“Certainly. And we’ll have to get that cuff off,” and it isn’t going to be pleasant when they do so, “but I’m hoping the potion will dull the pain when it hits.”

Stephen rises from the table, not wasting any time for them to pack up their things and head off to tend to the wound properly, the man ceaselessly awake despite the late hour thanks to that jolt of adrenaline. He’s not always warm or kind in his compliments — it’s more like a stern performance appraisal, the flattery doled out like the crack of a whip — but at the end of the day it was, still, a compliment. He thinks well of Ennaris.

She got her hands dirty and she did the work. That’s all any of them can ask for.