For what? He didn’t know. He kept seeing that raven. Yet before he could get the question out, a blast of icy terror seized him, his head shooting up, one thought taking over.

“They’re coming. Now. The sluagh. Close the—” He was about to tell them to close the shutters, but enough of himself remained to realize that was ridiculous in a half-ruined building. “Farther,” he said. “Get in farther. Look for a room without windows. Hurry.”

“We’ll stop the sluagh,” Helia said. “You take cover. Let us—”

“No.”

“We can—”

He wheeled on the dryad. “No, Helia. You cannot. You will not. You’ll stay with us. This isn’t the melltithiwyd. It’s the sluagh.”

He expected her to argue, but that was the problem with her human glamour—it was easy to forget he wasn’t speaking to an impulsive youth. She studied his expression and then nodded and hurried away with her mate to find a windowless room. Gabriel strode off to do the same, gesturing at Ricky, wordlessly telling the Huntsmen to watch him.

And what exactly is the point of this, Gabriel? Gwynn’s voice asked in his head as he jogged through the building, hunting for the right spot.

He didn’t answer.

You’re safe. The sluagh won’t hurt you. You mean too much to her.

It isn’t about me.

No?

No.

Good.

He didn’t ask what that meant.

He needed to get everyone someplace safe. Part of him knew it was a fool’s errand—nowhere was safe from the sluagh. But he had to try. Buy some time until he figured out what to do next, how to help them, how to save them.

Any advice you have would, at this moment, be appreciated, he said to Gwynn.

Silence.

He growled a curse, pulled open a door, and saw an empty and windowless room.

“Here!” he called.

The sluagh struck the building like a fist, shaking it to the foundation, plaster raining down.

Gabriel ran back to the front room, where Meic and Wmffre were lifting Ricky.

“Back there!” Gabriel shouted to be heard as every unbroken pane of glass exploded.

Wmffre handed him Ricky’s arm, and Gabriel took it without question, helping Meic haul the unconscious young man across a floor littered with glass.

“The room is right back here,” he said, then shouted, “Helia! Alexios!”

They answered from somewhere in the building. Outside, all had gone silent, which was worse, so much worse, as if the sluagh waited, biding its time, knowing it had them.

They turned a corner, and Gabriel realized Wmffre wasn’t following.

Gabriel shouted the Huntsman’s name—or the best approximation he could manage. “Get in here! Now!”

“He’s standing watch,” Meic said.

“Then he’s a fool. Tell him to get—” Gabriel bit it off and stalked back around the corner. “You! Get back here—”