A quiet squeak left Kiva before she could help herself, but the guard didn’t shift her eyes from the man lying on the metal bench.

No, not a man. Now that he was clean enough to reveal his features, Kiva could see that he wasn’t fully grown yet. But he was no longer a boy, either. Perhaps eighteen or nineteen—a year or two older than she was, give or take.

When Naari continued to stare down at him, Kiva did the same. High brows, straight nose, long lashes . . . the kind of angles a painter would be in raptures about. There was a crescent-shaped cut over his left eye that needed to be stitched, deep enough that it would leave a pale scar on his honeyed skin. But otherwise, his face was unblemished. Unlike the rest of him, as Kiva had learned upon washing his flesh. His back was littered with crisscrossed scars, similar to her own and those of many other prisoners who had endured a flogging or two. But his scars didn’t have the characteristic look of the cat-o’-nine-tails; Kiva didn’t know what kind of whip had left such welt-like wounds, but the damage was limited to his back, with few other marks on the rest of his body, save the fresh ones he had obtained during his journey to Zalindov.

“Are you g-going to swoon, Naari?”

Tipp’s words drew Kiva’s attention, and she sucked in a sharp breath at realizing he was questioning the guard.

Prisoners should never question the guards.

Worse, he was—he was teasing her.

Kiva had tried to protect Tipp as much as she could since his mother’s death, but there was only so much she could do. And now, after this . . .

Naari’s amber gaze finally moved away from the young man’s face, narrowing as she took in Tipp’s mischievous grin and Kiva’s poorly suppressed fear. But all she said was, “He needs to be held down in case he wakes.”

Kiva’s trapped breath fled her lungs, relief making her dizzy, even as she noted where Naari’s gaze had moved to and saw what was in Tipp’s other hand. The scalpel, already heated, the tip sharpened to a white-hot point.

Of course. Not only did Kiva have to patch the young man up, but she also had to carve him. The question was, which to do first? But apparently the guard had already chosen, her new proximity all the motivation Kiva needed to reach for the blade rather than the needle and spool. Those would come after, hopefully once the guard returned to a safe distance.

“I c-can hold him,” Tipp said, stepping around Kiva to the young man’s other side. He seemed oblivious to the danger he had just miraculously avoided, with Kiva’s desperate warning look rolling right off him.

“You take his legs, then,” Naari ordered. “This one looks strong.”