Ellie POV
The waiting room in the Moonstone infirmary was hushed, all pale walls and soft light filtering through frosted glass. The air smelled faintly of sage and sterilized equipment, familiar, yet different now that I was on the other side of the patient chart.
I sat in one of the wooden chairs near the window, my hands wrapped around a mug of cooling tea. Across from me, Alaric stood near the shelves, looking through old magazines that had nothing to do with the test but kept his hands busy.
We had been waiting for nearly an hour, though neither of us had said much. It wasn’t an uncomfortable silence. It was the kind that sat heavy and full — the kind shared by two people who didn’t need words to fill the space.
Things were comfortable with Alaric, they always were. Even before I
