will agree now is a far worse fate."
"Hey, heb edifeirwch, you done talking?" said a voice. A young voice, male. Then a female one, saying, "That's right. We called you by your Welsh name, heb edifeirwch. Because, being dryads, we're too stupid to be afraid of using it."
Helia and Alexios appeared. Helia's olive skin looked pale, and she limped, her mate staying close.
"You're done here, heb edifeirwch," Helia said. "You may send the Welsh fae running for cover, but there's no word for you in our language. So we don't have to be afraid of you."
"That is the most ridiculous logic I have ever heard," the sluagh said. "You really aren't that bright, are you?"
"Nope," Alexios said. "Definitely not bright enough to know that you are as bound to Nature as any other fae. Yet, unlike the others, you're not part of Nature. You have no affinity for her. And she has no affinity for you."
"Unnatural," Helia said. "If we had a word for you, that's what it would be. And Nature?" She lifted her hands, gesturing to the building. "She really doesn't like anyone messing with her world."
Helia closed her eyes and spoke words in Greek. Her fingers lengthened and twisted, her skin scaling like bark. Alexios did the same, beginning the metamorphosis to tree.
As they reached up, Nature reached back. Vines wound through the smashed windows and pushed through the ceiling, through the walls. I felt the energy of those vines, like straight alcohol driving into my veins, my mind swimming, heart pumping, the energy coursing through me, a raw and live thing.
The sluagh twisted, her edges turning to smoky wisps, as if she fought to maintain her form. Deep in the building, the melltithiwyd shrieked and screamed.
Gabriel grabbed my shoulders to pull me down, but as the melltithiwyd swooped past the stairwell, they reared up, in one body, turning sharply as if they'd seen a cyclone heading straight for them. They winged their way back at twice the speed, hitting one another, attacking one another, black blood and red feathers exploding in their panic to escape.
As the melltithiwyd flew up through the distant hole in the ceiling, Helia watched and said, "Huh. That went well."
"Swimmingly," Alexios said, and they giggled and I turned back to see that the sluagh had disappeared, and the dryads had resumed their humanlike form.
"And that is the advantage to our age," Helia said. "As we grow closer to death, we grow closer to Nature herself. Now, move quickly. Nature is full of bluster and blow, but she can't keep that thing at bay for long. Time to save ourselves."
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
"We rescued your mother," Alexios said to Gabriel as we crawled out the side window.
"Even if you'd rather we hadn't." Helia smiled but then caught Gabriel's expression and said, "We will look after her for you, Gabriel, until you feel ready to deal with her. You only need to tell us what you'd like done."
"I would prefer not to answer that right now."