“That’s good,” Theo acknowledged, only slightly begrudging. “Sorry I can’t do more.” Hopefully they would not be stuck here too much longer, hiding out; once the streets were clear they could get looked at by professional healers.

And he would not have to sit by her or talk to her for much longer. But the burn on his arm was protesting more now that he wasn’t concentrating on hers, so instead he copied the motion of conjuring a stool, this time for himself, and sank onto it, fidgeting with his singed section of sleeve. His burn was a distraction from the conversation; the conversation was a distraction from the burn.

“I didn’t expect you to,” he offered, shaking his head to brush off the apology, as uncomfortable with it as he had been with her gratitude. It was probably for the best that Adrienne Lestrange didn’t know him at all. “There were a lot of people at your wedding,” he admitted. “And – with what it’s like out there today,” Theo added, jerking his head towards the street so as not to mention the word dragons directly, in case anyone had another fit of panic in here, and joked, dryly: “I’d forgive anyone who forgot their own name.”

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