Steam from the third-terrace stone runoff curled through the slatted floor of the outer spring shed. He carried the chalky tang of dissolved limestone and wet cedar bark. Seyun sat on the low timber bench with his left knee braced between both hands. Meanwhile, Mina worked over his bare foot with a pair of bone-handled shears. Outside the plank wall, the voices of visiting town apothecaries and village herb-buyers were already drifting back toward the auction stalls to bid on the afternoon lots. That left the damp work room quiet except for the hiss of warm water running through the stone trough beneath the floorboards.
Mina set the shears aside on an oiled cloth and pinched the base of Seyun’s fourth toe between her thumb and forefinger. “Hold the bench edge,” she said, her voice pitched low and steady in the way he had learned to obey since the river ferry in Oran. “The shaft took the rebound cleanly enough. So the skin didn’t split, but the lower joint is displaced outward by half a reed’s thickness. If I leave it angled, the callus will fuse crooked and catch against the third toe every time you shift weight onto your heel.”
