“I can feel my toes, but not much between my knee and my foot.”

Evie says nothing else. She stares at the wound with eyes full of storm clouds.

“Judging purely from your expression I take it my prognosis is not good,” Brio says, trying to sound playful, but the wavering in his voice betrays that utterly.

“It’s already festering.” She frowns up at him, her eyes flashing harshly. “Did you even clean it out?”

Brio actually laughs. It’s a hollow, mirthless sound.

“With what?” he asks. “Clean wraps and fresh water are difficult to come by in this camp. They don’t even have a surgeon for Savages.”

Evie’s eyes soften, just a little. “Have you had anything to eat?”

“Barely since the Revel. It appears to be the one time we’re treated like something resembling human beings. That courtesy does not extend to the cold camp. Food and water are doled out scarcely, and it seems to be first come, first served. We were watered and fed jerked duck on the road.”

Evie nods. “Us too. Wait here. I’ll be back, okay?”

His eyes widen, a desperate expression overtaking his face. “Where are you going?”

She raises a hand. “Relax, Brio. All right? I’m used to being served last. I know how to make do.”

Evie rests that placating hand on the knee of his injured leg. The desperation leaves his haggard features and his eyes soften on her. Brio covers her hand with both of his. Evie looks down at the tangle of their fingers, both relishing and resenting the falling sensation in her stomach the sight of it causes. She feels too much like the little girl who would’ve followed him anywhere, and Evie has no time for such saccharine flights. This isn’t a place for sentiment.

She slips her hand from beneath his.

“Just wait here,” Evie repeats. “I won’t be gone long.”

Brio nods, twining his fingers atop his knee tightly to steady his hands.

Evie holds his eyes reassuringly for a moment longer before rising from her knees and walking away, almost sprinting. She returns no more than ten minutes later, a cracked horn goblet in one hand and a bundle of drab but unstained rags in the other. A crooked and broken stick is balanced atop the goblet. Steam rises from the hunk of cooked meat skewered around the end of the stick. She kneels once more at his feet, placing the goblet on the ground.

Brio leans forward, picking up the skewer and peering down at what looks like clean water filling the horn from which the goblet is fashioned. He examines the meat, the smell of it causing his mouth to water painfully.

“What is this?” he asks, swallowing hard.

“Just eat it,” Evie instructs him.

She begins laying out the strips of cloth she’s collected on the boulder beside him.