"Oh, you're awake I see," the doctor said calmly without turning around from her task, almost as though she were just discussing something mundane like the weather. She looked over the array of surgical equipment on a nearby stand, raising each item one by one to carefully study it for anything marring the shining metal and glass before setting it back down and rolling the stand over to the table Kvothe was strapped to.

"How are you feeling, Charles? Or would you prefer Kvothe?" she asked, smiling indulgently but otherwise keeping her face perfectly relaxed and her tone only mildly curious. Masking how her practised eyes watched him carefully for the slightest sign of what was going through his mind right now. He was afraid, but hiding it. Like a good little hero should.

But he would be so much better when she was done.