“Oh, do you? Then what a change of heart you’ve had over the past four years. And they say people never change.”

“Perhaps they don’t.” He spoke quietly, but each word was as cold and hard as steel. It raised the hairs on the back of her neck. “Regardless, my apology stands.”

“I don’t forgive you. Words fix nothing.”

Something flickered over his face, like a ripple in still water. She braced herself for a rebuttal—craved it. But he remained infuriatingly silent.

He was right, of course. People didn’t change. Once a monster, always a monster.

She forced herself to ignore him as she rolled his pant leg above the knee. At least they matched. Bruises spread like decay along his thigh, with hideous black tendrils. It must have hurt terribly, which gave her a twinge of satisfaction. When she laid her hand on his skin, he flinched. Soldiers and their dramatics.

“Relax,” she muttered.

He did not relax. But he remained, at least, as still as stone.

Repairing the muscle fibers and readhering them to the bone took only minutes, and Wren swore he did not breathe for the entirety of it. Few people enjoyed the sensation of healing; magic traveled through the body like the cold creep of an injection.

Once, after a sparring match with Una, Byers came away with a sprained ankle. As Wren healed him, he puffed away on his cigarette like a goddessdamned chimney. Despite her admonitions, he insisted it helped with stress.

I hate it, I hate it, I hate it, he’d said as she repaired his tendon. I feel like you should’ve bought me dinner first.

She pushed that memory far away, locked it deep behind the mental wall that kept her grief at bay. As the last of Hal’s contusions melted beneath her fingers, she sighed. “I’m going to examine you now. Prolonged healing can be uncomfortable, especially in the vital organs, but I can offer you a painkiller if you’d like.”

“No.” It was firm, the kind of tone that left no room for argument.

She couldn’t help thinking of the boy with the broken arm and how proudly he’d refused the opiate. Hal’s stubbornness suited her fine, as much as it exasperated her. She’d asked as a professional courtesy, but she had no qualms about making his experience a miserable one. “Very well then.”

Wren slipped her hands underneath his shirt and pressed them against his chest. Sweat dampened his skin, and tension stiffened his entire body. Trying to keep himself from trembling as his body temperature climbed, most likely. So pathetic. So proud.

As her magic traversed his body, discomfort twitched his lips, but he did not squirm. It fanned out, tugging her gently toward the areas in need of her attention: his lungs, his heart, his eyes.

His eyes?