"Dawn of the fourth day."
"No." June shook her head, tears starting fresh. "No, that's not—mine wasn't like that. He never said when. Never came. I thought—"
"Stop." Briar sat beside her mother, exhaustion stealing over her without warning. The adrenaline that followed in the wake of Allegra's healing was wearing off, leaving only the weight of what came next.
June gripped Briar's hands, her fingers ice-cold. "Three days." She repeated it like she was trying to understand. "He gave you three days."
"Mom." Briar squeezed gently. "It's done. I made the deal. Allegra will live. That's enough."
June's grip loosened. She stared at their joined hands, and for the first time in years, Briar noticed something.
"Your hands," she whispered. "They're not shaking."
June pulled away, cradling her arms against her chest. "It stopped hurting." Her voice was hollow, wondering. "Twenty-five years of burning, and now... nothing."
"What stopped hurting?"
Instead of answering, June pushed up her right sleeve. The skin on her forearm was smooth, unmarked—but there were faint lines, like old scars that had yet to fade completely. Ghost traces in the shape of thorns.
"You had a mark too."
"Had." June traced the barely-visible patterns with one finger. "It burned every day for twenty-five years. A reminder…” She looked up, eyes haunted. "Then today it just… stopped."
Briar thought of all the times she'd been embarrassed by her mother's forest talk. All the eye rolls, the impatience, the anger at June for not being normal. She'd thought her mother was losing her mind. But June had been carrying the weight of an impossible debt, a constant reminder burning on her skin.
She wanted to be angry, should have been angry, but all she felt was hollow.
"I'm sorry," Briar said quietly. "For not believing you. For making you feel crazy when you were just…"
"It’s okay… I would have acted the same way…" June caught Briar's marked wrist, gentle this time. "Does it hurt?"
"Sometimes." Always, really. It was a constant heat, foreign but already familiar.
June studied the mark like she was searching for answers in its thorned patterns. "I don't know what happens next. I don't know what he'll want from you." Her voice broke slightly. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry I can't help you."
They sat in silence, two women bound by choices made in desperation. Down the hall, Allegra laughed at something—bright and alive and worth any price.
"Will you watch her?" Briar asked finally. "I mean really watch her. Be present. Be her mom."
"Briar—"
"Please. She's going to need you. The real you, not the one lost in guilt and old pain."
June pulled her into a fierce hug, and Briar breathed in her familiar scent, the herbal shampoo and hospital coffee and home. All the things she was giving up, all the ordinary moments she'd never have.
"I'll tell her you loved her," June whispered into her hair. "Every day. I promise."
Briar closed her eyes and held on, memorizing this too. The weight of her mother's arms and the quiet sound of her breathing. The way she still felt like safety, even after everything.
Two and a half days left.
It was time to start saying goodbye.
The house felt too small with Allegra in it.
Not because of Allegra herself, not physically. She'd curled into her favorite corner of the couch, wrapped in their grandmother's quilt, looking perfectly content to be home. But her presence made everything else feel fragile. The worn carpet with its pathway of threadbare patches. The water stain spreading across the ceiling. The kitchen table that wobbled unless you wedged paper under one leg.
"I can't believe they let me leave so fast." Allegra clicked through Netflix options with casual boredom, the remote loose in her hand. "Dr. Locklear looked pale when she signed the discharge papers."
