The blood on my forearm had gone tacky, then hard, and somewhere in between it had glued my sleeve to the wound.
I found this out the way I find out most things down here, which is to say too late and while already pulling.
"Ow. Okay. That's — that is attached to me."
Nobody came running. Naturally. Brunhilde stood out at the edge of the field with her back to us and her sword grounded in the bone, and Ilse was still sitting in the snow with her head against the stone where she'd dropped, and both of them had the specific stillness of women who had decided that whatever noise I made next was not going to be their problem.
I tried again, slower. The leather came up a quarter inch and brought skin with it.
'Nope. Nope nope nope.'
You could just leave it on.
'It's frozen to the meat, Wren.'
'Wear it forever. Grow around it. You would look distinguished.'
'You're enjoying this.'
'Enormously.'
