She turned.
Her eyes were full of tears.
For one horrible second, I thought the answer was going to destroy me.
Then she smiled.
Bright and impossible and soaked in tears.
My brain stopped.
Completely.
I had faced a portal full of bleeding women last night. I had watched Penny’s mother turn grief into command. I had seen newborns carried in with skin too cold and fists too small. I had stood in Winter Pack Hospital while monsters we could not name became medical charts and emergency protocols.
None of that prepared me for Penny Savage smiling at me through tears.
“She’s fine,” she said.
The words barely made sense before she moved.
One second she was by the window.
The next, she threw herself at me.
Arms around my neck.
Face against my throat.
Sobbing.
Laughing.
Both at on
