Sam bristled a little at that. It wasn’t nothing. Did Amber know that Sam had been in love with James, even when he’d tried so hard not to be? Did James and the church ask her to pray about that, too, and did he ask her not to tell Sam? Was he telling her about all the times when it had been so painfully obvious to him that Sam had a crush on him?

Whatever was in the water in Nashville that made a person’s smile look like that, with dimples for days, Sam wished more of it would make its way down here.

“I appreciate you, James,” Sam said earnestly.

For a person who doesn’t remember his dreams, a memory can be a hard thing to grasp. One wants it to be solid—a thing to build upon. One wants it to have really happened, and for the happening to matter. One wants it to make sense—to bear the weight of further examination. But then one wakes up. And when one does, at least one has the magic to fall

In his vision of how this year was supposed to go, this was the time when he and James would get to gloat about having their lives already sorted, while everyone around them freaked the eff out. Admittedly, that’s where the vision ended, but Sam had never doubted that with James in his corner, other visions would just sort of follow very

“Plus you’re afraid it will ruin your friendship forever if you say something and he doesn’t like you back.”

“Sometimes, Sam, we fight with people because we care about them too much to give up on them.”

“Not that I would ever expect you to understand,” she said, “but it really, really is.” Then she turned on her heel and vanished back into the night.

“Don’t you ever call True Light a cult,” he said. “Mr. Grender is a great man. He took me in when no one else would, and Grace has brought more magic into this world than everyone else in the state of Georgia combined.”