Elara clocked their reactions and did not like any of them.
Three mages, three expressions, and the common denominator across all of them was a silence that carried weight she was choosing to leave on the floor.
"His color is coming back," Elara said, with the particular brightness of a woman single-handedly steering a conversation away from a cliff. "Which is wonderful news. Maybe whatever it was just passed through his system naturally."
"Did she use her blood?" Alaric asked.
Relief crashed through Elara so hard she nearly swayed. Yes. The blood. That was the issue. That was the crime she had spent ten minutes burying. The dagger under the bed. The rag in the bathing chamber. The blanket in the closet. The blood she had wiped from Gav's mouth and Serena's hand. That was the question, and that question had an answer she had rehearsed.
"I don't think so. I found her like this," Elara replied.
