"Semi-sentient. The weave resists cutting because it interprets scissors as a threat. You have to convince it to accept a shape." He drops the bolt on the cutting table. The fabric shudders. Ripples. One corner lifts and curls inward like a fist. "I haven't worked with armor-silk in six years. Last time, it broke my apprentice's wrist."
Magnolia takes a step back.
"How much?" I ask.
"Two hundred gold for materials. One hundred and fifty for labor. Fifty for hazard."
"Four hundred gold for a tuxedo?"
"Four hundred gold for a tuxedo that won't explode off your body when you dance." He pushes his spectacles up.
"Youaredancing?"
I look at Magnolia. Her expression cycles through surprise, suspicion, and a reluctant curiosity that lands somewhere around her eyebrows.
"Can you dance?" she asks.
"Waltz, foxtrot, and three regional variations of the Orcish war-step, which is similar to a tango but with more stomping."
"He's dancing," she tells Grimshaw.
"Then you need armor-silk." He picks up his shears. Long, silver, etched with runes along both blades. "Hold the bolt flat. Both of you."
The fabric senses the shears.
The entire bolt convulses. Black silk whips upward off the table like a sail caught in a gale. One edge snaps toward Grimshaw's face. He ducks. The shears clatter to the floor.
"Pin it!" he screams.
I slam both hands down on the bolt. The silk writhes under my palms, alive and furious, bucking with a strength that has no business existing in a textile. It coils around my left wrist. Tightens. The weave compresses against my skin with the pressure of a python and the texture of water.
Magnolia throws herself across the far end of the table. She's on the fabric. Both arms spread. The silk bucks her upward, actually lifts her torso two inches off the surface before she grabs the table edge and hauls herself back down.
"It'spulling!"
"Lean into it! Dead weight!"
She drops her full body onto the fabric. One hundred and twenty pounds of bakery owner spread-eagled across enchanted silk. The bolt still writhes beneath her, but slower. Contained.
Grimshaw scrambles onto his platform. Shears in both hands. The runes glow faintly blue.
"Keep it flat! Both of you! If it rolls, it cocoons!"
"What happens if it cocoons?"
"Suffocation! Mostly!"
He cuts. The silk screams. Not metaphorically. An actual high-pitched keen erupts from the weave, vibrating through the table and up through my forearms into my teeth. The sectionunder my right hand whips free and lashes across my face, leaving a welt from jaw to temple that burns like a rope drag.
Magnolia's end surges. The fabric humps upward beneath her stomach, trying to fold in on itself. She slams her elbow down. Pins it.
"Faster!" she shouts at Grimshaw.
"I'm cutting sentient fabric with enchanted shears while a human woman rides my cutting table like a mechanical bull! I will go the speed I go!"
Another cut. Another scream from the silk. A panel falls free, already shaped like a jacket front. It hits the floor and goes limp. Dead. Inert black silk, beautiful and still, as if it never moved at all.
The remaining bolt thrashes harder without its severed piece. Grief, maybe. Rage. My left wrist is going numb where the silk has coiled to the elbow. I peel it back with my free hand. The weave fights every inch, thread by thread, until I rip it loose and slam the freed section against the table.
