Perhaps it’s the natural intimacy of the sickroom, makeshift though it might be, that makes Athos open up this tiny crack about his childhood, or perhaps it is that everything he knows still feels turned on his head, even a near-month after his arrival in Darrow. One says many things that one wouldn’t otherwise when knocked off kilter.

“My arm. I was a much worse patient than you. Of course,” he offers Porthos a flicker of a smirk, “I was also seven years old."