The western tool house smelled of dried clover, neatsfoot oil, and the faint, rotten-egg tang of the brimstone matches Paxa Sel used to light her check candles. A low fire of peat and dried larch roots smoldered in the stone hearth. It cast a warm, amber circle of light across the scarred workbench where Kezra sat with her coat unbuttoned.
Paxa stood behind her with two small brass tuning forks held between her fingertips. She struck the lower fork against the wooden doorframe, held the shaking tines three inches from Kezra’s good right ear. Then she waited three seconds before bringing them across to her injured left side.
“Tell me when the pitch disappears,” Paxa said, her voice cold and exact and calm.
Kezra closed her eyes, listening to the fading hum. On the right, the note remained clear, round, and metal until it died into the background crackle of the peat fire. On the left, the low tone vanished almost right away, swallowed by a flat, empty hiss like water poured on cold ashes.
Paxa struck the second fork—the higher-pitched one—and repeated the test. This time, Kezra could follow the tone on both sides. Even so, the left ear heard it half a shade sharper and noticeably thinner than the right.
