To her surprise, there was no pleasure, no pride, in his voice. Only a pensive gravitas. What use could he have for figures like that, if not to gloat, or to see how easy it would be to eradicate them entirely? But she resented his confidence that he could boil loss down to numbers, that human life amounted to nothing but tally marks. That attitude had landed them here, blood repaid in blood thrice over, an infinite debt.

“You’ll never know exactly what was taken from us. You’ll never even know what you took personally. There’s no quantifying something like that.”

“I know,” he said. “But perhaps someone should try.”

Wren blinked at him. She was in no mood to untangle his evasive responses or discuss war today. “I guess I can’t criticize you for your choice of reading material.”

“What do you like to read?”

The corner of Wren’s mouth lifted involuntarily into a smile. Apparently, he appreciated the change in topic as well. “Guess.”

He considered it as he turned another page. “Theologians.”

Wren snorted. “Goddess, no. I’m not so boring as you.”

“Penny dreadfuls?”

“Suitably lurid,” she said, “but no. Medical textbooks.”

Hal’s expression grew puzzled. “I see.”

“Watch it, Cavendish. You haven’t lived until you’ve read all the gruesome case studies of people living with parasites.”

“Then I’ll settle for my boring, half-lived life.”

Wren pursed her lips to keep herself from grinning at him. When she let herself forget who he was and what he’d done, he was surprisingly easy to talk to despite his reserve. Or maybe she’d grown used to him already.

“And you?” she asked. “What would you be doing if you were home?”

“Much of my time lately has been consumed with reading policy and attending meetings.” He returned his attention to his book. “To be honest, if I could do anything, I would be training.”

Wren groaned. “Training? You can’t be serious.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she thought she caught a faint smile on his lips. But when he glanced up, he looked as expressionless as ever. “I’m always serious.”

As the conversation dwindled into almost companionate silence, she turned her attention to healing him. Her fingers skimmed his chest as she unfastened his buttons, magic rippling over his skin like water. By some miracle, he didn’t flinch. It seemed she wasn’t the only one falling into the rhythm of their sessions.

Healing him had become a rote process by now, a matter of redoing all her work yet again. After only two times, she’d obtained a morbid sort of familiarity with his body. The particular turns of his fola, the frail stutter of his heart. It no longer fought against her.