"I'm told I stood in this shop and counted out coins." Her voice breaks. She shuts her eyes, waits, tries again. "I called it good fabric."
I move toward her and then stop. Does she want to be held? Does she want three feet of air and nobody touching her? How am I supposed to know after a month of watching her wear politeness like a coat?
She answers by crossing the distance herself.
I put my arms around her. She shakes once against me and then steps back before either of us can start crying properly.
"I remember all of it," she says. "That's the worst part. I was there. I watched myself do it and I couldn't make myself care."
Her fingers press together, hard.
"Ysolde says you kept working on the dress."
"I did."
"Even after I canceled it."
"You were under a spell. I'm not accepting business decisions made under magical duress."
A small sound escapes her. Not quite a laugh, but close enough that my chest aches.
I step aside so she can see it.
The masterpiece stands beneath the front windows. Ysolde's leather edges the bodice. Brynna's twilight thread runs down the seams. Saskia's silver lies across the shoulders in bright lines that look ready for a battle and hold nothing but light.
At the hem, where only another dressmaker would think to look, there's one line of pink thread.
I sewed it the night the crown sealed Tanner's Row. It felt stupid at the time. I did it anyway.
Mirelle crosses the shop slowly and touches the sleeve with two fingers.
"He's still down in the courtyard," she says.
"Every day?"
"Every day. He never comes up. He leaves something terrible outside my door in the morning, and then he sits in that chair until dark, and then he does it again." Her mouth trembles. "Brynna says he helped destroy his own family for me."
"He told the truth about them. That's a different thing."
"His father won't say his name."
"His father is an asshole."
That gets a real laugh out of her. Small and wet, but real.
She looks at the dress again.
"I loved him before any of this," she says softly. "Now I know what he did when loving me cost him everything, so there's more of him to love than there was, and I have no idea how to walk down to that gate and start over again. The last thing he has from me is three sentences and a returned ring."
"He kept the letter."
Her face tightens.
"He keeps it inside his coat, over his heart. He told Torgan he'd carry it until you gave him a better one."
Mirelle's face crumples completely. Then she wipes her eyes with the heel of her hand, because she is still Lady Ishara's daughter, and her chin comes up.
"Is my dress still ready?"
