"If you set my eyebrows on fire again, Kia, I swear on the Founding Stones, I will sew your mouth shut while you're sleeping."
I didn't look up from the bodice I was pinning, but I could feel the heat radiating from the corner of the workshop. It was a dry, frantic sort of heat—the kind that smelled like singed hair and desperation.
"It was an accident! A literal, magical accident," Kia huffed. I heard the clink of a glass vial hitting the table, followed by the distinctive fwoosh of a flame being smothered. "And for the record, you looked better with the arched brow. It gave you a 'don't mess with me or I'll stab you with a needle' vibe. Very chic."
"I have that vibe naturally," I muttered, finally look up.
My best friend was currently a soot-stained disaster. Kia was a 'Spark'—a low-level fire-user whose magic was about as reliable as a three-legged horse. In the Foundry, the smog-choked belly of the city of Orizon, a Spark was actually useful. She could light the streetlamps or keep the tea warm. But Kia had ambitions. She wanted to be a 'Nova,' the kind of Elite who could level a building with a snap of their fingers.
The problem was, Kia was barely a matchstick.
"Did you get it?" I asked, my voice dropping an octave as I glanced toward the heavy iron door of the shop.
Kia's playful grin vanished. She reached into the pocket of her oversized leather apron and pulled out a small, shimmering spool of thread. It wasn't cotton or silk. It glowed with a faint, pulsing violet light.
"Essence-thread," I whispered, my heart doing a nervous little dance against my ribs.
"Do you know how hard it is to steal from an Elite's carriage?" Kia hissed, leaning over the cutting table. "I had to pretend I was having a magical seizure just to distract the guard. I almost actually set my pants on fire to make it look convincing."
"You're a genius," I said, taking the spool. The moment the thread touched my skin, I felt... nothing.
That was the sting of it. For anyone else—for the Elites in the floating districts above us or even for a Spark like Kia—this thread would hum with power. It would tingle. It would resonate. To me, it felt like cold string. Because I was a Mute. A Void. A girl with a hole where a soul's melody should be.
"If the Silencers find that on you, Gloria..." Kia started, her voice uncharacteristically soft.
"They won't. It's going into the lining of the Royal Gowns," I said, my fingers moving with practiced, frantic speed. "Sonia and Sandy are coming for their final fitting today. If I can weave this into the hems, the dresses will shimmer with 'residue' magic. The sensors at the palace gate will pick it up and assume the magic is coming from me while I'm holding the fabric. I'll look like a 'Loomer'—a minor weaver-mage. Safe. Normal. Not a target for the Purge."
"It's a big risk for a fitting," Kia said, biting her lip. "The Prince is in the district today. Prince Stephen. The 'Shadow' himself. They say he can hear a lie before you even speak it."
I shivered. Everyone knew about Stephen. The King's second son. The one who didn't go to balls or kiss babies. He was the one they sent when a Mute was suspected of hiding in the city. They said his magic allowed him to hear the 'Resonance' of a human heart. If the heart beat out of sync with the world's magic, he knew. And then you disappeared.
"He won't be coming to a tailor shop in the Foundry," I said, though I was mostly trying to convince myself. "He's probably busy executing rebels or staring broodily at a wall. Now, help me with this lace. The Twin Terrors will be here in an hour, and if Sonia's corset isn't tight enough to stop her breathing, she'll complain that she looks 'puffy.'"
The shop bell rang forty minutes later, a sharp, silver chime that signaled the arrival of the upper crust.
I wiped my sweaty palms on my apron and plastered on my "Humble Tradeswoman" face. It was a mask I'd perfected over nineteen years. Head bowed but not too low (that looks suspicious), eyes downcast (but observant), and a voice like honey-dipped sandpaper.
Sonia and Sandy burst in like a pair of tropical birds landing in a coal mine. They were wearing silks that cost more than my entire apartment building, their hair piled high in gravity-defying curls held up by actual levitation charms.
"It smells like... labor in here," Sonia announced, waving a lace handkerchief in front of her nose. "Gloria, darling, tell me you've finished the gowns. The Gala is in three days, and if I don't have the Aurora-silk hemline, I shall simply die. I'll fall over and perish right on your floor."
"The gowns are ready, Lady Sonia," I said, gesturing to the two mannequins shrouded in velvet. "And I believe you'll find the 'shimmer' effect is particularly potent today."
Sandy, the slightly quieter but equally vain twin, poked at a spool of thread. "I heard a rumor at breakfast. The King is adding a twist to the Resonance Games this year. A 'Wildcard' slot. Someone from the lower districts."
My hand slipped on the velvet cover. "A lower-district champion? But that's... suicide. No one in the Foundry has the training to compete with Elites."
"Oh, it's not about winning, silly," Sonia giggled, spinning around to look at herself in the cracked mirror. "It's about 'Unity.' Or some other boring political nonsense. Personally, I think it'll be hilarious to watch some poor laborer try to dodge a fireball."
I felt a surge of cold fury, but I kept my face as still as stone. To them, we were entertainment. We were the background noise to their symphony.
"Let's get you into the bodices," I said, my voice tight.
For the next hour, the shop was a whirlwind of silk, pins, and high-pitched complaining. I worked like a surgeon, my fingers flying as I tucked the stolen Essence-thread into the hidden seams. Every time I touched the magical thread, I looked at the 'Resonance Meter' on the wall—a small device meant to track ambient magic.
Each time I moved near it, the needle jumped into the green.
It's working, I thought, a manic pulse of relief thrumming in my chest. I look magical. I look alive.
I was just reaching for the final silk ribbon for Sandy's sleeve when the air in the shop suddenly changed. It didn't get cold, exactly, but it got heavy. The ambient noise of the street outside—the shouting vendors, the clatter of carts—seemed to vanish, sucked into a vacuum.
The shop door opened. There was no chime this time.
I didn't need to look up to know who it was. The sheer weight of the silence told me.
"Sonia. Sandy," a voice said. It was a low, smooth baritone, like velvet dragged over gravel. It was a voice that commanded the air to stop moving.
The twins immediately dropped into deep, genuine curtsies, their vanity replaced by a visible, trembling fear.
"Prince Stephen," they chirped in unison.
I stayed on my knees, my hand still clutching Sandy's hem, my heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped bird. Don't look up. Don't look up. You're just a tailor. You're just a shadow.
"I was told I would find you here," the Prince said. I could see his boots now. Black leather, polished to a mirror finish, unblemished by the soot of the Foundry. He stopped just inches from me. "The King requires your presence for a briefing on the Games. Immediately."
"Of course, Highness!" Sonia scrambled to unlace herself, her movements frantic. "We were just... Gloria was just finishing..."
"Gloria," the Prince repeated.
I felt his gaze. It wasn't like a normal look; it felt like a physical pressure, like a needle searching for a hole in my armor.
"Lift your head, tailor," he commanded.
I had no choice. I slowly sat back on my heels and raised my chin.
Prince Stephen was worse than the stories. He was beautiful in the way a landslide or a thunderstorm is beautiful—sharp-boned, dark-eyed, and radiating a cold, predatory stillness. He wasn't wearing a crown. He didn't need one.
His eyes narrowed as he looked at me. He stayed silent for a long beat, his head tilting slightly, as if he were listening to a song playing only in his ears.
He was looking for my heartbeat. He was listening for my Resonance.
I gripped the hidden Essence-thread in my palm, praying the stolen magic was enough to drown out the silence of my soul.
His brow furrowed. He stepped closer, leaning down until he was mere inches from my face. I could smell cedarwood and old parchment. I could see the flecks of gold in his dark irises.
"Something is wrong," he whispered, his voice for my ears only.
"My Lord?" I managed to say, my voice trembling just enough to seem like normal peasant-fear.
"I can hear the threads in the walls," Stephen murmured, his gaze locking onto mine. "I can hear the magic in the dresses. I can hear the twins' hearts fluttering like panicked moths."
He reached out, his gloved finger hovering just under my jaw, not quite touching the skin.
"But you," he said, his voice dropping to a dangerous, icy sliver. "Why is it that when I look at you, I hear absolutely nothing at all?"
I stopped breathing. The needle in my other hand bit into my thumb, drawing a tiny drop of blood, but I didn't flinch.
In the corner of the room, I saw Kia freeze, her hand moving toward a heavy iron shears.
I was a Void. And the Prince of Shadows had just found the hole in the world.