"That's all I could find that Mother won't notice."
Lor nodded and knelt over the pile.
His face went empty.
Pale light filled his eyes.
He put both hands on the cloth and started chanting randomly in that deep voice again, the one he used for the light.
The words meant nothing.
He let them roll out low and even, the way a prayer would if he had ever learned one.
Broken sounds. Long vowels.
Under his palms the fabric grew warm.
The first seam split with a tiny sound, like thread giving way. An old dress collar loosened.
The undershirt flattened. The worn pants lost their shape and went slack, as if the cloth had forgotten it used to be clothes.
Mana moved through the weave.
He had done this before.
The night he tore Silvia's clothes during sex, he had then later put the pieces back together the same way, thread by thread, until the rip closed and the cloth sat whole again.
This was the trick the magic is based upon. Remaking.
The pile sank.
