(Ryder's POV)
I found Mom in the small garden room she always liked. There were plants everywhere. Beautiful...beautiful plants and flowers.
I suppose she was trying to grow something good in this cursed place.
She looked up when I walked in. Her eyes went wide like... really wide and then it filled with tears just like that. Not sad tears. Relief. Big, shaky ones.
She dropped the little watering can she was holding as she move towards me.
"Ryder?" she whispered. Then she was across the room, arms wrapping tight around me. Hugging me like I was five years old again and scraped my knee.
"You're... you're alive. You're well" She pulled back, hands on my face, searching my eyes. "How? Your dying wolf..."
"Got fixed," I said, keeping it simple. "It's temporary. But I'm good. For now."
She hugged me again, tighter this time. She sbbed into my shoulder. "Thank the moon," she mumbled "Thank the moon."
