Felix lingers, probably in case there’s anything else needful in the immediate future more than any other reason; he has grown too accustomed to being on the wrong side of a closed door to get precious about the idea of leaving them alone for reasons beyond pragmatism. Gwenaëlle manages not to flinch when Isaac’s hands come near, but it’s a near thing and she doesn’t hold out against the wince when his fingers connect,

“My own mixture,” she says, “the one Anders told me to stop using because it’d kill a horse.”

She keeps a little on hand in case of emergencies; she’s usually thinking of someone else’s emergency when she mixes it. Stephen, maybe, his hands. Nikos Averesch when he was still around. Jude. But it won’t be the first time she’s used it herself.

“I was— thrown. Hit a stone edge with my face. Something feels broken, not— severely, but broken. Most of everything else is superficial.” Most of. “I had to take my eye out because it got shoved and it hurt, but my face is too tender to wear the patch, so,”

sorry about her eye socket.

“It doesn't feel as bad. And there wasn’t blood.”