Briar hadn't realized she was. She touched her cheek, found it wet. Allegra's cheeks held color now—soft pink instead of dying gray. Her eyes were clear, focused, tracking Briar's face with the sharpness of health.
"Hey, sweet girl." Briar squeezed her hand, afraid to let go. Afraid this was the dream and everything else the reality. "How do you feel?"
"Hungry." Allegra wrinkled her nose. "And you look terrible. Have you been sleeping in that chair?"
A laugh bubbled up, half-hysteria, half-relief. "Something like that."
"Where's Mom?"
"She'll be back soon." Briar smoothed her sister's hair, marveling at how warm her skin felt. Alive. Whole. The price suddenly seemed insignificant. "You've been sick, Ally. Really sick."
"I had the weirdest dream." Allegra's eyes drooped, but it was normal exhaustion now, not the terrible pull of dying. "There was a forest, and a man made of shadows and green things. He said..." She yawned, jaw cracking. "He said to tell you 'three days is a gift, not a suggestion.'"
Ice flooded Briar's veins. "What?"
But Allegra was already drifting back to sleep, peaceful and easy. Healed.
The mark on Briar's wrist pulsed once, a reminder and a warning. Even here, even now, he was watching. Waiting.
Twenty minutes later, Allegra stirred again, eyes fluttering open. "Bri? Is someone—"
She stopped, focusing on the figure frozen in the doorway. June Delarosa stood there, keys clutched in white-knuckled fingers, staring at her youngest daughter like she was seeing a ghost.
"Mom?" Allegra's voice was soft with confusion.
June made a sound Briar had never heard before—part sob, part prayer, all desperate relief. She stumbled forward, caught herself on the bed rail, hands shaking so hard the metal rattled. "Baby? Oh god, oh my baby—"
"Mom, careful of her IV—" Briar started, but June was already gathering Allegra into her arms, sobbing so hard her whole body shook with it.
"My baby, my sweet girl, you're awake, you're—" The words dissolved into incomprehensible weeping. Twenty-five years of fear, of guilt, of borrowed time, all of it pouring out in the circle of her daughter's arms.
Briar pressed herself back into the chair, her marked hand tucked carefully beneath the other, sleeve pulled down to her knuckles. The mark throbbed in time with her heartbeat, a constant reminder of the price being paid. She watched her mother fall apart with relief and felt like she was viewing it through glass.
Three days.
"Mom, you're squishing me," Allegra complained, but she was smiling, patting June's back with her free hand. "I'm okay. Bri said I was sick?"
June pulled back just enough to cup Allegra's face with shaking hands, thumbs tracing her cheekbones like she was memorizing them by touch. "You were—the doctors said—" She turned to Briar, mascara streaking down her cheeks in black rivers. "How? When did she—?"
"About an hour ago." Briar kept her voice steady, normal. Heard herself as if from a distance. "She just... woke up."
"That's impossible." June turned back to Allegra, touching her forehead, her cheeks, her throat where the pulse beat strong and steady. "The doctors said... they said we should prepare..."
"I'll get the nurse." Briar stood, desperate to escape before her mother's keen eyes noticed something off. The mark pulsed harder, not wanting her to leave Allegra so soon after the claiming. "They'll want to—"
June's hand shot out, catching Briar's right wrist. Her grip was stronger than it should be, desperate. "You did it." Her eyes held a wild light, fevered with recognition. "You went to the forest. You found him."
Briar's blood turned to ice water. "Mom—"
"I knew it. I knew he would—" June's grip tightened enough to hurt. "What did he ask for? What did you give him?"
"Nothing." Briar pulled free, backing toward the door. The mark burned under her sleeve, offended by the lie. "The doctors will explain. Sometimes people just get better."
"Briar—"
"I'll get the nurse."
She fled before her mother could grab her again. Before those knowing eyes could strip away her defenses and see the truth written in thorns around her wrist.
