Casually accompanying Elethior to where his mom might be—
Nope. Not gonna think that.
It takes about twenty minutes in stop-and-start traffic before the driver pulls up outside a building not far from the Center City neighborhood, a sign out front declaring it the Blooming Grove. Elethior’s been glued to his phone but Martha hasn’t called again, which is good, right? Although, she knows he’s coming, so she wouldn’t want to deliver bad news via phone call.
The moment the car stops, I pop open my door, climb out, then bend back over, knowing Elethior won’t have moved.
As expected, he’s still staring down at his phone, tugging on a strand of his hair.
“Hey,” I say. “We’re here.”
Elethior startles.
The driver has the stoic, I’m-used-to-working-for-people-with-money thing down pat, because he has almost no emotion when he says, “I’ll wait here.”
But he looks back at Elethior and adds, his voice tempering, “For however long you need.”
It’s unnecessary, since that’s the guy’s whole job, but Elethior manages an unsteady smile. That smile transfers to me, and freezes.
“He can take you back to campus,” Elethior offers, nodding at the driver. “You don’t have to, um, come in. This is enough.”
I step back onto the sidewalk. “No. Get out of the car.”
“Sebastian—”
“Get out of the car, and don’t make me say it again. If Idohave to say it again, I’ll call you a dumbass, and decorum frowns on calling anyone a dumbass in a family emergency.”
He smiles.
It’s small and real.
The cold winter wind is the reason I can feel my face reddening.
Elethior peels himself out of the car and pockets his phone. He looks up at the building, a four-story stone façade right against the sidewalk. It’s… pretty. Pretty in athis is definitely a care facility in a city but we worked with what we got; ignore the sterile feeling and the metropolis vibes and focus on these ornate buttressesway.
Elethior heads for the stairs by the front door, his movements automatic. I follow, watching him closely, my muscles wound to spring to any action he might need.
We stop by the doors, and after a beat, a buzzer sounds before theywhooshopen. A security camera above catches my eye; they must’ve recognized Elethior.
We step inside a reception area. There’s a desk off to the right before the space opens into a hallway, the white paneled walls and polished wood floor at odds—one feels appropriately bleak and clinical, the other cozy and nice.
A middle-aged half-elven woman sits behind the desk, and she looks up with a smile full of recognition and sympathy.
“Thio,” she says. “Martha’s waiting—she’s in with your mom and Dr. Chrosk.”
Elethior comes to an abrupt halt. His hands clench and unclench at his sides, and I watch from slightly behind him as his mouth opens, closes, everything about him grasping and unsure.
“Is she okay?” I ask for him. “His mom?”
Elethior makes a noise like a muffled whimper. Like—relief. That I asked so he didn’t have to.
The receptionist looks at me, then Elethior, and her smile softens. “They’ve got her stabilized. She’s a fighter, your mom. Why don’t you go on in and talk to Dr. Chrosk?”
Elethior sags forward so much I worry he’ll collapse right in half, so I grab his arm and hook it with mine again, the way I hauled him out of the lab.
“Which way?” I ask the receptionist. I catch her name tag now that I’m closer. Nithroel.
Nithroel gestures to the right. “Down the hall, room—”
