Chapter 27: Beside Her

Rafe's POV

I had promised not to set foot on the stage, so I stood at the rim of the bowl and watched Ivy answer her sister.

"Dr. Lowry found it in my panel two days ago," Ivy said into the microphone.

"My blood might be able to wake a wolf that has died."

She looked straight at Cora.

"I didn't know if it was true, and I didn't know if I'd ever offer it.

"I didn't want to be the next person to decide what goes under your skin."

Cora said nothing.

Her face was white, and I could not read it from the rim.

I could read the crowd.

I had spent six years reading rooms from the back of an ambulance.

I knew how a family looked in the minute before they asked for the miracle.

It started in the second row, where a man stood with a boy of about twelve on his shoulders.

The boy wore a brace on one leg and leaned on the man's head.

Then a woman in the fourth row.

Then a whole bank of faces, and what had been sorrow a minute ago turned in front of me into need.

"She can wake the dead ones," someone said.

"My daughter lost hers at the fence line two winters back."

"Miss Garrick, please..."

"Ivy! Over here!"

They did not mean harm.

That was what made my skin crawl.

Half the bowl was on its feet, hands out, voices rising, and in the middle of them my mother stood between two deputies and smiled.

She had known this would happen.

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