“Mommy?” River asks with a careful voice. It’s the voice he uses when he’s sad or concerned about me. He carefully crawls onto my lap. I curl my arms around him and bury my nose into his black hair. I am not okay, and he knows it.
It has been two days since Nate came back. I tried so hard to heal him, but something is just not right. The claw marks on his back won’t heal. Calliope suspects that her sister created a new kind of monster. One that has poisonous claws and until we haven’t figured out what kind of poison there isn’t much, we can do to make him better.
That doesn’t stop me from trying, but my attempts to heal him are draining all energy from me.
“Mommy? Are hu otay?” River asks, cuddling into me.
“I’m tired,” I sigh, “but I’m okay, baby.”
“No,” River says shaki
