4075.104 · April 14, 1755 AD
Midnight Bleeds to Silver
Some fabrics hold more than thread. When Elspeth is entrusted with altering a gown of colour-shifting Venetian silk for a grieving noblewoman, Agnes warns her that a previous apprentice vanished after asking too many questions. The dresses, she says, are merely wrapping paper. But wrapping paper for what? By the time the candles burn low on her first day, Elspeth will have her answer—and discover that some knowledge can never be unlearned.
Lady Aberfoyle arrives at the Emporium with an urgent commission and fear threaded through her aristocratic composure. Her gown must be ready by tomorrow evening. The fabric is Venetian silk brocade dyed with Oriental pigments—midnight blue that shifts to violet to silver, worth more per yard than Elspeth could earn in a year. They say the silk remembers everyone who touches it.
But as Elspeth's needle pierces the shimmering fabric, Agnes reveals darker truths. A girl once worked here—bright, quick-minded, curious. She asked the wrong questions about the wrong people. One day she was here. The next, she wasn't. Moira said she'd found a position in the Highlands.
Agnes does not sound as though she believes it.
The afternoon stretches into evening. Elspeth's stitches grow smaller, more invisible, disappearing into the weave as though they were never made. She is learning the craft of making things vanish—alterations, imperfections, evidence of change.
She does not yet understand that the Emporium specialises in other kinds of invisibility too.
By nightfall, in the space of three heartbeats, she will.
