His anger is justified, and even she would be hard-pressed to deny it. But she is also equally stubborn, and she will not let her family drift farther apart than they already have. He is not the only one she has lost time to make up for.
She matches his hard stare with her own steady gaze, but a part of her thrills when his expression shifts from blame to acceptance. Wolfbane is a piece of her son, still living, and no matter what face she wore, it would always eat at her to know that he could not accept her despite her many failings. It is a relief to know she will not have to add that to her growing list.
But then his words turn to nostalgia, and the unacknowledged grief tugs at her heart. Her features soften slightly as he reminisces on his father. Her throat tightens, but still she continues, her voice soft, not her usual bold tone. “I know he was.” She pauses for a moment then. Gathering herself, though her features and tone remain unchanged. “He was an amazing man.”
Perhaps she views her son through a mother’s eyes, but she knows the truth of her words, no matter how short his life had been. She stills when he continues however, offering more. Offering insight into the days before his death. After a lengthy silence, she simply queries, “Warnings?”
It is something she might normally have asked, a method to avoid revealing everything she knows. But now her ignorance is unfeigned. The thought of peering into her son’s last days leaves dread curling in her gut, and so she has avoided it. She had seen his death, and she refused relive the violence her reaction in that awful moment. But now, she knows her own ignorance cannot stand. Perhaps Wolfbane could tell her some, but no doubt she will need to bite the bullet sooner rather than later.
i see your sins
and i want to set them free
