Silver light snaked from his heart and wound around him. Charlotte stumbled back, dragging Arthur with her. Maud shuffled after them. Calyx unwound feebly from Ira’s wrist, fell to the ground, and inchwormed away.
The humans shielded their eyes. The silver light wound faster and faster, glowing so brightly they could barely see Ira.
He lifted into the air.
Light shone from his paws, his antlers, his face. The blood matting his fur streamed back into the wound, until his shirt was clean and his body uninjured, except for the twisted leg and scarred eye. He transformed back into a man, more human in form than Arthur had ever seen him.
Around him, the silver light shone on the trees. The black ooze on their trunks vanished. Their withered leaves regrew in a burst of greenery. The skeletal birds at their feet erupted into flight in a flurry of feathers and down and birdsong. Maud’s ravens joined them, solid again. Calyx unwound in a spool of fresh greenery.
Arthur’s chest tingled hopefully. Charlotte squeezed his hand. Elspeth wrapped an arm around her waist.
The light lowered Ira to the stump. Arthur stepped toward him, but, in a single burst, the light twisted up from his body and into a tree: a silver oak growing from the stump in moments instead of years. Silver grew over Ira’s body, as the moss and flowers had done so many times, until it encased him. No more than a human face protruding from a silver trunk. The hopeful tingling in Arthur’s chest soured to dread.
When it was a young tree some twenty feet tall, with a spreading crown, the oak stopped growing. Silver acorns shook free of its branches, showering the ground. The surrounding flora was soft and green and sweet smelling. Maud pokedthrough the grass with her cane, gathering acorns. Her ravens stalked after her. The light faded.
In the oak’s trunk, silver gilded the contours of Ira’s face. Calyx nosed at the trunk like a confused dog.
“Arthur?”
He staggered toward the tree without answering, chest tight. Swallowing, he touched Ira’s cheek. His skin was hard and silver, no different from the rest of the oak.
“Ira?” Arthur whispered.
The tree did not answer. He leaned his forehead against it and cried.
There was a tug at his trousers. Predictably, the children had left their hiding place. Sasha gazed up at him much more seriously than was her wont, the cat clutched disgruntled in one arm.
“Look, Uncle Arthur. You’re all better.”
It wasn’t quite accurate: He was riddled with the bear’s claw marks. But his breathing had eased; he was no longer cold, and his joints no longer ached. The black veins were gone. Sasha prodded his stomach, avoiding his bandages, to show him.
He attempted a smile. “I see.”
She hugged him tight. His abdomen ached, but he hugged her back.
Charlotte caught his eye as he turned from the tree, bit her lip like she wanted to say something, but she merely took his hand. Elspeth nodded at him, her jaw tight. He gave her the smallest imaginable smile, but his heart was shattered. He’d thought he would save Ira, not doom him.
Behind them, there was a crack like thunder and a flash of light. They whipped around. With another crack, the tree split—and Ira stumbled out.
He heaved a breath, gazing down at his own body. His skin was sun-bronzed, his hair inky dark, one eye scarred, one legtwisted, all human in form. He was clad in flowers and leaves like he’d always been in George’s stories, but no moss or flowers or silver grew from his skin.
Arthur’s heart leaped.
“Ira?” he croaked, half expecting it to be one of the wood’s tricks.
The Lord of the Wood shivered into a stag and bounded through the clearing, tossing his head. Into a wolf that howled then raced to the tree, muscles bunching under his fur. A raven spiraling into the sky with a croak. As he returned to earth, he shivered back into a man and landed with a stumble, shifting his weight to his left leg as woodland flowers blossomed at his feet.
For the first time in thirty years, he’d changed entirely back.
He laughed, strode toward Arthur, cupped his face in his hands, and kissed him.
Before Arthur could respond, Ira pulled away.
“You saved me,” he said.
“It was Elspeth’s acorn.” Arthur’s lips curved into a smile. “Would you kiss me again?”
Ira smiled, too, his eyes flickering over Arthur’s face. He pulled Arthur back in, hands fisting in Arthur’s hair, and kissed him. Arthur kissed him back, overwhelmed by the press of Ira’s body and the pleasurable pain of his fingers and the desperate crush of his lips. They kissed and kissed and kissed, and Ira’s fingers tightened in his hair, and Arthur held Ira so hard that he lifted his feet off the ground.
