The Hag’s eyes widen for a second before she makes the sound of trees creaking in a windstorm. She clutches at her chest. The SoulSeed pulses bright green inside the Hag’s chest, burning hot and cold, bringing to life the emotions she has lived without for so long. She falls to her knees and keens.

“Do you love me now?” I ask her. She gives me a look that contains something other than indifference for the very first time. However, it is not love that fills her eyes but horror. “No? Shall I give you a new body as well?”

“No,” she pleads, but it is my turn not to listen. I whisper a word, and her metamorphosis begins. Flesh fills out what was once stone, and green sap runs through hollow wood. Her hair lengthens; her cheeks plump. The dress she has on her body tightens as her curves appear. Minutes, punctuated by her screams, pass as her body is re-created.

It takes only a quarter of an hour before she stands in front of us, a dryad once again.

“Will you not thank me?” I give her a sad look. “I gave you a heart and a new body. Aren’t they enough?”

“I didn’t ask you to do this!” she spits out.

“You speak as though permission is important.” I click my tongue at her. “I don’t recall anyone asking me before they put the HeartStone in my body.”

“I had nothing to do with what happened to you. I was simply repaying a debt!” Blanaid hisses at me.

“Indeed,” I say, and smile at her. “Since you raised me for almost seventeen years, consider your new heart and body repayment for the grace you showed me. I, too, am simply repaying my debt.”

Blanaid, no longer the Hag, stands before me. Her face is streaked with tears, and her flesh-and-blood body is bent under the heavy weight of her emotions.

She is in pain, yes, but this pain is far from enough.

“You should go join your sisters in the Talamh Caisleán. Bring them news of me. I’m sure they’re anxious about the HeartStone fragment that remains inside me.”

“Croi.” Blanaid catches my hand in hers. This is the first time she has touched me of her own accord. I fling her hand away, repulsed by the touch of her skin on mine. “Take the heart away. Please.”

“I begged you, too. Remember?” I think of the Croi I was. That poor creature, bewildered by the world around her. Stepped on, manipulated, beaten.

I lick my lips and remind myself of reason. I cannot set fire to everything at once. What will be the fun in that?

Dismissing the dryad, I turn to Ceara and Tinder. The morning is fading under the heated attentions of the sun. The pixie and the Fire Princess are staring at me as if they don’t know me and are not sure they want to.

I grin at them. I will not apologize for the things I have done and will do in the future. “Have you ever been to a human city?”