He bent low, and stripped the bright steel gauntlet off his hand—a slim, ungendered hand—and ran it along the knight’s body. That touch struck de Vrailly like the shock of taking his first wound—and lo, he was healed. He took a deep and shuddering breath, and found no pain at the bottom of it. “You cannot just heal me,” de Vrailly snapped. “It would be unchivalrous of me to walk away healed when my brave people lie at the edge of cruel death.” The archangel turned his head, brushed the long hair back from his forehead, and he stood. “You are the most demanding mortal I have ever met,” he said.
