Madrigal's head swam. His first thought, as he fought his way back to consciousness, might have been too rude to share in polite company.

His second was to thank the Goddess, or whomever it was who had sent Niall. He felt her feather-light hands, lessening the pain wherever they touched. He let out a soft groan as she laid her palm on his twisted wrist, lulled by the familiar sensation of his sense of self separating from his physical body. She'd done this for him before, but never on such a scale, of course. A bruise, perhaps, or a broken toe, once. And a black eye, from a fight he'd gotten into with another Laudonian man. She'd chastised him then, as she eased the swelling in his face, and even with his eyes shut Madrigal had known Niall wasn't truly angry. After all, the argument had been over her.

This time was like the broken toe. She'd lifted his arm so that it was straight again, and then her hands grew uncomfortably warm as the muscles and tissues in his wrist knit themselves back together at her request. It hurt, but Niall's other hand on his head kept him grounded. It was as if she anchored him to the planet itself as she drew the burning sensation skyward from the wound. Madrigal could only sigh as he waited for it to end. Her treatments always left him feeling better than before.

Sleep, she compelled him, without ever saying a word.

He slept.

A brisk breeze swept across Madrigal's cheeks as he next awoke. Lucidity had returned, too—he didn't want to open his eyes this time, either, because he knew he would not find Niall there.

The moon was high. Madrigal eased himself into a sitting position, blinking back spots. How long had he been unconscious?

"You're awake," a voice observed.

Madrigal turned his head and found Quinn perched on a boulder, cross-legged, with his hands clasped at his ankles. The posture seemed not to befit the older man's long, muscled limbs. "Oh," Madrigal said.

"How are you feeling?" Quinn untangled himself and hopped down, though not without some effort, Madrigal noticed. "You suffered quite the fall."

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Madrigal wasn't certain, himself. He put his hand to his head, where a slight ache lingered behind his temple, but his fingers came away clean. He lifted the arm Niall had treated in his dream, and found it mobile, if sore. "I think I'm all right. Somehow. How long have I been asleep?"

"Hours." Quinn knelt on the ground beside him, sizing Madrigal up. "But you were breathing all right, so I treated your scrapes and let you rest." He pointed at Madrigal's trouser, where something had shredded the material from knee to ankle, leaving angry red slashes behind. The ankle itself continued to swell, tightly bound in unfamiliar fabric.

His right sleeve, Madrigal couldn't help noticing, was completely missing. Yet the arm itself was unmarked. He lifted it again, rotating the wrist; everything seemed to be in working order.

"You're in good shape for a guy who fell from a cliff." Quinn seemed to be forcing himself to laugh. "Are you feeling any pain anywhere?"

"I'm not sure." Madrigal got to his knees and tested his weight, one hand steadying himself on a branch. His right ankle just barely obliged. "Damn. I hope it isn't broken."

"It's not." Quinn leaned forward to inspect, reaching out to touch the bandage.

Madrigal jerked back in surprise.

"Oh, sorry. Do you mind?"

"Fine," he said through gritted teeth. Laudonians were not touchy people. "Seeing how you already wrapped it up and all."

Quinn's hands were clumsy as he laid two fingers on the joint, just hard enough to cause Madrigal to wince. Quinn was clearly no doctor. "It's a light sprain, at most, and the swelling is already going down. You'll have to rest it in Delle for a couple of days, and then you should be good to go."

"You seem pretty sure."

"I've treated quite a few of these back in Brill. Though at home, of course, I'd have access to medical supplies."

"Really?" Madrigal couldn't help but doubt the sandy-haired man's words. He didn't have the deft touch of a doctor or nurse. "What is it you did, before leaving home?" He envisioned Quinn as a spoiled child, laying out in the fields with a hat over his face when he ought to have been working, perhaps bumbling along at a first job as a shop assistant before returning to his parents' home to wait for his vision from the Goddess. Not at all like the life of a man in Laudonia. Madrigal could almost feel his blood pressure rise at the thought.

To his surprise, Quinn's face creased with obvious discontent. "That's a long story."

Madrigal wasn't sure he wanted to hear it. He couldn't replace his disdain for the other man so quickly as that; the shame of his fall too fresh to yet consider feeling gratitude or relief. He felt curious, however, especially by the uneasy look on his companion's face.

He looked up at the cliffs, dark with trees whose limbs drooped in silhouette across the moon. No path revealed itself to his eye in the blackness. "We have time."