Ferra unbuckled the last strap on the carrying frame while the forge behind her ticked down from the morning's heat. The station fitting lay inside its padding like a wounded animal, crusted with road grit and several layers of rot.
Packed ration bags leaned against the forge door, and the household's packing racket drifted in from the yard.
Hajin leaned over the bench with his fingers already twitching toward the crust, "Okay, so if I just give it one tiny little taste—"
"Hands off," Ferra snapped, swatting his wrist with the brush handle.
"Your sampling trick stays in your pocket until ordinary tools tell me everything ordinary tools can tell me."
"That could take all day."
"Then pull up a stool and suffer," she grunted, dipping the brush into the oil pot.
"You taste it first, and every scratch afterward might be yours, so nobody ever knows what the road left behind."
'Guessing first is how idiots ruin the only honest witness on the table.'
