In spite of her efforts, the willow branches had a solid hold around her waist, arms and legs, and they lifted her into the air. The edges of the leaves, stiffened until they were as hard as glass, could cut like razors. They’d slashed her sleeves to ribbons and were threatening to do the same to her skin. Alice let the swarmers vanish and drew their thread inside herself, thickening her skin to the same rubbery consistency as theirs while the branches tightened their grip with bone-cracking strength.

The tree-sprite itself approached, riding a twisting tree branch, one hand still buried in the wood and twitching as though the myriad limbs were extensions of its fingers. Its green eyes regarded her coldly as the thick ropes of twisting fronds tightened and the razor-leaves pressed tighter. She wondered if it was curious as to why she was still struggling; certainly anything made of ordinary flesh and blood would already have been crushed to a gooey paste. As it was, her Swarm-infused flesh resisted the pressure, but the tight press made it difficult to draw breath, and spots were already dancing in front of her eyes.

After a long pause, the tree-sprite twitched its buried fingers, and the willow fronds responded. Alice found herself turning helplessly, branches groaning around her as she was pressed towards the thick tree-trunk. Even the Swarm’s power wouldn’t help her survive that, as several poor swarmers had already demonstrated. She struggled, but she might as well have been trying to push over a tree with her bare hands. The air was full of the sound of splintering bark and twigs as the branches bent nearly double, and she could smell the sweet tang of sap.

If Geryon was going to rescue her at the last minute, she thought, surprisingly calm, then that minute was rapidly approaching. The trunk of the tree loomed in front of her, as menacing in its stolid immobility as the slavering jaw of a monster, and just as deadly. She tried not to picture being fed into it, a little at a time—

Geryon would let it happen, she realized. He would sit there, in his comfortable study, and let it happen. It would save him the trouble of dealing with her failure and erasing her memories. She felt a sudden, frantic rage, cutting through the terror like a knife. No, she thought. I am not going to die. Not today.

She pulled on the Swarm thread, as hard as she could. There was a pop, like the sound the swarmers made, but a hundred times louder.

Alice became the Swarm.