When the beast had gone still, Sasha poked him in the stomach. “Ira?”
He snorted in her face, making her fall off of him. She laughed.
“No fair!” Then she spotted Arthur. “Uncle Arthur!”
Ira scrambled to his feet, gazing at him. “You’re all right.”
Arthur let out anoofas Sasha flung her arms around his middle. He bent, groaning.
“Gently, dearest,” Charlotte said. “Your uncle isn’t entirely in one piece.”
Jonas hugged him, too, more carefully. Arthur hugged them back with one arm, his throat closing up, but he was aware of Ira’s eyes on him all the while.
“Come along, children,” Charlotte said. “It’s past your bedtime.”
“Bedtime?” Sasha said in a scandalized voice. “How do you even know what time it is? We’re in theforest.”
“Your uncle’s pocket watch. Come, now.”
Charlotte squeezed Arthur’s arm, nodded at Ira, and dragged the children back to the fireside with Calyx supporting her.
Ira had stridden toward Arthur like he, too, might fling his arms around him. Instead, he stopped several feet away, shoving his hands into his pockets. The lichens growing in the ruff of his neck thickened before Arthur’s eyes.
Arthur fumbled for his acorn, but Ira stepped closer and stilled his hand before he could undo the chain.
“Don’t. It’s all that’s keeping the sickness from spreading faster.” His eyes were red rimmed and baggy. “Your sister says her companion’s sickness didn’t even show up for a week because she was wearing one, but she hadn’t shown any symptoms yet. We’re not sure how long it’ll keep yours at bay.”
Moss and lichens tinged his arms green. Still a beast, but becoming increasingly plant matter, too.
“Charlotte has an acorn now, too,” Arthur said. “Surely—”
Ira shook his head. His hair hung messily around his face, like his knot had given up. “We tried. The chain won’t fit me, with...”
He gestured at his ruff, thick and furry and green with growth.
“There must be something—” Arthur started, but Ira wrenched away.
“Don’t— Why do you always—”
He paced, not limping as badly as he had when they’d parted. He had a new knee brace, one of vines woven tightly together about his transfigured leg.
With an effort, he stopped pacing. He ran a hand through his hair.
“Then,” Arthur said, unable to help himself, “if you flew to the heart of the wood with her acorn—”
Ira shivered into a raven. One of his wings was fur ratherthan feathers—winged in shape, but useless for flight. He hopped several times, flapping, but barely made it a foot into the air before sinking back to earth.
“Oh,” Arthur said in dismay.
Ira shivered back into the beast he’d been, winced and rolled his shoulder. “I aggravated my injury flying here anyway. Charlotte was kind enough to change my bandages again. We’ll walk. In the morning.”
His eyes kept flickering to Arthur’s face and away.
“Here,” he said suddenly, “you shouldn’t be on your feet.”
As he had in the cave the other day, Ira waved a hand, but he slumped almost before the gesture had been completed. A vine wriggled from the dirt, trembled, and died.
“What happened?” Arthur asked.
