The Vampire & Her Witch

A small brass bell jingled above the door as Ollie led Jocelynn inside, and Eira followed a step behind them, still frowning up at the sign.

Whatever she had expected to find when Ollie brought them out shopping for Princess Jocelynn’s ceremonial outfit, it wasn’t this.

There were no gowns displayed on dress forms by the windows, no racks of cloaks or doublets waiting for a fitting, and no sample sleeves pinned to the walls to tempt a customer’s eye. In fact, there wasn’t a single finished garment anywhere in the shop.

There was only a vast quantity of cloth.

Bolts of it lined the walls from the floorboards to the rafters, stacked on deep wooden shelves that bowed slightly beneath their weight. Each bolt had been wound tightly around a wooden core and turned so that its edge faced outward, and the result was a wall of color unlike anything Eira had ever seen.

Even in the wool markets of Dunn, she struggled to think of a single shop that offered such a wide selection. Most merchants she’d known growing up only carried a dozen or so colors, and only a few different weights of cloth. But this humble shop held more than a hundred different things, all displayed at once.

The shelves nearest the door held the plainest cloth. Rough brown burlap and sacking. Then came the undyed wool in shades of cream and oatmeal and sheep’s grey. Next were stacks of sturdy, homespun linen, the sort a farmer’s wife might buy. Further in, the colors deepened, and the weaves grew finer. There were russet and moss-green wools, then soft blue linen, then heavy velvets in wine and forest green that drank in the light.

And at the very back of the shop, behind the long counter, lay the finest silks Eira had ever seen.

They caught the light in a way the other fabrics didn’t, shimmering in shades of emerald green, shimmering, smoky silver, and rich midnight blue. A few of them seemed almost to move on their own as the door swung shut behind Eira and a draft stirred the air, rippling across the silk like the surface of a pond.

The counter itself was a single, enormous slab of dark wood, carefully smoothed and shaped so that nothing would catch or snag on fabric pulled across it. A brass rod had been set into its front edge, marked at even intervals for measuring. Beneath the counter, rows of small wooden boxes held buttons and toggles of every description: carved wood, polished horn, bone, and even a few of brass, all sorted by size and color. Beside them sat spools of thread arranged in perfect order, from the palest ivory to the deepest black.

The shop smelled of wool and dye and cedar, and despite the shabby exterior, there wasn’t a speck of dust on a single shelf.

”Thoralle?” Ollie called. ”It’s Ollie. I’ve brought guests!”

”Sir Ollie, I’ll be right there,” an excited, masculine voice called from the back of the shop, followed moments later by the sound of a wooden stool or ladder skidding as it slid along the floor and the sound of footsteps approaching. Then, a handful of heartbeats later, a man emerged from behind a curtain on the opposite side of the wooden table, and Eira’s breath caught in her throat.

At first glance, he could have been any respectable tradesman in any market town in Gaal. His dark hair was cut short and neat, touched with grey at the temples, and he wore a carefully trimmed mustache. His shirt was plain, undyed linen with the sleeves rolled to the elbow. Over it, he wore a heavy leather apron lined with pockets, and every one of them held a tool of some sort: long scissors, a coil of measuring tape, a stub of tailor’s chalk, and a cushion bristling with pins tucked behind a slim case that Eira suspected held needles.

But his eyes were deep crimson, and each one held two neat rows of four small, dark pupils.

And behind him, rising from his back, four slender black limbs unfolded like the legs of some great spider. Their shining carapace caught the light like polished armor, and their sharp tips clicked softly against the counter as he settled them into place.

One of them was still holding a half-wound bolt of grey wool.

Princess Jocelynn’s reaction was even stronger than Eira’s had been.

The whole way here, the only comment Ollie had made was that the person who owned the shop was a ’Nightweaver.’ Whether he was a man who kept late hours or it referred to some specific Eldritch clan, neither Eira nor Jocelynn had asked, but now that they stood here, a very different term came to mind for both of them.

Spider Demon.

Neither said it, but Jocelynn’s body went stiff as a board, and she took half a step behind Ollie as soon as she saw the man Sir Ollie had called Thoralle.

The reaction was impossible for Thoralle to miss. His set of spider-like appendages drooped instantly, and he visibly braced himself for the worst while his crimson eyes shot Ollie a look that was difficult for Eira to interpret.

”Thoralle,” Ollie said, taking Jocelynn’s arm and gently guiding her forward. ”This is Princess Jocelynn, Empress Ashlynn’s little sister,” he said. ”When Bors Lothian was delirious from Nightweaver Venom, he handed her over to the Inquisition, where she was imprisoned, and her cousin died,” he said gently, omitting the torment that had accompanied that imprisonment.

”Ah,” Thoralle said, his demeanor instantly softening as he set down the bolt of wool before he walked around the counter. He stopped several paces short of Jocelynn and Ollie to give a sweeping bow; his right hand swept across his body to the left hip, followed by the two spider-like appendages on his right side.

”Your Highness,” Thoralle said humbly. ”I’m honored that my clan was able to help bring the Lothians low, but what happened to you is a fate I wouldn’t wish on many outside that family. I’m very sorry for the harm that’s come to you.”

”Please,” the draper added as he straightened up. ”If I can be of service to ease the enmity between you and my clan, say the words and...”

”No,” Jocelynn said, letting go of Sir Ollie and stepping out from around him. She took a short, sharp breath in and then extended her hand. ”There’s no enmity between the Nightweavers and me. Bors... Bors deserved what happened to him,” she said. For a moment, she looked like she was about to say something more, but whatever it was, she changed her mind and said something else instead.

”I came because I need help, Master Thoralle,” Jocelynn said. ”I’m preparing to undergo a Trial of Witchcraft. If I survive it, I’ll become the Olive Witch in my sister’s coven. Sir Ollie said that I should wear something special for the occasion, and that you were the best person who could help me.”

”I would be honored, Princess Jocelynn,” Thoralle said, taking Jocelynn’s hand and making a strange bow over it where he pressed the back of her hand to his forehead. ”Command me, and I will move as though my hands were your own,” he said as he straightened up.

”Select from anything I have,” he added, gesturing to the shelves with two of his spider-like limbs. ”And I will craft a fine dress as a gift to you.”

”I won’t accept a gift,” Jocelynn said, shaking her head as she reached for a pouch at her waist. ”My sister named me as her Lord Minister of Commerce. How can I take expensive gifts from the merchants of our empire and call myself their friend? No, I insist on paying,” she said firmly.

What she pulled out of the pouch wasn’t silver or gold, though. Rather, it was a scrap of charred fabric in crimson and gold.

”This,” she said, blinking away the tears that formed in her eyes as she spoke. ”This is all that’s left of my cousin’s robes. The Inquisition burned the rest when they tortured her. I’d like to dress in black for my trial,” she said, holding out the scrap of fabric.

”Black, trimmed in crimson and gold,” Jocelynn explained. ”Can you do it? Can you match the colors, and... and help me honor my cousin? Because without her, I’d never have had this chance...”

”I lost my parents to the flames of the Inquisition the last time they attacked our village,” Thoralle said as he knelt to inspect the fabric without taking it from her hand. ”I know what it means to owe your life to someone who died in your place.”

”I’ll match the colors exactly,” Thoralle said as he stood, looking at Jocelynn with eyes that saw her as kin in a way no one would have expected when she first walked into the shop. ”Your dress will be perfect, I promise,” he said.

”Thank you,” Jocelynn said, tucking away the scrap of scorched fabric like the precious treasure it was. She took a deep breath, shaking off the ghosts of the past as best she could, and turned to the next important part.

”Now,” Jocelynn said. ”About the design of the dress...”