Chapter 52 The Hollow Tide Rises

• Lucy didn’t wake for three days.
• During that time, the forest around the northern grove changed. The snow melted in a perfect radius around where she had collapsed. Trees began to bloom out of season. Animals returned, cautiously sniffing the scorched soil, as if recognizing something sacred had touched it.
• Jacobs remained at her side the entire time, barely eating, rarely speaking. He sat with her in a temporary tent they'd erected, watching her chest rise and fall, watching her face twitch in unconscious thought.