"There, that wasn't so bad, was it?" From anyone else the words would have been meant to reassure, but from the doctor, they sounded mocking and all too smug. The hand on Kvothe's cheek patted him slightly before the doctor withdrew and set the syringe aside, glass clinking against the metal tray.

But the ordeal was far from over, as her hands returned with a second syringe and vial, the contents of which mirrored the first.

"Now for the other one, can't have it only affecting one eye now, can we?" She smiled like it was some kind of amusing joke and set about preparing the second injection. Then the tip of the needle was being held steady over Kvothe's wide, terrified left eye. There wasn't even a warning this time, the doctor relying solely on the boy's own fear to keep him perfectly still as the needle pushed its way in with agonising slowness and she injected the second measure of fluid into his eye.

He was really being so good about it, she thought, not even screaming at all, though his body; the way his jaw clenched and his hands spasmed while his breath rushed in and out in panicked gasps, said more than enough. It would be interesting to see what he'd do in the next stages.