The fire had dimmed behind Ilyari’s eyes, but not from fatigue. From victory carefully tempered by grace.

  At the tea table, after returning from the powder room, Ilyari moved with quiet confidence. The insult from the maid had not stained her. The laughter of court women had not shaken her. And the tea, still hot, had not scalded her purpose.

  “So,” drawled a woman with pearl combs in her hair, “tell us, child—where exactly do you reside? Surely somewhere... more appropriate for nobility.”

  Ilyari offered a serene smile. “Willowgrove House.”

  A pause. Then several gasps.

  “The haunted one?” one of the women whispered.

  “I thought that place was condemned!”

  “I thought it was lost to wild spells and vine curses—”

  “It was assigned to us,” Ilyari said calmly. “Deeded properly, under Academy charter. But the house needs more work than tailors or farmers can provide. The floors are unstable, and we have no functioning bath.”

  One of the ladies clutched her silk fan like a holy relic. “No bath?”

  “None,” Ilyari said gently. “We are exploring options. We’ve spoken with guildmen about allowing apprentices to do restoration in exchange for the project work, but we don’t have coin to offer upfront.”

  At this, a tall woman with coral silk draped over her shoulder straightened, her fingers steepling in interest.

  “Then perhaps,” she said slowly, “a favor can be exchanged.”

  Ilyari tilted her head. “What kind of favor?”

  The woman smiled. “Three dresses. For me, and my two daughters. Spring dresses. Bright silks, full skirts, veiled undersleeves, fitted waist—nine dresses in total.”

  A quiet murmur circled the table.

  “In return,” the woman continued, “my husband—a skilled noble artisan and craftsman—will come to Willowgrove himself. If the work is suitable, he’ll assess the floors and the bath. He specializes in old manor restorations.”

  Ilyari considered this.

  She folded her hands over her lap. “If we are to make a bargain, I will need a written agreement. Something that shows your intent. Signed. Stamped. And witnessed by the ladies here.”

  The woman arched a brow. “You are shrewd.”

  “I’ve been accused of worse,” Ilyari said. “Including theft.”

  The room fell silent. A couple of the women winced. Another flinched, remembering the public reports from the Academy gates.

  The coral-draped lady reached into her satchel. “You won’t be accused of anything on my watch.”

  She drew out a slim folded vellum sheet and her ink case. “Do you accept my commission?”

  Ilyari nodded. “I do.”

  The woman dipped her pen and wrote swiftly, the script elegant and formal. Then she drew her signet ring and pressed it deep into the wax she poured upon the corner.

  One lady reached for the scroll.

  “I’ll witness,” she said, signing with a flourish.

  Another followed. “And I.”

  When they handed the scroll to Ilyari, she took it carefully, as if it were a sacred text. Her heart pounded with the quiet rush of success.

  “I am honored,” she said sincerely. “And I would be glad to take your commission. If you would schedule a fitting with Vaylen of the Threadspire Shop, he and I will ensure the finest results.”

  The woman gave a sharp nod. “My husband will visit your residence tomorrow morning.”

  Lady Talvane rose slowly.

  “Well,” she said, voice as cold as cut glass. “It seems you’ve managed to turn a simple tea into a transaction. I suppose I should expect no less from someone with tailoring in her blood.”

  Ilyari bowed, unbothered.

  “And yet,” Lady Talvane added, eyes glittering, “you’ve made something beautiful of it.”

  With that, she gestured to the door. “You may go.”

  Ilyari curtsied deeply. “Thank you for your invitation, my lady. And thank you... for listening.”

  The maid opened the door with more force than was strictly necessary.

  Ilyari stepped outside into the golden light of afternoon, the scroll tucked safely into her satchel. The carriage Vaylen had sent waited faithfully at the curb, its polished wood gleaming.

  When she arrived back at Threadspire, the bell above the door jingled once.

  Vaylen looked up from his measuring stool, a silver thimble still on his finger.

  “Well?” he said, scanning her from hem to collar. “Still wearing it? No tea burns? No tears?”

  Ilyari smiled and held up the signed agreement.

  “Guess who just made a deal with a noble house?”

  Vaylen whistled low. “You enchantress.”

  “No,” Ilyari said. “Just a girl with thread, manners… and a dress.”

  The workshop smelled of pressed linen and rose-oil wax polish as Ilyari stepped fully inside, letting the scroll slip from her satchel into Vaylen’s waiting hands.

  He unrolled it slowly, reading through the flowing script, his eyebrows rising with each line.

  “Nine dresses,” he murmured. “And floor repairs, plumbing, possibly structural reinforcements? You negotiated this?”

  Ilyari unfastened her gloves with care, folding them neatly on the counter. “She offered. I just… set the terms.”

  Vaylen let out a breath and shook the vellum. “You set them well. Half the nobility would’ve sold themselves short. And you had the sense to ask for a seal and witnesses.”

  “I’m not taking any more jail chances,” Ilyari said dryly, brushing a curl behind her ear.

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  Vaylen barked a laugh. “Stars above, we’ll have to get you your own ledgers soon. And maybe a proper coinbox that doesn’t clink with pity.”

  He handed the scroll back and leaned against the cutting table. “So. When does the noble husband arrive?”

  “Tomorrow morning.” She took a seat by the workbench, legs finally aching. “Early, I think. She was clear about him being thorough.”

  Vaylen nodded. “Then we’ll be ready. And I’ll clear the back wall for the new silks. You’ll want full palettes ready for color pairing.”

  A pause.

  Then, softer: “You did good, kid.”

  Ilyari looked up.

  “I mean it,” he added. “You didn’t just survive that tea—you turned it into a partnership. That’s not tailoring. That’s politics.”

  Ilyari’s smile was quiet. “I think… I’m getting better at seeing the threads.”

  At that moment, the back door creaked open—and Tazien entered, hair wind-tossed, arms full of tangled wires and rune-marked panels.

  “Laileeih tried to eat another squirrel,” he announced. “I think she’s becoming territorial.”

  Vaylen blinked. “Who’s Laileeih?”

  “The vine stuck to our wall,” Ilyari said wearily.

  “Oh. Her.” Vaylen nodded like that explained everything. “Well, feed her something less twitchy next time.”

  Tazien dumped the bundle onto the workbench and grinned at Ilyari. “How was tea?”

  “She nearly got scalded, insulted, humiliated, and hired,” Vaylen said. “All in an hour.”

  Tazien’s mouth opened. “Wait—hired?”

  “She’s got her first noble commission,” Vaylen declared, sweeping an arm toward the scroll. “Nine spring gowns, and in exchange, their house gets plumbing.”

  Tazien stared. Then broke into a crooked grin. “We really are leveling up.”

  “I hope so,” Ilyari said, looking down at her satchel with thoughtful eyes. “Because tomorrow, Willowgrove gets inspected. And I think… it’s time the house started to change, too.”

  The bell above the shop chimed softly as a breeze pushed in.

  Outside, the sun had begun to set—its light casting amber streaks across the clouds, like the first stitches in something new being sewn across the sky.

  Ilyari traced the edge of the scroll thoughtfully, her eyes still fixed on the signature pressed into the wax.

  “So… does this mean I get to be your apprentice now?” she asked, half-joking, half-hopeful.

  Vaylen leaned against the workbench, crossing his arms, a smile tugging one side of his mouth.

  “Hm,” he said, pretending to consider. “You want the title, do you? Threadspire Apprentice? You’d get a pin. Maybe half of a ledger.”

  She straightened, a quiet spark in her chest.

  But then Vaylen’s smile faded, turning more thoughtful.

  “No,” he said at last.

  Ilyari blinked. “No?”

  He stepped closer and tapped the scroll lightly with two fingers. “You don’t need to become an apprentice. You’re already doing the work. Tailoring came out of necessity. Out of survival. But now, you’ve got options. I don’t want you falling into the habit of doing what’s needed just because it’s what you’ve always done.”

  He met her eyes with unexpected seriousness. “Now you figure out what you want. If that’s tailoring—good. I’ll carve your name above the shop door. But if it’s something else? You owe it to yourself to find out.”

  Ilyari was quiet for a moment, absorbing that.

  Then she nodded. “Alright. But can I still come here and steal your silk scraps?”

  Vaylen grinned. “Always.”

  She lingered a beat longer, then asked, “Vaylen… what’s the spell you use on your washbasin? The one that keeps it clean no matter what?”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Tired of smelling like effort, are we?”

  “More like tired of smelling like we live in a half-collapsing forest shrine,” she muttered.

  Vaylen chuckled and motioned her toward the small washroom in the back. “It’s not complicated. There’s a mana-line etched on the inside rim—barely visible. Glyph for constant purity and minor renewal. I etched it myself ages ago. It's not self-filling, but it does purify anything poured in.”

  He lifted the basin slightly and pointed beneath. There, worked subtly into the porcelain with silvery ink, was the faint thread of written code.

  Ilyari crouched to study it, her brow furrowing with focus.

  “…You know,” she murmured, “if you add a pulse delay and invert this stabilizer loop here—” she traced it lightly with her nail, “—it would extend the purification time between uses. It wouldn’t have to reactivate every time.”

  Vaylen blinked at her.

  “I—yes. Yes, it would.” He sounded almost affronted. “Are you improving my basin?”

  She stood and gave him a sweet smile. “Just saying. If you want to upgrade your outdated wash logic, I’m available for consultation.”

  He gave a theatrical sigh. “The student becomes the sassy engineer. Fine. Take it, use it, improve it. Just don’t let that vine of yours start bathing, too.”

  Ilyari laughed, leaning in to kiss his cheek lightly. “Thank you, Vaylen. For everything.”

  “Go on then,” he muttered, already reaching for chalk. “Before I end up adopting you legally and ruin both our lives.”

  Tazien clapped his hands from the doorway. “If we’re done with touching family moments and basin engineering—can we please go fix our actual floor?”

  Ilyari rolled her eyes, grabbed the signed scroll again, and followed her brother out into the fading light of evening.

  The bell above the shop jingled as the door swung shut behind them.

  And back in the washroom, Vaylen muttered, “Inverted loop, my boot…”

  But he was already re-drawing it, just to see.

  The walk back from Threadspire was quieter than usual.

  Even with the scroll safely tucked into Ilyari’s satchel, even with the taste of victory still warming her thoughts, the house ahead loomed like a mystery waiting to shift again.

  But the moment they rounded the last bend of the hedge path, they both stopped.

  “…Were those there when we left?” Tazien asked, blinking.

  “No,” Ilyari said slowly.

  At the front stoop of Willowgrove stood two enormous blackwood trunks, polished to a mirrored shine and sealed with brass latches. Their names—Ilyari Aierenbane and Tazien Aierenbane—were stamped onto engraved silver plates beneath the unmistakable crest of the Royal Academy of Kaisulane.

  Next to them were two smaller crates marked Fragile in wax-red ink, and two woven baskets stuffed with linen-wrapped parcels. The scent of honeyed bread and roasted root vegetables wafted gently through the air.

  Tazien stepped forward and crouched beside one basket, pulling free a folded note. His brow lifted.

  “Well. This one’s from that pearl-comb lady. Apparently she was scandalized by how ‘small and pale’ you looked.”

  Ilyari groaned. “That’s not a compliment.”

  “‘And so delicate!’” Tazien read with exaggerated flourish. “‘I do hope the darling girl doesn’t faint before her second exam. Here’s some nourishing gifts for her and her clever brother.’” He grinned. “She likes me.”

  “You tripped over your own spoon at lunch.”

  “I looked charming doing it.”

  They each grabbed one basket, nudging open the door to Willowgrove with their shoulders before dragging the crates inside. The house, musty but welcoming, seemed to blink in surprise at the sudden feast arriving at its doorstep.

  Ilyari flipped open one of the trunks. Her eyes widened.

  Inside lay crisp stacks of Academy-bound texts—dozens of them, categorized by subject: Mana Constructs and Civic Duty, Ancient Diplomacy in Code-Bearing Realms, Intermediate Glyph Theory, and one particularly thick tome titled Dining, Dueling, and Decorum: A Noble’s Guide to Surviving Social Death.

  “Oh good,” Ilyari muttered. “That one’s for me.”

  Tazien popped open the other trunk. “Looks like we’ve got everything for term one. Plus robes, lecture scrolls, mana readers… even a wax-sealed dorm key?”

  “They sent it out of habit,” Ilyari said. “We won’t use it.”

  He rifled through the trunk, then pulled out a small leather-bound packet of tools. “Oh hey. Engraving kit. That’s new. Guess they expect us to make our own wand cores or something?”

  “Probably for Calligraphy of the Ancients,” Ilyari said. “There’s a whole segment on binding tools to bloodline mana.”

  Tazien set the packet aside, then stepped back and looked toward the back room with a thoughtful hum.

  “I think I’m going to try something,” he said.

  “Dangerous?” Ilyari asked without looking up.

  “Possibly. Potentially explosive. Maybe.”

  “Typical.”

  He grinned. “I want to see if I can get WynData to read and store physical information. Not just digital code or scanlines, but actual text from books.”

  Ilyari tilted her head. “You mean like… reading?”

  Tazien nodded. “He already parses glyph syntax. If I can bridge that into modern calligraphy and let him scan from these physical files—he could help us prep faster. Maybe even do dry runs of exams.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “So… you’re giving him homework.”

  “I’m giving him purpose,” Tazien said dramatically. “Also, I rebuilt his body chassis yesterday.”

  Ilyari blinked. “You didn’t.”

  “I did. Sleeker arms. Weighted base. Articulated elbows. A glyph-etched panel core. Laileeih loves him. I caught her curling around his foot like a cat vine. I had to cut it off before she tried to eat it though, but the cool thing is it grew more flowers.”

  Ilyari sighed. “In three days he’ll be fending off squirrels and defending our future tomato crops. Are you sure those flowers aren't going to spore a bunch more of her kind?”

  “Exactly,” Tazien said, beaming. “He’ll be a legend, and you know I should have thought of that, but I don't want to fight her for any of her flowers if she isn't opening any of them yet. They are all still budded and tightly closed. Guess we'll know when they open.”

  They stood in the doorway a moment longer, the glow of the house slowly warming to them again, the scent of food drifting upward toward the rafters like a blessing.

  Then Ilyari glanced toward the kitchen. “Alright. Let’s store the food and prepare the drawing room.”

  Tazien grabbed the lighter crate and nodded. “And if we play it right, maybe a half-sentient vine and a reading bot will make us look respectable.”

  “Stars help us,” Ilyari muttered, smiling.

  ? If you lived in a cursed house like Willowgrove, what’s the first thing you’d renovate—bathroom, kitchen, or ghost-proofing? Let me know below!