Chapter 348. A Brief Reunion

Aurora’s POV

I heard the hum before I even opened my eyes, a soft, steady thread of sound that felt like it belonged to a room I had forgotten I used to live in. I thought at first it was a faraway radio, or the wind through the eaves, and because my head felt heavy and the world felt thin.

I decided I must be dead; that was the only explanation that matched the memory pressing sharp and hot behind my ribs, the dagger, the way it slid in my hand, the way Lucas’s laugh had twisted into something I couldn’t unhear.

I let the hum grow into a song in my mind and then, because I couldn’t stand the silence of my own panic, I opened my eyes. The ceiling was vaguely familiar. There was wallpaper with a pattern my childhood hands had once traced, and leaning over me, like something out of my wildest dreams...was my mother.

“Aurora?” she said, and her voice had the same lift it always did when she wanted to check if I was pretending to sleep. “Oh, love, you’re a