Page 26 of A Fae’s Guide to Tactical Botany

Mara jerked her hands back. “Are you saying you are unhurt? Because—”

“No, the hurt is definitely not…unhurting…” He gritted his teeth. “Shit. Yes, things hurt. I am hurt. But there’s a nice…” He turned his head slightly from side to side. “Cold. There’s a cold…niceness. Less hurtness.” His eyes opened suddenly, both of them, fixing on Mara. “Do my eyes look weird?”

“I do not—” In the bright sun, his pupils were tiny, and she could see the way the blue and gray shaded into each other, like stormclouds. She huffed. “They look like eyes.”

“No, are they, like, wonky and…bigger and smaller and…concussiony?”

“That is not a word.”

“You know what I mean.”

“I assure you, I do not.”

He laughed faintly. “So you’re not an EMT.”

Mara shivered, sirens and lights flashing through her head. “No.”

“Okay. Okay.” His eyes fluttered shut again, but he was smiling. “Just one more piece of the puzzle. Or a piece not of the puzzle. Outside. Process of elimination. I’ll get you pinned down yet.”

Mara did not want to talk about herself, about being pinned down or solved or anything of the sort. “Do you…hurt elsewhere? I am not able to see…” She gestured vaguely at his body, but then, realizing his eyes were still closed, rapped lightly on the hard canvas curved across Ethan’s chest.

He frowned and shifted his body in minute increments, arms and torso and legs. He let out a curse. “Right ankle’s fucked somehow.”

“It hurts?” Mara moved down to regard his lower legs. His left looked much like his right, but of course he was wearing boots and jeans and armor.

“Some. Mostly it feels…thick. Don’t wanna move it.”

“Very well.” Mara pushed up to her feet.

Ethan sat halfway up, then sank back again with a groan. “Where are you going?”

“To fetch your supplies.” Mara turned and looked down at him. He should look small, lying injured on her hill, but instead he seemed larger than ever. “I do not have more things that are cold, nor do I have bandages. And you will require food.”

“You’re gonna…take care of me?”

“So that you can leave faster,” Mara said in her most cruel tone of voice.

He laughed again. “Ooh, sounds like I’m getting a spanking.”

“Must you laugh at everything?”

His expression shifted, grew solemn. “No. I’m not… I’m not laughing at you.”

“But you are laughing near me,” Mara said, bitterness choking her throat. “You are here on my hill, and you are laughing, and you are…”

“I know,” he breathed, barely above a whisper. “And you won. You defeated me.”

Mara paused, glancing back at him. “I did.”

“I should go.”

Yes, you should, Mara thought, but aloud, she murmured, “You cannot. Not until your head is improved. It is not safe.”

“And here I thought you wanted me to drive off a cliff.”

“I have never said that.”

“You looked it.”