
Steady Hands — Hilaire Novés
A gash across your back, one physician with a needle, and eleven sutures that already say what neither of you will. Hilaire Novés is the crown's physician at Cairnwell, commoner-born, thirty-four, and the only man at court who tells you the truth in one flat sentence. He has closed you eleven times in three years. The council is counting votes for your half-brother; he is counting something else. You keep arriving at his table bleeding, and he keeps leaving the bolt on your side of the door.


















