“My mother and I stayed in a hotel nearby, hiding out in case Oren came after us,” Elora went on. “Thomas stayed on the Everlys, watching them until he saw the mother go into labor.”

“Thomas?” I asked.

“Yes, Thomas went with us,” Elora said. “That’s how I met him, actualy, when we were on the run from my husband. Thomas was a new tracker, but he’d already proven to be very resourceful, so my mother chose him to help us.”

“So he was there when I was born?” I asked.

“Yes, he was.” She smiled at the thought. “I gave birth to you on the floor of a hotel bathroom. Mother used her powers on me, induced labor, and made it so I wouldn’t scream or feel pain. And Thomas sat at my side, holding my hand, and teling me it would al be fine.”

“Were you scared?” I asked. “Giving birth like that?”

“I was terrified,” she admitted. “But I had no choice. I needed to hide you and protect you. It had to be done.”

“I know,” I said. “You did the right thing. I understand that now.”

“You were so smal.” Her smile changed, and she tilted her head. “I didn’t know you would be so tiny, and you were so beautiful. You were born with a dark shock of hair, and these big, dark eyes. You were beautiful and you were perfect and you were mine.”

She paused, thinking, and a lump grew in my throat. It felt so strange to hear my mother talking about me the way a mother talks about her children.

“I wanted to hold you,” Elora said at length. “I begged my mother to let me hold you, and she said it would only make it worse.

She held you, though, wrapping you in a bed sheet, and staring down at you with tears in her eyes.

“Then she left,” she continued. “She took you to the hospital to leave you with the Everlys, and brought home another baby that wasn’t mine. She wanted me to hold him, to care for Rhys. She said that it would make it easier. But I didn’t want him. You were my child, and I wanted you.”

Elora turned to look at me then, her eyes looking clearer than they had in a while. “I did want you, Wendy. Despite everything that happened between your father and I, I wanted you. More than anything in the world.”

I didn’t say anything to that. I couldn’t. If I did, I would cry, and I didn’t want her to see that. Even as open as she was being, I didn’t know how she would react to me weeping outright.

“But I couldn’t have you.” Elora turned back to the window.