At the front door of the clinic, Mina folded the slip of paper into a neat square. Then she tucked it into the breast pocket of Seyun’s gray coat, right beside the worn binding of his Ash Reed Account Book.
“Everything is written down so you can’t claim you forgot a count,” Mina told him as she unbolted the oak door to the cool night street. “Two more weeks in the light figure-eight shoulder wrap before you test overhead staff blocks. One full season of unassisted morning foundation practice to let your chest rebalance around the two closed marks—no chasing new rivals. No forcing Daro’s bond while your endurance is still rebuilding. And you bring that wrist to my bench on the fifteenth of every month when you collect your seven silver and four coppers.”
Seyun touched his pocket where the folded prescription rested against his ribs. “I’ll be here on the fifteenth before Halin finishes sweeping the floor.”
Seyun stepped out across the flat stone threshold onto the cobblestones of the lower market street. He paused under the corner street-lantern and looked back once at the modest ground-floor doorway.
Through the front window pane, he could see the warm yellow light of the oil lamp falling across the pine check bench, the three-drawer cedar herb cabinet. The brass scales on the counter, while outside on the doorframe the stamped cedar plaque of the Oran Healers’ Guild gleamed quietly in the night air. Down at the river wharf two blocks…
