—Emma Hardinge Britten,On the Nature of Wards
Cassiusand I trudged through the mud and filth down an alley across from Rats Castle. Rotting vegetables and piles of garbage lined the walls. We passed a few blanket lean-tos, inside which faint candles flickered, and eventually found a small wood shack with a fading painted needle on the door. It was right where Mick had said it would be. I knocked.
The tailor, Owen, opened the door a crack and peered out at us with his one good eye. The other had swelled shut. “I already told Mick?—”
“We’re not here for Mick,” I said.
Owen hesitated a moment, then let us in. His home wasn’t more than twelve feet across, and maybe ten feet wide. A bed on the left had been neatly made. On the right sat a woman at a small table hemming a dress by the light of a lantern. It was realfire, not an imitation. Beside her sat a young girl pretending to do the same to a doll. At the far end stood an empty bench.
In the lamplight, the woman’s and girl’s shadows revealed that they were semblances. Owen’s, though, glimmered with a pattern of gleaming notes like a simple children’s song and had a cobalt rim. I’d referred to the field manual enough to know that a cobalt rim meant seamster—a thanatist with a gift for thread-making.
On the table in front of the woman were bits of material, tanned leather, and a few spools of thread. Several needles jutted from a pincushion, next to it a thimble, scissors, tacks, ruler, and some chalk. I guessed the empty bench was where Owen must sit to sew.
“What’s your business then?” Owen asked. He’d tried to wipe the blood off his face, but managed only to smear it over his neck and cheeks.
I took a long breath. “We need to find some Orcus thread.” Owen and the woman looked at one another.
“I think you best leave,” Owen said, and started to shoo us out. “Wait, love,” said the woman. “Are these the two who stood up for
you at the Castle?” Owen nodded.
The woman turned to us. “I’m Sarah, and this is Emily. Won’t you please sit down?”
Cassius and I couldn’t both fit on the small bench. So, Cassius motioned me to sit as he leaned against the wall. I took a load off, not realizing how tired I was until I sat down. Sarah put away her hemming, came around the table, and gently inspected our necks. “You’re not Shiguan.”
I shook my head. “I don’t see their mark on you, either.”
“Nor will you ever,” she said. “We may be outnumbered, but many of us in the Strata don’t want war with the world above.” She looked down at her daughter. “There has to be a better way.And perhaps that is why you stood up for Owen and come here now seeking such powerful thread?”
I looked at Emily holding her doll. “I’m going to be honest with you. I’m not some kind of savior. This is all new to me, and I’m sort of learning as I go. But some really good people were killed, and it’s fallen to me and my friends to try and stop this revolution from reaching the world topside. Maybe doing that will help down here, too. I don’t know. I hope so. But I can promise you this—I’m going to do whatever I can to stop Muster Brach before he makes both your world and mine a living hell.” Sarah smiled. “Given your current enterprise, you’ve likely not seen
it, but so much of the Strata is a beautiful, joyful place, where we resolve regrets and pursue our passions.”
“And put things right,” Owen added, placing a hand on Emily’s head. The tailor was crying, which surprised me a bit. Maybe because I’d never seen my dad cry. Sarah went to his side and embraced him. Emily, though, pulled my right hand forward and, while staring at my shadow thrown by the lamplight, tied one of her doll strings around my wrist.
No sigils. Just a plain brown thread. “And what’s this for?” I asked.
“It helps orphans find family,” she replied. I noticed then that both she and her doll wore the same bracelet. Sarah and Owen, too.
I’d never thought of myself that way—orphaned—but the way the girl said it . . .
She was a child caught in the Strata and surrounded by a mounting war between the present and the past. Yet against it all she found hope by wearing a simple brown thread. Her bravery overwhelmed me, and all I could manage was a nod.
“Other than trying to steal it from the Shiguan themselves,” Owen said, “there’s really only one way to obtain Orcus thread, but it might be even more dangerous.”
“And what’s that?”
“Harvest it from inside the Endless Dark.” “You can do this?” Cassius asked.
Owen hesitantly nodded. “Ihavedone it. But I would sooner hold a candle to the devil.”
“We’ll help,” I assured him. “Please.”
The tailor shared one last look with his wife and daughter, then turned to me with his one good eye. “It’s a fool’s errand,” he said. “And I’m a proper fool.”
Cassius clapped one huge hand on the table, causing the seamster tools to jump. “Amor vincit omnia.”
I sighed with relief. “Thank you.”
