“I need to stitch it closed now, to be sure.” Deglan produced a large, slightly hooked needle from his satchel and a roll of gut string. He began stitching the spaces between the beetles’ heads. “Leeching gnome?” he asked, casting a sideling glance up at his patient.

“I ask your pardon,” Faabar replied. “It was an unworthy thing to say.”

Deglan laughed. “I have heard much worse. Mostly from delivering mothers.” He finished another stitch. “And anything is better than Faery Doctor.”

“You will always be something of a wonder to them, my friend.”

“As are you,” Deglan said, “when you are actually walking.”

Faabar pushed a long breath at the ceiling. “We know them from children. And just as they become accustomed to our…gifts, they are gone and we start over with the children of yesterday’s children. I have heard there are human settlements where Fae-folk are no longer welcomed.”

Deglan gave a gurgle of contempt. “That is the dwarf talking. Gossip is all he is good for.”

“This business has gone on too long,” Faabar muttered to the ceiling after a few minutes.

“Sewing up your tough hide is hard on the fingers,” Deglan said without looking up. “And stubborn patients heal slower.”

“No,” Faabar said. “Between Brogan and Kederic.”

Deglan continued his work. “That business was never any of ours. Bunch of moon brained nonsense as ever there was. Freemen. Bondsmen. Human stupidity, always have said. Never live long enough to learn from their mistakes. Memories are too short.”

“It was simpler when the gnomes lived here,” Faabar grunted.

Deglan expelled an airy chuckle. “Oh yes, because we never stirred the pot!” He shook his head at the wound. “Ah well. Let folk live where they may.”

“Even goblins?”

Deglan stopped his sewing, his head jerking up to see Faabar staring at him with his stupid bestial face, laid up and helpless, challenging Deglan on a question he did not have the sense to answer for himself. He held the stare for a long moment and felt his pull on the needle tighten. He had half a mind to leave, let the brutish bastard lay there and die.

The kettle sang out shrilly in the fireplace. Deglan blinked hard, looking back down at the injured leg. He finished the sutures, knotted them and bit through the excess string. He went over to the hearth and plucked the kettle from the flames. He grabbed one of Faabar’s enormous tin cups from the shelf and filled it with the boiling tea, the strong smell of vervain escaping in the steam. He marched across and handed the cup over.

“Drink this down,” he ordered, then fetched his tools, stuffing them into his satchel. “I will return tonight.” He stalked out the door without a backward glance.