I pushed her hair gently aside and said, “Tell me what I can do.”

“There’s nothing to be done. She was right. This is the price.” Ida lifted her eyes to mine, bright, impossibly violet eyes. “Thank you.”

I choked on a half laugh, half sob. “I didn’t do anything except get my ass rescued.”

Her hand closed around mine, that energy still pulsing. “You did everything,” she said. “You pissed it off.”

“That’s not exactly—”

“You weakened it. I’d never have been able to kill it otherwise. You won. You just needed a fae to make the killing blow. Before I pass, though, I need to ask you for something.”

“What?”

She gripped my hand tighter. “Don’t turn your back on the fae.”

I smiled, my eyes welling up. “Can’t stop lobbying for them even now.”

“Especially now.”

I leaned down and whispered in her ear, and she smiled as her light faded. Then she fell to the floor.

Something struck the floor beside me. I jumped to see a melltithiwyd drop. Another and another, and as they fell, I heard their voices, the trapped souls whispering as they winged past, invisible now, invisible and free, their bodies littering the floor, where I knew they would finally stay, rising no more.

I was crouched there, gripping Ida’s hand, blinking back tears, when claws sounded on the steps. I jumped up, thinking, Shit, it’s not over.

Lloergan burst through the doorway with another cŵn behind her, both of them bloodied from battle. Brenin and Ioan followed, other Huntsmen behind them, rushing in and stopping short as they saw Ida on the floor, atop that pile of ashes, surrounded by the dead melltithiwyd.

“Is that…the sluagh?” Ioan said, gaze on the ash.

“It was,” I said. “Now we need to find Gabriel and Ricky.”

“Done,” said a whispery voice, so weak it was barely audible.

Helia appeared in the doorway, supported by Alexios. Her skin was bark, fingers tapering to twigs.

“We found them,” Alexios said. “She insisted.”

He lifted Helia in his arms, ignoring her weak protests and Meic’s insistence that the Huntsmen could carry his mate. “She’s mine. I have her. Now let’s get the others. We don’t have much time, and we have a favor to ask, before it’s too late.”

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

Helia’s favor.