Chapter 96. Healing

Ryder’s POV

Three days. Three days of Lila breathing and sleeping and stumbling in the direction of becoming Lila again. The doctors were raving that it was a miracle, but I saw it as simply pure, stubborn Lila. She was back from the brink, but exhausted.

Vivian hadn’t gone. Neither had I. We had fallen into a wordless, bleak alliance: she had the night watch, I had the day. We were a pair of broken people united by our battle to save the one person worth fighting for.

I was feeding Lila some godawful, tasteless hospital broth when the door swung open, and a chill ran through the room, though it was sealed tight against the winter outside. Aunt Helena was on the other side. Instead of wearing her usual tailored coat, she was in a simple charcoal grey dress that day.

A petite, elderly woman wearing a thick-layered, hand-knit shawl sat slightly behind her. I could never get tired of those eyes that seemed like they knew all the secrets in the forest. I k