Chapter 9 Sam
Sam
The moment we stepped into the clearing, I knew something was different.
The seasons had no say here. Spring had erupted all at once, wild and overripe.
The blind was drowning in green. Ivy twisted through the wood, blossoms opened wide in the underbrush, and the air buzzed with life too vibrant for the hour. And the woods all around it were thick with wildflowers.
Bethany stopped short. “Oh…wow.”
Callie whistled low. “You’d almost think it was pretty. If you didn’t know why.”
The door to the blind was held shut with tiny green tendrils that snapped as I pulled it open.
Inside, Faelan was sitting up now, with his back against the far wall and his eyes closed.
He looked even bigger and heavier with presence than before—but distinctly less human.
His skin had taken on a greenish tint, as if the forest had seeped into him. His ears had gone slightly pointed.
And his hair—his wild, tangled hair—was now threaded with flowers, tiny blossoms that peeked through the deep strands and curled into the thick of his beard.
“Well,” Callie said quietly, “if I wasn’t entirely convinced before….”
Bethany crouched next to him, tilting her head. “But he kinda looks better now.”
“He’s not better.” I stepped inside. The vines swayed toward me as I passed them, brushing my sleeve. “He’s sinking into the land.”
Faelan’s eyelids fluttered. His breathing was deep and even, like he was completely at peace.
I wanted to shake him awake just to make sure he was still him.
Bethany set the book down between us. “Okay. Let’s figure this out.”
The leather cover creaked as I opened the book. The pages felt dense, and heavy with age, with words formed in ink that had refused to fade.
Bethany sighed. “I’d been hoping it was Randy’s reading comprehension at fault.”
Callie leaned closer and tapped a line. “But doesn’t some of it look like English? Or, maybe…what English used to look like?”
She wasn’t wrong. A few of the words almost made sense, but they didn’t quite click. Like staring at a reflection in rippling water—recognizable, but distorted beyond recognition.
“This is like trying to decipher a Shakespeare play after four glasses of wine,” Bethany sighed.
I flipped another page, scanning for anything that looked like a reversal, or a counterbalance, or maybe a way to undo what had been done.
Nothing stood out.
And the last thing we needed was to screw this up worse.
Callie yawned and rubbed her eyes. “I may be too tired for ancient druid homework.”
Bethany slumped against the wooden frame, resting her head back. “Yeah. Just give me five minutes.”
She was asleep in less than two.
Callie stretched her arms overhead, then curled into herself and drew up her legs to settle her chin on her own knee. She was blinking slower now, exhaustion pulling at her, but sleep hadn’t taken her just yet.
I hesitated, then gave her leg a little shove. “Hey.”
She hummed in sleepy acknowledgment.
“I just…” I shifted, picking a stray leaf off my jacket. “Thanks for sticking with me through all this. I know I came in here acting like I was on some kind of rescue mission, ready to drag you back home, and you could’ve told me to screw off.”
Callie smirked. “I mean, I thought about it.”
I huffed a quiet laugh, but my chest felt tight. “Still. You didn’t have to help me with Faelan. But you did.”
She finally looked me in the eye, her expression sincere. “You’re my best friend. You needed backup. That’s it.”
I nodded, exhaling slowly, but before I could change the subject, Callie shifted.
“While we’re having this little heartfelt moment,” she said, her voice lighter but still careful, “I guess I should say…thanks. You know. For being cool about things.”
I frowned. “What things?”
She gave me a flat look. “Sam.”
Realization hit. I hadn’t known she was into women.
“Oh,” I said, glancing at Bethany. Then, firmer, “Callie, what the hell? Of course I’m cool about it.”
She shrugged. “I only just figured myself out. You’re the first person I’ve really told, and I don’t know, I guess I worried it might change something. Between you and me.”
I shook my head. “You’re Callie—that’s all that matters.”
She nodded once, like that was all she had left. “Glad you’re on my side.”
“Always,” I said, nudging her leg again.
Callie nudged me back, softer this time. “We’ll figure this out. We have to. I just need to rest my eyes for a minute,” she mumbled, shifting to get comfortable.
I didn’t bother replying. She was already sinking into sleep, her breathing slowing, her shoulders relaxing into the rough wood of the hunting blind.
I waited a few moments, listening. Callie and Bethany were out.
But Faelan wasn’t.
At first, I thought he was asleep too, but something was off. His chest rose and fell, slow and even, but his body felt too still. He didn’t look at peace. He looked…stuck.
I moved closer without thinking and scanned his face, watching for the smallest change. A leaf had settled against his cheek, caught in the tangle of his beard. It was small and delicate, too fresh to have fallen there on its own.
I hated that something so innocent could steal Faelan from the world. Or, let’s be real. From me.
As I brushed the tiny leaf away, his eyes opened—slowly, like the weight of sleep still clung to him.
I stilled, and my breath caught.
The green glow in his irises was softer now, like light filtering through deep forest canopy. It wasn’t human. It wasn’t anything I knew how to name. I swallowed, trying to ignore the way my skin prickled under his gaze. “How are you?”
Faelan didn’t answer right away. His eyes weren’t on me. They drifted past, as if he could see through the roof to the sky, or maybe into infinity. He wasn’t watching the world; he was watching it move on without him.
Finally, when I thought he wouldn’t (or even couldn’t) reply, Faelan said, “You’re a stubborn woman, Samantha.
You fight, and you push, and you refuse to let things slip through your fingers, even when they were never meant to be held.
But some battles can’t be won. You think if you won’t accept this, it can’t be real, and if you push hard enough, the land will release me.
But the land doesn’t bargain. It only moves forward, always forward… and I am already a part of it.”
No. “We’ll fix this,” I insisted, because giving up wasn’t an option.
He didn’t argue. He just let the words hang between us, neither accepting nor rejecting them, the way you do when you don’t believe something but haven’t got the heart to say so.
That silence was worse than anything he could have said.
Even in the short amount of time since we’d returned to the shack, Faelan’s hair had grown wilder, thick with ivy and tiny white blossoms, the kind that clung to the edges of spring before fading into summer.
He looked more like the forest than the man I’d met, like something that had never belonged anywhere but here.
Which was so wrong…because he should have belonged anywhere he damn well wanted to be.
His hands rested open against the earth, fingers loose, no longer gripping or reaching. He wasn’t fighting the process—he had already let go.
Something inside me blanched at the sight. “I don’t care what you think,” I whispered, shifting closer, “I’m not leaving you like this.”
I didn’t know anything about magic, but maybe things didn’t need to be complicated. Maybe it was like a fairy tale, some old, quiet spell that could be unraveled with something as simple as a touch.
I leaned in before I could talk myself out of it.
My fingers brushed his jaw, tilting his face toward mine. His beard felt different now, more like fiber than whiskers, but his lips were warmer than I expected, softer, and poignantly human.
I kissed him.
For a breath, nothing happened.
I pressed in a little deeper, willing him to change, to shift back into the man I had met, the man I had been with.
The man who hadn’t belonged to the land more than he belonged to himself.
But when I pulled back, his skin was still green, his ears still pointed, the flowers in his hair still blooming like they had taken root.
My kiss hadn’t worked.
Because this wasn’t a fairy tale, and I was no princess.
Defeat settled in my chest, low and heavy. My arms were too tired to hold me up anymore. Instead, I curled into him, pressing my face against his shoulder.
Faelan was utterly still—until I caught the faint stir of his breath, a slow exhale that felt like release.
Or maybe that was just the breeze passing through the hunting blind.