Page 166 of Storm and Sea

Irena’s eyes fell on Nyel.

“I’m the other Mer?” Nyel said as a question.

Irena sighed. “Fine. I’ll be right back.”

Marina waited for the door to shut before beaming at her brother. “You actually called me Rina.”

Atreus grinned, though it looked more like a grimace. “I did.”

“Oh, Atty!” she said, throwing her arms around him.

“Ow —OW! Wounded over here!”

When Irena returned, she was followed by a young man with mousy hair and big ears.

“This is a member of our staff in training; he will be helping us today.”

“Hi, I’m Stefano,” he said, raising a timid hand. Marina thought he looked too young to practice medicine, but what did she know?

They set to work undressing Atreus. Marina and Nyel stepped out while they fitted him with a gown and stitched up his more revealing lacerations. When they were allowed back inside, Marina was surprised that it was Stefano doing most of the work while Irena supervised. It seemed that once tasks needed doing, he left his timidness at the door. With gauze and a needle in his hands, he moved with confident precision. At some point, Irena was called to another room, leaving them alone with the young nurse in training.

“You sure we shouldn’t wait for her to come back?” Marina questioned as Stefano readied another syringe with a numbing agent.

“No need.”

Atreus hardly winced as Stefano numbed his forearm, and once the feeling was well and truly gone, he set to stitch the gash.

“Are your parents doctors or something?” Marina asked. “You look pretty young to do this.”

She thought he’d ignored her entirely while silently stitching the wound, his unblinking focus slightly unnerving. After five minutes, however, he cleaned the area with alcohol and lifted his attention to Marina.

“I’m fifteen. And no. My parents aren’t doctors.”

Like a spell had broken, once his work was finished, the timid boy at the door was back, making him look young and unsure once again. He fidgeted with a button on his uniform.

“I—I know Dr. Romano personally, and he offered me the training position. And I’ve been Irena’s shadow ever since.”

“And you still have much to learn,” Irena said, returning to the room.

“Ye-yes, ma’am!” Stefano said, rising so fast his rolly chair hit the opposite wall.

At the end of it all, Atreus needed over thirty stitches across his body and was sent for an X-ray of his arm—a luxury most hospitals couldn’t afford.

The massive X-ray machine was housed in a separate pristine room. It was the kind of equipment so expensive and advanced that many mainland hospitals didn’t even have it yet. Marina’s eyebrows shot up at the crystal clear black-and-white image of Atreus’s bones.

“I’ll be back with the results,” Irena said, taking the X-rays and snapping her fingers for Stefano to follow.

“It—it was nice to meet you,” he said but paused at the door, his eyes darting nervously between Nyel and Atreus.

“They don’t bite,” Marina said, rolling her eyes. “Even when you do this.” She reached over and pinched Nyel hard on the cheek.

“Ow!”

“See?”

“And this one”—she jerked a thumb at Atreus—“took years to figure out how to clean a squid without getting inked. I can’t tell you how many times I found him covered in sticky black goop in nothing but his mutande.”

“You promised never to bring that up,” Atreus barked.