She handed me one of the handkerchiefs another woman had brought in. I squinted at the monogram. I could see that the shapes were letters, but could make no sense of them—as always, they wavered and broke before my eyes.
“Unpick these,” said Mieka. “And carefully, because we don’t want any sign that it belonged to someone else. Yes?”
No one else liked the work, it turned out, because it was both intricate and tedious, and because staring at the minuscule stitches by candlelight strained their eyes. Soon the other young women were passing all the unpicking work to me, and I had a healthy stack of silks beside my chair. The fine tooth of my needle bit at the tiny, perfect stitches.
My fingers were soon red and rough with needle pricks, but I was used to that. I could work so tidily that no trace of the old monograms remained, and no trace of the needle holes, even if you held the handkerchief up to the light to see if it would shine through them—which reminded me of the unpicked stitches in the tapestry again and of whatever story the original seamstresses had told that the Temple had decided needed to be changed.
Mieka told me to monogram some of the handkerchiefs when I had finished, telling me the initials she required, but once again, the letters refused to take shape. I knew how they should be, Iknewit, but my needle went awry as soon as I tried to stitch them. I flung the handkerchiefs aside in frustration.
“Maybe I could just embroider them with designs instead?” I suggested.
Mieka was willing to let me try my luck on one of the less valuable handkerchiefs and gave me a basket of looped skeins of rainbow thread, along with a packet of silver needles, sharp and fine as a cat’s whiskers. I set to work, feeling myself relax as I let the needle swoop and soar where it would, leaving a chaos of color in its wake. Mieka watched me, an odd expression onher face, her small, dark eyes following the dance of my needle. She didn’t gush over the designs, as the other young women did, but simply watched.
“Your Hair,” she said in a low voice when the others had moved away.
“What?” My needle stilled.
“It floats, when you sew. Just a little.”
I clapped my hand to the back of my neck. A few loose strands tickled at the tips of my fingers.
“Here,” said Mieka. She sat behind me and started to braid the Hair where it protruded from the cap with rough but competent fingers. To my surprise, it submitted. “I do this for lots of the girls.”
“Thank you,” I said, and sat patiently. Baldbeak tried to pull at the braid, but Mieka pushed him away gently. He settled for picking at the woolen cap instead.
“You said you have no magic,” she said in my ear as her nimble fingers worked.
“None that I can use.”
“What do you call that, then?” She indicated the embroidery.
“It’s a hobby. I told you.”
“I’ve never seen anything like it. It almost looks alive. And your Hair certainly seemed to get involved somehow.”
I shrugged, a little awkwardly. “I don’t know why. I’ve never known.”
“You have an affinity.”
“I do not!” I said sharply, twisting in the chair.
“Hush! Not so loud.”
“I don’t have an”—I dropped my voice—“affinity.”
“It’s not a dirty word.”
Mother certainly believed it was, I thought to myself. “Affinities are … frivolous. Worse than frivolous. They’re dangerous. Uncontrolled magic, with no spellbooks or words …”
“All right, calm down,” said Mieka. She had an odd expression. “Say it’s a talent, if you prefer. Anyway, whatever you wantto call it, those pieces will fetch a pretty penny. We’ll take them with us to the Undermarket today.” She gave a final tug to the braid. “There. Now if we just pin it up around your head, we can hide it under the cap.”
“I’ll look like a mushroom.”
“A pretty mushroom.” She grinned.
“You’re taking her to the Undermarket?” said a voice from the side, startling me. Zlata was leaning against the wall, hip cocked, watching us with her large, dark eyes.
“Yes,” said Mieka.
