Nolan’s healing room looked more like a sunlit human study than anything out of Council nightmares. White walls. Soft lighting. A cartoon fox sticker peeling off one cabinet door. The only giveaway was the faint hum of wards layered beneath the paint, and the shelves of dried herbs and stoppered vials that smelled of moonflower and crushed pine.
My son sat on the padded table swinging his legs, soft cotton gown crinkling. Wolfie was tucked under one arm, clutched so tight the stuffing might never recover.
“I’ve seen worse,” Nolan said, smoothing his palms slowly over my son’s ankles. His hands glowed a faint, steady silver, and his eyes had gone distant the way they did when he was reading what the rest of us couldn’t see. “They didn’t go deep. Binding residue, some bruised nerves. Coupl
