“Can I—”
“Please. I’d love to see what you create.”
I held the yarn to my cheek, telling myself I was not going to cry. I was not someone who cried over gifts. I was not someone people gave gifts to, and I was not going to fall apart just because that had changed.
“Hey,” Lyriel said. She had stopped and was looking at me with her eyes wide and gentle. “Are you okay?”
“I’m great.” My voice cracked, and a tear rolled down my cheek and landed on the yarn. “I’m amazing. This is the nicest workshop I’ve ever been in, and you’re the nicest person, and this yarn is lovely and I love it, and I just—”
I took a shaky breath. Lyriel was quiet, giving me space for whatever I needed to say.
“Where I come from, sewing is a hobby. A cute hobby. Something you do when you should be studying for a degree you hate.”
Lyriel’s expression was uncomprehending. “A hobby?”
“Nobody looks at a guy who sews his own shorts and says, ‘Wow, what a valuable skill, let me give you an apprenticeship!’” I wiped my face with the back of my hand. “They say, ‘That’s cute. So what’s your real job?’”
“Making clothing can’t be a real job?”
“It can be, for a select few, but I was always told it’s an impossible dream.”
Lyriel straightened and her green eyes sparked with anger. “That’s the most terrible thing I’ve ever heard,” she said. “Textile work is one of the most respected crafts in Qoksmere. The Queen wears my garments. Every bolt of fabric in this palace passed through my staff, through this workshop or one of the others. I manage a staff of dozens! We dress a kingdom, Pip. And I would be proud to give someone talented a place to shine.”
We dress a kingdom.
I smiled. “Really?”
“How could anyone tell you textile work isn’t a good career path?” She was worked up now, pacing back and forth. “What do people do where you’re from? Do they not wear clothes? Use blankets? Put curtains over their windows?”
“It’s just different. One person designs something and it is made thousands of times in a factory, with machines.”
Lyriel looked horrified. “So you all dress the same, like you’re wearing a uniform for the Queen’s guard?”
“Not exactly.” How did I explain fast fashion to a woman who was in the middle of a project like the one on the dress form?
“Well, however things work where you’re from, that’s not how it is here. We craft each piece with love and care, and people treasure our work. And finding someone with talent and vision is a gift! I would never tell someone their dreams are impossible. Imagine.”
I looked around the workshop: at the workers and at the baskets of yarn and shelves of fabric that ran floor to ceiling, a library of materials waiting to be turned into something beautiful.
“Show me what you’re working on,” I said, wiping the last tear from my cheek. “Show me everything.”
She showed me around the workshops—there were seven of them in total, from the loom room to the fabric storage, and I was buzzing with excitement by the time we came back to her studio, to the dress form holding Lyriel’s current project: a gown for the Queen. The fabric was a shimmering violet, rare and beautiful.
“So this is for the Queen?”
“Yes. The staff creates things for the entire palace, from maids to guards to the ladies-in-waiting—curtains and bedcoverings, too. Grukk handles the refined male fashions for Frost and a few high lords, while Marta and Nessa assist me with the Queen’s gowns,” Lyriel said, hovering over the gown with the anxiety of a craftsperson who wasn’t sure she’d gotten it right.
I circled the dress form, looking at the drape of the skirt panels, the structure of the bodice, and the way the fabric caught light, my fingers twitching.
“Can I touch?”
“Please.”
I picked up the edge of a skirt panel and held it against the bodice, draping it the way it would fall when assembled. The fabric moved like water.
“The bodice is incredible,” I said. “The structure feels like it’s part of the weave itself, not like you’ve inserted stays. That’s genius. The shape is perfect.”
“But?”
