Amara's POV
The transfusion took three hours.
I know the exact duration because I watched the clock on the wall of the pediatric bay with the particular attention of someone who needed numbers to hold onto when everything else was too large to hold. Three hours and fourteen minutes from the moment Dr. Kleenex's team began to the moment the monitor settled into the steady rhythm that told me Noah's body had accepted what it needed and was doing the work of returning to itself.
Three hours and fourteen minutes.
I held Noah's hand for all of it.
Adrian sat on the other side.
He held the ammonite.
He had not put it down since Noah handed it to him. He held it the way Noah held it, with the specific careful grip of someone who understood that some objects required a particular quality of
