Page 52 of Orc'd & Loaded
I listen. Her breath comes steady despite the pain. In for three counts. Out for four. I match the rhythm with the spoon. The reduction responds, thickening evenly, no lumps, no scorching, the surface catching light like polished mahogany.
"Good."
One word. Quiet. From across the kitchen with her hand under running water and her entire career dangling by a thread of blistered skin. Good.
"We need to wrap that hand," I say without turning from the stove.
"After ten minutes."
"It's been ten minutes."
"It's been four."
"Solene."
"I can count, Boris."
I keep stirring. The kitchen settles into a strange new gravity. She's directing. My body executing. The air still thick with the ghost of smoke from the fire spice incident, the ceiling tiles above us streaked with black.
"In the cabinet above the flour station," she says. "White metal box. Red cross on the front."
I kill the heat under the reduction, set the spoon across the pot, and cross to the cabinet. The first aid kit is military-grade. Of course it is. She probably inventoried it weekly. I carry it back to the sink and pop the latches.
Inside: sterile gauze, burn cream, medical tape, scissors, an ice pack that activates with a squeeze, and a small glass vial of something that glows faintly amber.
"What's this?" I hold up the vial.
"Healing tincture. Elvish. Accelerates tissue regeneration by about forty percent."
"You just keep elvish medicine in your first aid kit."
"I work with fire and knives twelve hours a day. I keep everything in my first aid kit."
I unscrew the vial. The liquid inside smells like honey and something green. Spring moss, maybe. New growth. I tip a few drops onto a square of gauze.
"Give me your hand."
She hesitates. The water still runs over her palm, and the blisters have stabilized, swollen but no longer spreading. She turns off the faucet. Pats her wrist dry with a clean towel. Extends her hand toward me palm-up.
The blisters catch the overhead fluorescents. Angry. Mapped in the exact pattern of the skillet handle's rivets and curve. A brand she chose to accept for the bones in my foot.
My hands shake.
Not a lot. Not enough for most people to notice. But she notices. Those amber eyes track the tremor in my fingers as I press the gauze to her palm.
She doesn't mention it.
I dab the tincture across each blister with a precision I did not know I possessed. The amber liquid sinks into her skin on contact, and the angry red fades by a single shade. Not healed. Not close. But the sharp edge of the damage dulls.
"Gauze next. Two layers. Overlap by half."
I wrap. My fingers are enormous against her hand. Each pass of the gauze requires adjustments, tucking, smoothing. Her fingers are long and tapered, built for the kind of work that requires both strength and impossible finesse. Bread dough and microgreens and sugar work and everything in between.
"Tighter on the thumb."
I tighten.
"Not that tight."
