Sera knew the boy’s graft was alive before she knew whether his hand would close properly.
The filament’s response remained organized beneath the swelling. Charge moved through its ordinary route without leaking into the burned skin. The injury lay above it, where a charging collar’s outer contact had heated against a badly fitted metal seat.
Not a graft demanding pain as its price.
A piece of equipment had hurt a person.
The distinction mattered because the person was twenty, frightened and already asking whether the two patterns he had earned would disappear.
“No,” Sera told him. “Your library hasn’t become the burn. We treat the injury. We do not ask it to prove anything by working through pain.”
Tallo nodded too quickly.
Doctor Emren Voss moved the lamp so he could see Sera’s face without craning his neck. She ran Bracken Weir’s clinic with two other clinicians and a rotating group of local assistants. Her method of wrapping the wrist used less imported cloth than Sera’s, and left the inspection face easier to reach.
