Twenty-Eight
Several hours later, I finish tucking Mom into bed in a room of her own at the oasis. I smooth her dark hair back off her forehead, then sit in the chair beside the bed for a while, thinking of all the questions I haven’t been able to ask her yet. And all the new questions that have been added to my mental list since this morning. Who is Ada, and how does she know Mom? Why did she want to put Mom into a permanent coma?
Something a little bit … irreversible.
I push the memory of Ada’s words away. I don’t want to accept that Mom will never wake up, but it’s hard to ignore the facts: Ana prepared more elixir for me this afternoon, and it stimulated my Griffin Ability long enough to tell Mom to wake up—but she didn’t respond. It seems that my magical, resonating voice, which ha
