Two Eyes Cenote ninety-third

"suppose i cared nothing for you." prickly-pear juice, diluted to a light wash with water. "suppose i was only at the height of my skill as a physician, and asked you to be a patient." each thorn plucked slowly, agonizingly, dropped into a curled leaf and carried away as the poison they were. "would you allow it then?"

a paste of honey and clover, a bandage of split sedgestem running over the wound where once a vine had been twisted.

he tasted tears. they too ran down his own face. "i mean for you to be set free. to walk away from this place. but know you are not alone in your plight. muat-riya stands behind you, machiavelli, even if you have been so greatly wronged in these halls."

he stepped back then, his expression one of a surveying doctor; senmut pulled it away before it became a caress.