"You can still put me down."
"Return the knife first. You're gripping it backward. You'll sever your own thumb."
She glances at her hand. Flips the knife around with a quick, clumsy rotation that nearly opens my vest lacing. Slaps the handle against me.
I set her down. Her boots hit stone. She smooths her dress with both hands, a gesture that accomplishes nothing practical but serves as a reset behavior. Reclaiming composure through physical routine. Common in civilians after adrenaline events.
The flour is gone from her cheek now.
It's on my vest.
"Grimshaw. Third sub-level, past the mushrooms."
She walks forward into the crowd without waiting for me.
I follow. I check the knife she returned. The blade is warm from her grip.
Grimshaw's shop occupies a carved-out pocket in the cavern wall, marked by a sign that reads GRIMSHAW & SONS, BESPOKE FITTINGS FOR THE DISCERNING MONSTROSITY in gold leaf that flakes onto the stone floor like metallic dandruff. No sons visible. Just Grimshaw himself, a wiry kobold standing on a platform behind a cutting table, surrounded by bolts of fabric stacked floor to ceiling.
He's four feet tall, blue-scaled, with reading spectacles perched on a snout that's too narrow for them. They slide down every three seconds. He pushes them back up every four.
"Tessie sent us," Magnolia says from behind me. She's caught up. Slightly breathless. "She mentioned a corset dispute."
Grimshaw's yellow eyes narrow. "That woman owesmefor the corset dispute. I provided whalebone. She wanted steel. I said steel warps under enchantment. She said I was a lizard who didn't understand human undergarments. She was correct on the first count and catastrophically wrong on the second."
He pushes his spectacles up. They slide back down.
"What do you need?"
"Tuxedo," I say. "Standard formal. Black. Accommodations for concealed weapons."
Magnolia steps around me. "No concealed weapons."
"Two concealed weapons."
"Zeroconcealed weapons. It's my sister's wedding, not an assassination."
"One concealed weapon. Final offer."
She opens her mouth. Closes it. Runs a calculation behind those brown eyes that involves weighing my compliance for the next three days against this single concession.
"One. And I get to choose which one."
"Acceptable."
Grimshaw watches this exchange with the patient expression of someone who has measured a thousand monsters for formal wear and heard a thousand worse arguments. He hops down from his platform, circles me twice, and produces a knotted measuring rope from his apron.
"Arms out."
I extend both arms. He measures my wingspan, chest, neck, each bicep individually, the circumference of both thighs, and the distance from my shoulder to the floor. He writes nothingdown. Kobolds have eidetic memory. The measuring is theater. Clients expect it.
"Sixty-eight inch chest. Forty-two inch neck. You're wider than my doorframe." He pushes his spectacles up. "Standard fabrics won't hold. Cotton will split at the shoulders when you reach for a bread roll. Wool will shred if you flex. Linen is a joke. Silk--" He pauses. Looks at Magnolia. Looks at me. Looks at the ceiling as if consulting a higher power. "You need armor-silk."
"What's armor-silk?" Magnolia asks.
"Enchanted. Woven from silkworms bred in wild magic zones. The thread is self-reinforcing. Stronger than chainmail, lighter than cotton, takes a perfect press." He disappears behind a curtain and returns dragging a bolt of fabric the deep black of a moonless sky. "Also alive."
"Alive," Magnolia repeats.
