Elizabeth was the first to recover her voice, though her expression was still caught between relief, shock, and a suspicion so sharp it almost looked like survival instinct. She remained standing beside the bed, her eyes fixed on Damon, observing every detail of the body that, until only moments ago, had seemed incapable of returning from the abyss on its own. The cold in the room was still intense, but it no longer possessed that dead, suffocating quality of the last few months. Now it was a living cold, pulsing, terribly powerful, as if a storm had learned how to breathe inside him.
"Who is Xue Lian?" Elizabeth asked, her voice low, far too controlled to be casual.
