"Don't worry," he offered with a comforting smile, "this is not the first such case I've seen, nor is it likely to be my last."

His patient (hopefully) reassured, Gideon Browne returned his attention to their arm—or rather, where the arm ought to have been, the limb in question (as well as the clothing that had covered it) having utterly vanished. The nice thing about vanishing cabinets is that things didn't vanish so much as go elsewhere, but for the most part, the healer deemed them far more trouble than they were worth.

"I must ask, though—was this a cabinet you had used before successfully, one you acquired from some sort of dealer, or one you were...endeavouring to prepare yourself?" the healer continued, now prodding lightly at the patient's shoulder with his wand tip to ensure it remained sound. Unlike a splinching, the sites of these sort of unconventional amputations were fuzzy, both in appearance and their connection with reality: no blood, no nerve endings, just a vague sense of something being amiss.