“We haven’t seen the fuller’s shed on the south bank yet,” Seyun told Halin, refusing to offer the boy a comforting lie just to quiet his pulse, “but my sister works in the Oran healer’s guild three streets above the dye-vats, and Mother Renn’s people walk every market lane between the ferry and the lower locks. As soon as word can go down this mountain, we’ll check the fuller’s roll for Leni of Lower Reed-Bend and see that her board is paid.”
Halin didn’t smile—the wire in his side left no room for the sudden rib spreading of relief—but the wild, tripping flutter at the bottom of his wrist pulse steadied by half a beat under Mina’s fingers. Mina nodded once, patted the back of his hand. Then he rose with her stool to move clockwise to the second iron bed.
“We’re going around the entire circle,” Mina announced to the chamber. She turned the second brass plate face-down against the frame before sitting. “If anyone is in too much pain to speak aloud, blink twice when I take your wrist and we’ll read your intake chart from the cupboard instead. Otherwise, tell my brother your name so his ledger has no numbers in it.”
