“It’s only ribs,” Kate told him. “And they’re not even broken. They are fractured.”

“And the hip,” Doolittle said. “And the knee.”

There you go. Don’t expect mercy from a honeybadger.

“How long do you need to keep her?” Curran looked to Doolittle.

“She can go to her quarters, provided she doesn’t leave them,” Doolittle said. “I can’t do anything else with the magic down. She must stay down until I can patch her up.”

“She will.” Curran reached for Kate. “Hey, baby. Ready?”

She nodded. Curran slid his hands under her and picked her up, gently, as if she weighed nothing.

“Good?” he asked.

She put her arm around him. “Never better.”

And he took her away.

“So young lady, how did you break your arm?” Doolittle asked me.

“She was trying to keep Kate from being crushed,” Raphael said.

“A worthy cause.” Dolittle peered at me. I waited for the other shoe to drop.

“Did you know your arm was broken?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“And did you, by any chance, put said arm into a sling or make an effort to keep it still?”

Oh Christ. “No. I was busy.”

“What did you do with said arm?” Doolittle asked.

“I dug.” And it hurt like hell, but at that point killing the draugr was more important.

“Were you under stress?” Doolittle asked.

“I was trying to bury pieces of an undead giant to prevent it from rampaging through the countryside and eating any random humans he encountered. This would go a lot easier if you would just tell me where you are heading with this instead of taking the long way around.”

Doolittle nodded to one of his assistants. The short, slight woman approached Roman’s cot. “We’re going to put you in your own private room.”

“Is this a code for killing me?” Roman asked. “Because I won’t be easy to take down.”

She giggled and wheeled his bed out with him on it.

The medmage looked at Ascanio. “You may go, too.”

The boy jumped off the bed and took off like he was on fire.

Doolittle pulled up the chair and sat next to me. His face was so gentle. “I once treated a boy,” he said. “He was a wererat, abused by his family. His father beat him repeatedly. He was a hateful waste of a human being and the boy’s shapeshifting gave him an excuse to rage.”

A lump formed in my throat. “Mhm.”

“Lyc-V is a very adaptive virus,” Doolittle said. “If the body is injured the same way repeatedly, it responds. Shapeshifters in colder climates grow denser fur. Shapeshifters in climates with frequent sun exposure develop melanin at accelerated rate.”

“Yes.” I knew all this.

Doolittle leaned a little toward me. “The boy I mentioned developed his own coping mechanism: his bones healed extremely quickly. His body kept trying to give him tools to run away from the next beating.”