The woman smiled and held up her own right hand. The curved end of her middle finger was gone too, although it was healed over.
“You'll get the hang of it,” she said. “Once the bleeding has stopped, try the other clip. The trick is to pull your finger out of the way at just the right moment.”
Finn wrapped a rag around his bleeding finger, the oil on it making his wound sting. He squeezed hard to stanch the flow of blood.
He looked around the room. No one paid him any attention. It seemed no one had even heard him cry out over the background thrum. Master Owyn had left. Directly opposite him sat Bellow and Croft, each of them lost in concentration, struggling to get their own clips into place. Finn watched them, waiting to see what would happen, whether they too would catch the ends of t
