"It's fine," he grumbled irritably, but he allowed her to take his arm and to see the deep gash left in his ribs by a passing arrow. Her careful demeanor and the quiet concern of her voice had convinced him that she wasn't here to take him to the chopping block -- or to eat him, whatever people with wings did with strangers they had abducted off the street. He decided he wouldn't cause a scene by refusing her.

He glanced over the edge of the roof, to where a guard had just checked and abandoned the alley just below -- but his alert focus was on her every movement.

"You have already helped me," he told her in a solemn voice -- and then, in a lower mutter, ". . . whatever you are."