Cupping Ira’s face in his hand, Arthur dabbed blood from his forehead. Ira’s eyes fluttered closed, but his breathing wasn’t as labored as it had been. With the blood cleaned up, the wound didn’t look as bad. Arthur applied the sweet amber to it, taped gauze over it, and turned his attention to cleaning the blood off Ira’s face.
As he wiped blood from the scar, something emerged he had not expected. He’d thought—feared—that the clumps had been oddly shaped bubbles of blood, that the scar had opened up in the altercation.
Instead, Ira’s scar was dotted with flowers.
White flowers stained pink. Five-petaled and tiny. Arthur swallowed, touching a fingertip to the scar.
Ira jerked away. “Don’t. Please.”
“But... your scar.” Arthur’s heart fluttered in panic. “It’s growing flowers.”
Ira’s brow furrowed. He reached for the scar but lowered his hand without touching it.
“That’s new,” he said wearily, but Arthur, more panicked, caught his hand. His nails had lengthened into claws. Gray hair furred his fingers. Like his hands were turning into paws the way his feet had.
“What’s happening to you?” Arthur whispered.
Ira’s thumb brushed across his knuckles. “I told you. The forest is trying to protect me.”
“But—this—how does this—”
“It makes it harder for me to leave the vale.”
Ira slumped in his chair, letting out a breath. Arthur squeezed his hand.
“The first time I left the vale after your father died,” Ira said, “I changed to a stag. Always liked being a stag, when I’m not in human form instead. Sometimes I liked it better. But when I changed back...”
He gestured at his antlers. They gleamed in the low light.
“The second time, it was the paws. The third time, the feathers. The more time I spend transformed outside the vale, the less of me changes back. And I start to lose myself. To feel like a real beast, instead of just looking like one. It was never like that before.”
He gazed absently at their linked hands.
“I used to change for the fun of it. Now I never know whether I’ll be able to change back.”
A lump formed in Arthur’s throat. The forest made it so difficult for Ira to leave the vale, yet he’d done so for Arthur. He’d transformed for Arthur, too, to face the glaistig, not knowing whether or to what extent he’d become a man again.
Arthur swallowed. “Is there nothing that can be done?”
Ira leaned forward, reaching for the silver acorn. His new claws scraped over Arthur’s throat but didn’t break the skin. Arthur shivered. On the bed, Freya raised her head, eyes narrowed, but she curled back up when it became apparent Arthur wasn’t in mortal danger.
“With this...” Ira’s fingers curled around the acorn. “If the heart of the wood were replanted, it would heal the forest. Calyx might calm down. And I think... I think it’d put me back the way I was.”
“Then—why haven’t you done it?”
Ira shook his head.
“It’s not a matter of stepping outside and planting the acorn wherever you want. It has to be planted where the tree is. Was. In the stump.” He dragged a hand over his face. “I tried. I ran out of acorns, planting them in the vale, or just outside it. Some of them took, but it didn’t work.”
“How do you know?”
Ira smiled humorlessly.
“Because the forest has grown sicker since.” He squeezed Arthur’s hand and let go. Arthur hadn’t realized their hands were still linked. “Besides, you’d know if it worked. I’ve had to do it once before, centuries ago. The tree had been struck by lightning. It grew back the second I replanted it.”
He ran a hand through his hair, making a face when it tangled in his new claws.
“I was so scared when I saw it like that, blackened and split and broken, half of it fallen over. When I replanted it, and it grew... I thought I could protect the forest forever. And now I can’t even get to the heart of the wood.”
