This takes place after Mark, Kieran, Cristina, Jace, and Clary return from Faerie, and after Emma and Julian return from Thule, but before Emma and Julian wake up.

His wrists were burnt.

It seemed a small, foolish concern in light of everything else. The King his father was dead by his hand, Julian and Emma had been left behind in Faerie only to appear in the Institute moments after the others, injured and screaming, and everything about the situation with the Cohort seemed to have only grown worse in their absence. There were far more important things for the Blackthorn family to worry about.

And yet Kieran was not part of the Blackthorn family. He hadn't found a way in, not like Emma or Cristina or Kit. And no one wanted him to be there, except perhaps Mark, who was busy. There was nothing Kieran could help with, and he had the feeling the most useful thing he could do would be to stay out of the way.

And if he were staying out of the way anyway, he might as well bandage his wounds as he did so.

The burns were ugly, cracked and seeping blood. The iron would have been bad enough on its own, but Kieran had struggled against it, adding abrasions to the burns. He would heal, he always did, but the wounds were still painful.

The Institute's infirmary was not hard to find, and once inside, it was a simple matter for Kieran to find bandages. There were a few herbs, but none that he thought would help. He wet a cloth and wiped away the drying blood on his wrists, then he picked up a strip of white bandage and began to wrap it around his right wrist.

He was struggling to tie off the bandage when he sensed someone else enter the infirmary. There was something almost familiar about the presence, but when Kieran turned around, the figure behind him was hardly familiar at all.

"Lady Helen."

Helen's eyes widened in surprise, but to her credit, she hardly missed a beat. "My lord Kieran," she replied. "I had not thought to find you here."

"If my presence here is unwanted, I can leave," Kieran offered.

"Your presence is not unwanted," Helen assured him. "In fact, I had hoped for an opportunity to speak with you."

Kieran offered Helen a courtly little bow. Like her brother, Helen had a sort of faerie ethereality to her, and her speech fell into faerie rhythms easily. It was easier to speak to her than the younger Blackthorn siblings, although Kieran knew with every word that Mark held his older sister's opinion in very high regard. Kieran could ill afford any missteps around her.

"If you wish to speak, then speak," Kieran said. "I shall listen."

Helen entered the infirmary properly, closing the door behind her. "I wished to express my gratitude to you, for all that you have done for my brother."

Kieran tensed. "All I have done?"

"He has told me how you protected him in the Hunt," Helen said. "How you kept him safe as much as you could. How you loved him when no one else was there to do it. When I first heard that Mark had been taken by the Wild Hunt, I feared that, if I ever saw him again, there would be nothing left of the brother I loved. But now that he is home, I recognize him clearly, and I believe I have you to thank for it."

"Mark would never have let himself become unrecognizable to you," Kieran countered. "Every night, he would gaze up at the stars and give the brightest ones your names. Helen, Julian, Livia, Tiberius, Drusilla, and Octavian. He never let himself forget."

Helen's eyes were sparkling in the low light. "Kieran," she began, stepping forward, then her eyes went wide. "Your wrists!"

Kieran looked down at his wrists, the right one half bandaged and the left one not bandaged at all. He'd nearly forgotten the pain of them in his distraction.

"What happened?" Helen demanded, gently taking Kieran's hands in hers and looking at the burns.

"My wrists were bound with iron," Kieran said softly. "They will heal. Do not let it concern you."

"It does concern me," Helen retorted. "Let me help you bandage them. And maybe I can put on some aloe. Does aloe work on iron burns?"

"I am uncertain," Kieran admitted. "But I had not seen true aloe here."

"We don't have a plant," Helen said, gently unwrapping the sloppy bandages around Kieran's wrist. "We buy it as a gel, like mundanes do. It works well for sunburns."

"Is it not illegal for you to use mundane medicine?" Kieran asked, staying very still as Helen reached his wounds.

"Well, aloe isn't really medicine, so I don't think it counts," Helen replied. "I'm sure Inquisitor Dearborn would use it against us if he knew, but he shouldn't find out." She huffed out a small laugh. "And if he finds out we used mundane aloe to treat the wounds of a faerie prince, I think he'll be more concerned about the faerie prince than the aloe."

"I do not wish to cause you trouble," Kieran said softly. "I will leave, if my presence is harmful."

"Your absence would upset Mark," Helen countered. "And Cristina as well, I would think, given how she tended to your wounds last time."

The thought of upsetting Mark or Cristina was a pang to Kieran's heart, but he wasn't certain Helen was correct in her assumptions. "My presence has upset them as well," he said, knowing with certainty that it was true.

"Perhaps," Helen allowed. "But so long as you are here, you have the chance to make amends. If you leave, that chance goes with you."

"And if leaving them in peace is the only amends I can make?"

Helen was silent for a moment. "I have seen the way Cristina looks at you," she finally said, "and seen the look on Mark's face when he speaks of you. I do not think leaving them would be any amends at all."

"What other amends can I make?" Kieran asked.

Helen picked up a plastic bottle that appeared to be full of some sort of gel. "You'll have to figure that out yourself," she said. "But are you sure you need to make amends? Have they asked you to?"

"I have done many horrible things," Kieran said.

"You've done many good things as well," Helen replied. "Do you wish for my advice?"

"I would appreciate it."

Helen picked up a piece of cloth and squeezed some of the gel onto it, then she took Kieran's wrist and began to smear the gel onto his burns. "You should talk to them," she said. "Silence does no one any favors, and miscommunication is the greatest enemy any relationship can face. Speak to them, and see what you all expect. Only then can you move on."

Kieran looked at his wrists. Helen had finished with the gel, it seemed, and she set the cloth aside and picked up a bandage.

"It will hurt to speak about, I think," Kieran said quietly as she began to wrap the bandage around his wrists. "It is not an easy topic."

"No, it's not," Helen agreed. "But it's an important one."

"What if we do not agree?" Kieran asked. "What if..."

What if they want something I cannot give, and what if I want something they are unwilling to share?

"If you disagree, then you disagree," Helen said. "But you'll disagree either way. This way, at least you know."

Kieran sighed. "You speak wisdom, Lady Helen."

Helen finished bandaging Kieran's wrists and set her hand lightly on his. "Then you should follow it."

Kieran ducked his head. "I will consider your words."

"A very faerie answer," Helen said with a sigh. "I have to go check on Julian and Emma, but I hope everything goes well for you. I want to see all three of you happy."

"And if I do not deserve that?"

Helen was silent for a moment. "I think Mark and Cristina would be miserable if you were miserable," she said. "Think on that before you decide to torture yourself."

Kieran inclined his head again, and Helen inclined hers. "Until we meet again, Lady Helen," Kieran said.

"Don't be a stranger, Prince Kieran," Helen replied, and then she left the room.

Kieran looked down at his wrists, the bandages white and pristine, and thought about what to do next. Maybe Helen was right. Maybe he had to rethink what he thought he knew. Maybe he should speak to Mark and Cristina before he made their decisions for them.

But until Julian and Emma woke, Mark and Cristina would be busy, which would give Kieran the chance to be a coward for a few hours more.