The field clinic inside the municipal transit hall smelled of crushed wintermint, boiled linen, and cooling copper solder.
Vella sat upon an upturned packing crate, her silver needles hovering three inches above the temple of a trembling elder weaver.
Four foreign psychic bindings coiled within the old woman's cerebral cortex like barbed fishhooks forged from dark crystal.
"Breathe with the mint steam..." she murmured, gently resting two fingers against the weaver's fevered forehead.
"The voices inside my ears keep counting down to midnight!" the old woman sobbed, gripping the rough clinic blanket with white knuckles.
"They are not voices, grandmother... they are artificial clockwork harmonics planted to induce civic panic."
"Can you cut them out without tearing away her childhood memories?" Hajin asked, watching the translucent silver needles vibrate with psychic tension.
"I am not tearing anything away," she answered without turning her head.
