The chair would pass through the door if they removed its right wheel. The witness sitting in it would not be able to remain there while they did.
Bram crouched beside the axle with a borrowed spanner. The neighbor held the frame, studying the damaged foot support as though the entire street depended on that piece of bent metal. Eli put down the blankets he had brought from the front room.
“Tell us how you usually transfer,” he said to the witness.
“With the rail at home.” Her voice was impatient from having answered this already for someone who had offered to lift her without asking. “There isn’t a rail here.”
A second chair had been brought from the kitchen. Its arms were too low. Eli looked at the doorway, then at the long bench against the passage wall. He asked before touching her, and she directed them through a transfer that took four people and enough space to make the waiting group retreat several steps. Nobody used a talent. Bram’s spanner slipped once. He caught it before it struck her ankle and began again with a cloth around the handle.
From the front of the building came the sound of an amplified voice.
