AURORA’S POV

I stood just above her on the bed, this time in our own home, not the witch’s dimly lit room. She lay there as if she had been there all day, her chest rising and falling slowly with steady breaths.

My mind raced back to earlier, when she had appeared like that, out of nowhere when we were looking for her.

“Oh, I just needed some air, Mother. So I took a walk,” she had said, with a light tone and a smile that felt too quick. Those exact words rang in my ears now.

I ...