Fray

by Rowenna Miller

  Black sparks like hard obsidian speckled the pale blue—not that anyone else would see them. They were the marks of a curse, the dark magic that a curse caster would deliberately pull into their work. But I wasn’t curse casting—I was casting a charm as I had done hundreds of times before. Impatient and more than a little frightened, I waved my hand over the black sparkle and it dissipated quickly.

  But now the golden light was fickle and reluctant, fighting my needle and my thoughts like it had a will of its own. More than once I saw the black glittering lines encroaching on the golden lines of stitching, as though they thought I was calling them into my work, as well. I wasn’t—I deliberately pushed them away, but they hovered, threatening to tie themselves into the stitches as firmly as the pale light. I struggled to complete the row of trim, frustrated with the sloppy stitching and weak charm that my work produced.

  Confused, I lay the piece aside. Was I just tired? Was there something about this piece, about the young woman it was for, about the materials? Nothing about the piece itself seemed out of the ordinary, and the recipient of a charm had never mattered before. Had I been reusing materials, I would have wondered if, somehow, they had been previously charmed, but these were brand-new woolens and threads. As I examined them, they bore no signs of charming or cursing—and I would have seen either clearly.

  Startled, I realized that the proximity of the curse magic had not made me feel ill, either. Controlling the glinting black as I had stitched it into the queen’s shawl had made me nauseated and fatigued, even as I progressed in my control of it. Maybe if I didn’t try to control it, I was free of its effects. This made me feel a bit better—I hadn’t drawn the darkness into my work. It hadn’t worked through me; if it had, I surely would have felt ill.

  I stood up, shaking my hands as though I could shake the problem away. I was tired, I concluded, overwhelmed by the influx of orders. The conclusion didn’t satisfy me, but I pushed the concerns aside and returned to the main workroom, determined to finish cutting a new gown instead.

  “Is this the right fabric for the bodice lining?” Emmi asked as I scanned the specifics of the order, a deep wine silk gown for a minor countess. Imbuing different stomachers with different charms had been her ingenious idea—one for love, one for luck, one for financial fortune—to interchange as she needed. The gown itself, however, could be sewn entirely by Alice and Emmi, and would avoid further backlog for me.

  I glanced up and nodded. “You’ve picked up on the linen weights very quickly,” I praised her. It had taken my former assistant, Penny, the better part of three months to finally discern the difference between linen lining fabric, hemp drill, and linen sheeting.

  “I enjoy it,” she said. “It’s so much more interesting than helping at home or working for Nanni Defaro at the fishmonger’s.” I didn’t doubt that. Nanni was a cranky old bat from everything Emmi had told me, and fish… I didn’t relish the idea of handling fish all day, either. “And it’s—it’s a real trade, you know?”

  I did. Even if Emmi never progressed to the level that Alice had achieved, she would always have adequate skill to be an assistant in a seamstress shop. I had no doubt she could do even better. I sighed—I needed to take the time to train her more thoroughly, not only for the benefit of my shop’s bloated to-do list, but for Emmi’s future, as well.

  “Help me draft out these sleeves,” I said.

  “Oh, I’ve never—”

  “I know.” I handed her a ruler. “I’ll show you how, and then you repeat the process. It’s just translating these measurements to the fabric—and we’ll cut a muslin for fitting first. Make a mistake, and we can just put it in the scrap bin.”

  Emmi smiled nervously, and soon we were so engrossed in patterning Countess Rollet’s sleeves that I had almost forgotten my loss of charm-casting control.

  4

  THE PUBLIC GARDENS SPILLED OVER WITH BLOSSOMS AND GREENERY under the steady summer sun, and the quiet of the winter months was replaced with promenading couples, ladies having picnics, and rumpled children singing rhymes as they were herded away from fountains by patient nursemaids and harried mothers. The broad avenues were as bright as the beds of flowers, with ladies in walking gowns of cheerful cotton prints and men in vibrant silks, dressing to be seen. The poorer classes, not to be outdone, wore sashes and kerchiefs of crimson silk and indigo printed cottons, economy allowing for these small indulgences of color.

  “It’s not quite so private in the summer, is it?” Theodor asked as we walked toward the greenhouse. The doors were open and the greenhouse, though currently lacking the novelty of a living garden in the midst of winter, was flooded with people exploring the aisles of exotic plants, exclaiming in wonder as they read the placards Theodor had written.

  “No, but I’m glad your work hasn’t gone unnoticed,” I said. “Even if it means it won’t be as quiet next winter, I hope they come back to see it then. In winter, it’s magic.”

  “If I hadn’t built it, I’d agree with you,” he said. “And even then, flowers in winter do seem a bit like something your charms ought to produce, not metal and glass.” He led me past the greenhouse. “I think I know a spot that will be a bit quieter,” he confided. The formal gardens gave way to the wooded park, where several picnickers stopped their progress to whisper as we passed. I tilted my head down, hiding my flushed face behind my enormous silk-covered hat. Theodor, with gentlemanly bravado, lifted his ebony walking stick in a show of pleasant greeting.

  “Let’s go this way,” he said, diverting down a narrow path of crushed shells into the forest.

  I lifted my skirts over a wayward root. I didn’t know the gardens well; though Theodor and I had spent countless hours here, most of them were in the greenhouse, often with Theodor in shirtsleeves and me with a large bib apron, repotting saplings or pruning roses. It was Theodor’s escape from the endless haggling and needling of the Council of Nobles, and though I never cared for dibbling in the dirt like he did, there was something close to normalcy about working alongside one another. I could forget, with matching lines of dirt under our nails, that he was noble and I was common-born.

  “Ah, as quiet as I expected,” Theodor said. He ushered me into a quiet glade at the top of a hill, the branches above fracturing the sunlight and casting intricate, ever-moving shadows on a clear pool in the center. The pool cascaded to another just below it, and another, all the way down to a stand of willows, fronds brushing the water like languid golden fingers.

  I gasped as I realized where we were—the waterfalls Theodor had brought me to when we had left Viola’s card party, shaken and afraid in the tumult of the weeks preceding the Midwinter Revolt. They had been frozen and staid in the cold, not the laughing cascades they were now.

  “You remember?” He took my hands in his.

  “Of course I do,” I breathed.

  “Good.” Theodor grinned. “If you didn’t, it would make this rather awkward.” He pulled a thin chain of gold from his pocket, the links so minute that it looked more like a thick thread of winking metal. My jaw loosened and my eyes brimmed with sudden, sweet tears—I knew this tradition even if I had never seen the ritual unfold.

  “I would tie my lot to yours,” Theodor said, draping the chain over his left wrist, “and bind our lives together.” He held out his hand to me. “Would you take the same vow?” I found I had no voice, but I laid my trembling fingers over his, and he brought the chain over my wrist, sealing a Galatine betrothal.

  The gold bound our hands together only temporarily, but I knew what I was agreeing to, letting its cool links settle on my skin. I could swear that I almost tasted the traditional words Theodor had recited as he kissed me. I exhaled as he pulled away.

  “Are you all right? To my understanding, most women eventually say something,” he coaxed.

  “Yes, I—”

  “You do want this, don’t you?” He lifted my chin to meet his eyes. “I know it doesn’t seem an easy road, potholed with stodgy old no
bles, but I know this is right. For us, for Galitha—”

  “Yes, this is what I want,” I stopped him, the gold chains on our wrists clinking gently together. I didn’t need to be sold on the prospect of marrying the man I loved, and better positioning myself to look out for the interests of my neighbors, my friends, the common folk of my country in the process. I had faced the fears I no longer needed to say, that I would never be accepted, and that I would have to give up the security and, indeed, identity of my shop. I had come to accept those fears, their attenuate risks. I understood now that inaction meant risking more than making a choice did.

  “I know this means giving your shop up, eventually,” Theodor said. “I know that you don’t take that lightly, and neither do I.”

  I nodded, then gripped his hand. “I know. I even know what I want to do—there are fewer charmed commissions than before, and Alice is already taking over more and more.” I couldn’t keep the shop, but the shop didn’t have to close. All my years of relentless work didn’t have to end with empty shop windows, a cold grate in my atelier, and the loss of my employees’ jobs. I could close off charmed commissions, finish those I already had in the queue, hire at least one more seamstress if not two—it was as easy to plan out as it was difficult to imagine my life without the shop.

  “When the reforms pass, you can even sell it to her,” he said. “At whatever rate you think fair.”

  Somewhere between all the money in Galitha and nothing at all, I thought with a wistful smile. “She could never afford the cost of what it’s worth. I would sign it over as a bequest.”

  “Now, let’s see if I can do this right,” Theodor said, turning our still-bound wrists. He crisscrossed the chain, revealing a pair of minute clasps. With a gentle hand, he unhooked them, revealing that the chain was in fact two lengths of gold, one to wear on each of our wrists. I traced the gold with a tentative finger-tip; I’d seen bracelets on wealthy clients, while poorer Galatines usually used silk ribbons. The slight weight felt strange, a foreign, if welcome, presence. A constant presence, I reminded myself, as the binding wasn’t traditionally removed until the wedding. By then the ribbons poorer people used were ragged and stained, but, just like the metal wristlets the wealthy used, were saved as family keepsakes, sometimes worked into baby gowns or made into rosettes on a prized piece of embroidery.

  The gold winked at me in the bright sunlight as I wrapped my arms around Theodor and let him sweep me off my feet and into a long embrace as the cascading water played a bright melody.

  5

  I COULDN’T KEEP THE NEWS OF MY ENGAGEMENT TO THEODOR quiet for long. Emmi spotted the gold chain within moments of arriving at work the next morning and squealed loudly enough that a farmer selling snap peas outside our door stopped to peer inside.

  “And it’s real gold,” she said, touching it and then retracting her hand as though she’d been burned. “Not that it wouldn’t be, of course, but I’ve never seen a real gold betrothal binding before. Only ribbons!”

  “We really ought to have anticipated this,” Alice said, almost chiding in her careful tone. “I suppose the wedding will be before fall?” she added.

  “We haven’t decided,” I said. A noble wedding was an involved affair, especially with the heir to the throne involved. His priority—and mine—was bringing the Reform Bill to a conclusive, passing vote. Still, Galatine engagements were not typically more than a few months long. That gave me until winter, at most, to ready the shop. Alice’s measured gaze on the thin gold marking my wrist told me that she had thought of this, too. Of course—in her mind, the engagement meant the closure of the shop, unemployment for her, and an uncertain future.

  I would alleviate her of that concern soon, and for now there was little uncertainty for the coming months. The slate hanging above the counter that held the list of orders was so cramped that Alice’s neat handwriting couldn’t keep them from running into one another. There wasn’t time to spare.

  “All right,” I said as Alice and Emmi packed orders in brown paper behind me. “Emmi, take these orders out for delivery.” As she gathered the teetering pile of packages and scurried out the door, I turned to Alice. “I can’t be the Prince of Westland’s wife and run a shop. But you already knew that,” I added with a soft smile.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be rude.” Her hands fidgeted through a pile of receipts.

  I took them from her and tucked them into their box. “It’s not rude. It’s business. And I’d like it to be yours.”

  Alice blanched, the roses in her cheeks fading as she sat, hard, on the bench behind the counter. “Mine?”

  “Who better?” I laughed. “For now, I want to clear our slate of charmed orders, stop taking more, and let you take over day-to-day operations. When the Reform Bill passes,” I added, purposefully avoiding the if I knew was more accurate, “I’ll sign the shop over to you.”

  “I can’t possibly buy the shop, not now—maybe in a year, or two, if I can save and get my family to—”

  “I don’t want payment. Legally, it will be a bequest,” I said quietly. There was no amount of money that seemed fair, in exchange for the years of life I’d spent on building the business, establishing clients, making a name for myself. Yet I didn’t want that work to go to waste, and if someone talented and invested didn’t take the shop under her guidance, it would shutter. “Legally, practically, and in every other manner, I cannot keep this business and marry Theodor. I’ve made my choice, and I have to leave it behind.” I paused—I spoke of my shop almost like a person, a traveling companion whose road finally diverged from mine. I had a new vocation now, as a voice for the quiet majority of Galatines, leveraging my position among the nobility. Even after the reforms passed, that voice would be necessary.

  “I—I can’t accept that,” Alice said, repressing the excitement in her voice. I knew she wanted to open her own shop someday, and I’d always anticipated losing her to her well-earned ambition.

  “You can. Understand, this isn’t purely a favor, a gift to you. This shop has been a place of employment for…” I counted quickly, surprising even myself as I said, “For over a dozen women since I opened. I’ve given women a place to earn a fair wage, to gain skills and experience.” The options most commonly granted to women for work—servants, laundresses, market women—were sparse and few offered the potential that dressmaking did. “I very much want it to continue to be that sort of place, not just for experienced seamstresses, but for less practiced girls, too.” Emmi had taught me the value of looking past a girl’s current skill level and toward her ability and willingness to learn. Though Emmi had not been a seamstress by trade when I had hired her to help me just before the insurrection, she had proved quick with a needle and thread. She had been so successful—and appreciative of an opportunity usually beyond her—that even Alice, dubious of the decision at first, had come around on her intrinsic value in our shop.

  “And in that vein,” I continued, “we need to hire more seamstresses. If I won’t be here much longer, you’ll need to have at least one, if not two, new staff ready, and soon.”

  Alice nodded. “I’ll place an ad in the Weekly tomorrow.” Once practical tasks superseded talk, Alice’s unease dissipated. Accepting such a proposition was not easy for Alice, who liked to see clearly that she had earned what she had gained, one of the many reasons I knew she had the steady head and pragmatic temperament necessary to continue the work I had started.

  “One more thing,” I said. “I’d like you to hire at least one Pellian, if you can.”

  Alice exhaled carefully, weighing her words. “We got very lucky with Emmi. But Pellians—few are trained in fine sewing. You know as well as I do that we need more help than someone sweeping the back. Emmi still isn’t quite up to where Penny was.”

  “I know,” I said, “and I won’t argue that it doesn’t make more work, up front. But, Alice—they’re not trained in fine sewing because they’re not hired by the milliners and dressmakers as
day laborers and apprentices. If any of them wanted to learn, we’re the only chance they have. And Emmi works harder than Penny. She knows she has a lot to learn, and she dedicates herself to it.”

  “There are Galatine girls who need work, too, you know,” Alice said gently. I knew she meant it kindly, reminding me I was helping a girl support herself no matter what.

  I had helped many Galatine girls over the years. And though I wished I could say that I had done so solely because they needed my shop, in truth, I needed them. I wanted the façade of a fine Galatine atelier, with the polished wood counter and the plate-glass window framing my best work and primly dressed assistants in starched caps and aprons. I had built a proper Galatine shop, and I had populated it with Galatines. I had been, I accepted, neglectful.

  “You’re right, of course,” I replied, “that any girl we can hire and give a reference to is better off because of it. And I certainly don’t mean to say that we oughtn’t to hire Galatines, too. But a Pellian girl—you know as well as I that very few shops will take a risk on her.”

  Alice pursed her lips. The color had returned to her cheeks in sharp points, whether of frustration or embarrassment, I didn’t know. “You were right about Emmi,” she finally said. “We’ll see how it goes for another time.”

  Impulsively, I hugged Alice. Her arms stiffened, then relaxed. “You’ll be a wonderful shop owner. Better than me, I’d wager.” Then I glanced at the slate. “And now, to get these charmed orders finished.”

  I returned to the riding habit I’d left the last time I’d tried to charm cast. I began to sew, and finished one side of the jacket’s front before I sensed something strange, like a constantly moving itch or a person standing just outside the periphery of my vision. The charmed light I held to my needle faded, spreading out like ink on wet paper, and the itch intensified as the dark glint of curse magic encroached on the space.