It was a messy think this rupturing of flesh with jagged bone. Not a clean cut such as a knife would make, but jagged, messy with shredded flesh that would not want to be put back together but must, lest it go necrotic and they lose, by all rights, a very good pilot. She did not see his reaction to her books, no her attention was on her tools, the small circle of useful light from above and the damaged flesh she would have to make whole. Her nose wrinkled in consternation but she said nothing, just gently bathed the wound in more alcohol, distilled stuff she bought for the purpose and then slid the bottle towards him, if he wished to take the edge off the pain. 

Tweezers, good eye and a tiny little knife of razor sharpness to cut away the flesh that was too small to be saved. She pulled out a few small bits of detritus which may have been filth and may have been bits of bone. When she was reasonably certain that all that should not be there was no longer there she pulled and popped the bone back into place. She did it quickly and not unkindly, supposing that swift efficiency was much kinder than slow gentleness. The flesh helped, wanting to be back where it belonged and though she digit was swollen from the trauma she was certain it was lined up to heal well. She stitched then, with the same swift efficiency and soon the ragged bits of his flesh were held together with some neat stitches that would have done any surgeon proud. She slathered the wound with a paste of garlic and honey. Bandaging came next, and she wound the damaged pinky in soft cloth and then bound it to its mate which she then bound to a stick. Both she wound further in cloth, but kept it moderately tight and not too bulky lest he grow annoyed and remove all bandaging as so many patients who were not skilled at being patients did. 

It was then he spoke and she looked up from her work, confusion on her face which furrowed her smooth brow and lowered her golden brows. Her books? She looked over her shoulder at her greatest possessions and then back at the pilot with his unsettling grin and even more confusing request. Her books, even the loan of them would not be the stakes at cards. It simply was not going to happen. But something in his tone made her pause and tilt her head to look at him, as if a different angle would give her a view inside him, to clear up his motives. It did not help. 

“My books are never to be stakes at anything.” She said in her stern yet honeyed voice as she tucked away the last fold on his bandage. She put her needle, her knife and tools into a small bowl of the alcohol and stood. Turning to regard the shelves, she strode the two steps away the small space would allow and pulled down a brown leather bound volume, her hand running over the embossed cover and then placed it on the table in front of him. 

“I will lend you them just because knowledge does no one any good in unread books. You have promised to return them in the same condition you have borrowed them, I will hold you to it. I will call you by your name when you return it thus if that will further motivate you to have a care.” 

The book was a slim volume of Jesuit Astronomy written while at the Chinese imperial court and dealt with the numbers that moved the starts and other heavenly bodies. It was entertainingly written, or rather she thought so and hoped that it might be of interest to him in his profession.