Seraphina put the inspection record down before she touched my hand.
"What happened after the second reading?"
I looked at the empty vial beside her papers.
"The potion was afterward. I wrote the time."
"I see the time. I'm asking about the examination."
The room smelled of clean cloth and the herbs Maelis was sorting at the far table. Through the curtain, someone was explaining how a practice blade had reached an ear without reaching the head beneath it. Maelis asked him to stop moving while he explained.
I kept my own hand flat.
"The examiner concluded it."
Seraphina turned the page toward me. Two short strips sat beneath the completed finding. The report of increased pain remained attached, as he had promised.
"With these readings?"
"Yes."
"Where is the controlled response?"
I looked at the sentence in that section. Reviewed in light of current injury restrictions. It had seemed useful yesterday because it let a reader avoid asking the question she had just asked.
