"Magnolia! Shift left! He needs the shoulder panel!"
She army-crawls across the cutting table, dragging her body over the heaving fabric. Her vintage dress rides up past her knees. Her hair has come loose from its pins and hangs across her face in dark tangles. She reaches the left edge and throws both arms over the corner.
Grimshaw cuts. The silk shrieks. A sleeve panel drops free.
"Two more!" the kobold yells. "Back panel and trousers! Hold! HOLD!"
The silk makes its move.
The remaining fabric rears up between Magnolia and me, a wall of living black textile, and wraps around both of us simultaneously. My torso, her shoulders, binding us together across the table with our faces eighteen inches apart. The weave cinches. Tightens. Pulls us closer.
Twelve inches.
Eight.
Her breath hits my chin. Warm. Fast. Smells like cinnamon and something floral. Her eyes, very brown and very close, fix on mine. Sweat beads at her hairline. A strand of dark hair sticks to her cheek where the flour crescent used to live.
Six inches.
"Don't. Move," Grimshaw hisses from somewhere above us. The shears glow brighter. "It's settling. When enchanted silk binds two hosts, it imprints. If you struggle, it bonds permanently and I'll have to explain to my insurance adjuster why I've fused two people into formalwear."
Magnolia's fingers dig into the table edge. Her knuckles go white.
"How long?" she whispers.
"Until it chooses."
The silk pulses against me. Against her. A shared rhythm, syncing with something I refuse to identify. Her heartbeat transfers through the weave directly into my sternum. Fast. Strong. Stubborn.
The silk loosens.
Falls slack between us. Grimshaw cuts it in three rapid, vicious snips, and four panels drop to the floor, perfectly shaped, perfectly still.
Magnolia peels herself off the table. I straighten. The welts on my wrist and face throb. Her hair is destroyed. Her dress is wrinkled beyond civilian repair. Her cheeks are flushed a shade of red that extends down her neck and below her collar.
Grimshaw gathers the panels from the floor, already pinning them together with practiced claws.
"Thirty minutes for assembly," he says, pushing his spectacles up. "The silk has accepted him. It won't fight the needle now." He glances between us. Pushes his spectacles upagain. "It's also acceptedher, which is unusual. Armor-silk typically imprints on one host."
Magnolia straightens her dress. "What does that mean?"
"Means the tuxedo will be very comfortable."
That's not what it means.
CHAPTER 3
MAGNOLIA
The kobold stitches like his life depends on it. Which, based on the look Dash gave him after the silk tried to mummify us both, it might.
I sit on an overturned crate in the corner of the shop, pressing a cold compress Grimshaw tossed me against the rope burn on my forearm. The silk left matching welts on both of us. Mine are pink and angry. On Dash's dark green skin, they show up like pale silver rivers, already fading. Orc healing. Must be nice.
My hair is a lost cause. I gave up trying to re-pin it after the third attempt sent a bobby pin pinging off Grimshaw's workbench. It hangs loose now, tangled and damp at the temples. My dress, the cute navy swing dress I picked specifically because it made me look put-together and competent for hiring a mercenary, has a six-inch tear along the side seam from where I army-crawled across a cutting table like a marine.
Grimshaw works in silence. The dead silk behaves under his needle. No screaming. No thrashing. Just the quiet, rhythmic punch of thread through fabric, the tiny kobold perched on his platform with his tongue poking between his teeth.
Dash stands in the fitting area, shirtless, arms slightly raised while Grimshaw darts around him pinning the jacket panels in place. The mercenary's torso is a topographical map of violence. Scars layered over scars. One thick ridge of raised tissue runs from his left hip, curves around his ribs, and disappears behind his shoulder blade. A small puncture scar sits dead center of his sternum, perfectly round.
