“We’d better tend to your head,” I said briskly. I cleaned it some more and dabbed the wound with Neosporin. I certainly wasn’t going to try to sew it up, though it seemed to me that someone should. When I mentioned stitches, both of the fae seemed utterly disgusted by the idea. I put some butterfly bandages on the wound to hold it shut. I figured that was the best I could do.

“Now I’ll treat him,” Bellenos said, and I was pleased to hear that he intended to do something more active than carry Dermot down the stairs to the bed. Not that that hadn’t been a help, but I’d expected a bit more, somehow. “Of course the blood of the one who harmed him would be best, and maybe we can do something about that, but for now . . .”

“What will you do?” I hoped I could watch and learn.

“I will breathe into him,” Bellenos said, as if I were a fool not to know that. My amazement startled him. He shrugged, as if I were too ignorant for words. “You can watch if you want.” He looked down at Dermot, who nodded, then winced.

Bellenos stretched out on the bed beside Dermot and kissed him.

I’d certainly never thought of curing a head wound that way. If my lack of knowledge of fae ways had been a surprise to him, this was a surprise to me.

After a second I understood that though their mouths were together, the elf was breathing the air in his own lungs into Dermot. After detaching to take in another lungful, Bellenos repeated the procedure.

I tried to imagine a human doctor treating a patient this way. Lawsuit! Though I could tell it wasn’t sexual—well, not overtly—this was a little too personal for me. This might be a good time to clean up. I collected the used sterile wipes and bandage wrappers to pitch into the kitchen trash can, and while I was by myself, I took the time to have a snit.

Yeah, fae magic was probably great, when you used it. Amelia’s spells might have been human and therefore inferior, but they’d been in place to protect me. Until Dermot had removed them . . . and left me with nothing at all. “Jackass,” I muttered, and scrubbed the counter with enough pressure to kill any germs by force. That was about as mad as I could get, since Dermot’s mistaken sense of superiority had ended with his incurring a severe head injury.