EMBER’S POV
Dr. Patel nods, no judgment in her expression.
“Do you want to take it now, or bring it with you?”
“Now. Please.”
She pours water from a pitcher on her desk and hands me the glass. I uncork the vial, and the smell hits me immediately — bitter and earthy, like something dug up from deep underground.
I think about Knox’s face this morning, soft with sleep and want. The way he whisperedmissed youbetween us. The story he told me in the dark about an ice wolf and a silver fox.
I think about the baby I lost. The one I never got to hold, never got to name, never got to tell that I would have loved them despite everything.
I think about my mother, bitter and broken, spending her whole life punishing everyone around her for the life she felt she’d been cheated out of.
I drink.
