Three weeks passed without change.
The monitors beeped their steady, indifferent rhythm. The doctors spoke carefully, in
probabilities and possibilities. And Elara and Victor settled into the quiet discipline of a shared
vigil trading shifts, trading the house for the hospital and back again, trading the weight of it
between them without ever quite discussing how naturally the arrangement had taken shape.
On the days Elara stayed at the hospital, Victor stayed home with Daniel. On the days she came
back, Victor went. It was wordless and practical and, in its own exhausted way, it worked.
One evening, with Elara at Alaric’s bedside and the house settling into the particular stillness
that falls after a child has been fed and bathed, Victor looked across the living room at Daniel
wh
