The spring ran clear and cold through the middle of the space, and Aunt Mary was the first to reach it. She knelt at the bank, cupped water in both hands, and drank. Then she rinsed the blood from her split lip, and Penelope watched the cut close in the time it took to blink.
"You could have done that an hour ago," Dahlia said.
"And missed the look on your father's face when I put him on the ground?" Aunt Mary dried her hands on her trousers. "Never."
Silver stood a few feet back, blood drying along his forearm, watching the water with the flat, unhurried suspicion he gave anything he hadn't vetted himself. "I don't put unknown things into my body."
"It's water, Silver."
"It's water that rebuilt you from the inside out. I've watched you for two weeks. You move like you're twenty-two."
