Clover pursed her lips. “Ereglin family?”
The shop owner, a woman in her early forties in an impeccably fitting blue gown, nodded. “A wedding fell apart. I was told to burn it, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it.”
Clover pondered the dress. If she concentrated any harder, the gown would catch on fire.
Making the kind of dress I needed for the joedurar in fourteen days was impossible. Our only option was to purchase one and alter it. We’d spent the whole day taking the carriage from one dressmaking shop to the next, with both Will and Lute watching over us and Kaiden on scouting duty.
The unfortunately colored gown wasn’t just our best option. It was our only option. Attending the dance in one of my regular gowns was out of the question. I might as well show up in a bean sack.
“Do you think it will take the dye?” Clover asked.
The owner frowned. “It should. Although I cannot guarantee it. We had to soak it for three days in a vat of goseweed to get this shade. The dye is very saturated.”
“I was thinking cantolin powder,” Clover said.
“Hot or cold?”
“Hot, then cold-set with vinegar and a dash of burgundy dust.”
“To counteract the undertone from the yellow?”
“Yes. I need rust, not orange.”
The two women peered at me.
“The embroidery is gold thread,” the shop owner said. “It should hold.”
I cleared my throat. “Tresses?”
They looked at me.
“Can I put my arms down?”
Clover turned red. “Of course, my lady.”
Oh good. Actually, I could’ve held out longer. My arms weren’t that tired. All of that daily stabbing I’d been doing was paying off.
“I will let it go for half a grest,” the shop owner said.
Clover gasped. “Fifty nomas? For a dress that should be burned?”
“This is Olvian silk!”
“In a hideous color! For all we know, the dye will eat holes in it. And since they told you to burn it, you were already paid for it.”
“Forty-five. The embroidery alone took a month.”
“Fifteen. The embroidery is gold which doesn’t even fit our family colors.”
“Thirty-five.”
“Twenty.”
“Meet me at thirty or leave,” the shop owner ground out.
Clover raised her chin. “Thirty it is.”
“We’ll take it,” I told the dress shop owner. “Thank you for your help. It will not be forgotten.”
