"I understand." He puts his hands up in a placating gesture. He admires her courage and he has no doubt she means what she says, but this isn't going to help anything if she can't trust him to do what he needs to do.

"I'm not here to hurt you or your brother. If I wanted that, I would have let him try to float down that freezing river. I'm doing everything I can to save him but I need to you understand that he's in shock right now, barely hanging on, and if we don't do something to change that I can't say for sure he'll come back out of this."

He's very slowly going to reach back down and continue bringing the vial to Percy's nose. "This is the only thing I can do to ease his pain. I need you to trust me."