"Mail's here, mama. There's something from the City."

"Lord, I hope it's not another bill. Give it here, girl."

Lona went to the kitchen to find a snack, dropping the rest of the mail on the kitchen table.

"Oh, well, shit," her mother said conversationally from the other room.

"What is it, mama?"

"None of your business. Go on and get back to that bridesmaid's dress. It's due Thursday, remember?"

"I was just getting a snack." She lounged in front of the fridge, door open, trying to decide between casserole one and casserole two. She grabbed a pickle instead. "What's in the letter?"

"It's just an order. Did you get the two-hole buttons like I asked you?"

"Of course. What order, mama? Who in the City wants us to make something?"

"I thought I told you to get back to that bridesmaid's dress." She turned away, pushing the letter into her pocket. She walked through the slightly crooked doorway between the house and the shop crammed from floor to windowtops with boxes of lace, felt, silk, buttons, ribbons, and pins; bags of buttons and snaps and closures; skeins of yarn, spools of thread, envelopes of needles, from fat knitting needles to beading needles almost too fine to pick up; bowls of pins, thimbles and sequins; rolls of leather, carpet, upholstery and brocade.

The sign in the window read "Lady Robette's Fine Sewing, Costuming and Alterations," but it was already Lady Robette and Daughter, and it would be Lona's when her mother's hands were too trembling to thread a needle and her eyes too dim to sew black on black.

Lona picked up the bridesmaid's dress, a cacophony of explosive green and blue ribbons over a tidal wave of minty fluff. The poor girl who had to wear it had brought it in for alterations, begging them to do something to make it just a little less hideous. Honestly there wasn't much they could do except pull the bodice in a bit tighter and discreetly remove some of the yards of flounce around the hem. Poor girl.

Robette was reading over the letter again, her back to her daughter, her face hard and slightly pale.

"Why aren't you happy?" Lona asked, working at a particularly difficult seam. She had to stretch the fabric six ways to Sunday, and it was making her testy. If there wasn't so damned much of it, she wouldn't have to shove fifty pounds of fabric out of the way every time she turned the thing over…

"What?"

"It's an order from someone in the City. That's big cash. Don't tell me it's not. Why aren't you just thrilled?"

"You're asking too many questions," Robette said.

"I hate this dress." Lona tugged at the seam and her mother cast a sideways glance at it.

"You're pulling the wrong thread. Look, take the white one. It's a chain stitch. The whole thing will unravel if you pull that one. Use your head, girl."

"We're the best tailor's shop in the country," Lona said matter-of-factly, yanking the white thread. It slithered out with a dim crunching sound, leaving the other threads looped around the seam but no longer linked in place. She felt mildly stupid for not having noticed earlier. Lona combed the threads off with her fingers.

"Yes, we are," Robette replied distantly, "I only wish the military didn't know it."

"Are you serious? It's an order from the military? Good gods, what do they want, seven hundred pairs of tailored blue slacks with stupid stripes on the outside seam?"

"No, it's just one thing…" Robette stood up and started pushing through the stacks of boxes. Containers of exotic beads rattled like the teeth of corpses as she searched for something.

"Then what? One thing won't take long."

Robette turned to her daughter, distaste showing plainly on her face. "I just remembered I never really schooled you in the craft of tailoring for the extremely upper classes. They never want "just one thing". It's always tempered and aggravated by all sorts of ridiculous specifications. They never know what they want, and if somehow, magically, they do, they can never communicate it. They expect you to just pull it out of their heads without a description in the world. They don't want to pay for labor. They want it done yesterday. And God help you if you make a mistake because you're tired or hurt or ill. They don't know a damn thing about tailoring, but if they see a single error, whether real or imagined, they jump right down your throat about it. More than likely they want the whole thing done over."

"But what is it?" Lona demanded, not distracted by her mother's rant.

"It's a coat. Just one coat with a whole list of specifications."

"Well, if it's only one—"

Robette sighed. "If it were anyone else, I'd be as interested as you. You're going to have to take the other projects I've been working on. I need to give this all my attention."

"Do they really want it done yesterday?" In the dim light of the shop, Lona's golden-brown hair glimmered under the dancing dust-motes, and Robette was made painfully aware that her daughter was nearly grown up. Her hands were pale and long-fingered, wrapped in tape to protect from the sting of a needle gone suddenly renegade.

Those hands should be tanned and strong, not pale and callused on the fingertips. I'm killing her, keeping her in this dark and dusty shop. She needs air. She needs a good life.

"It doesn't say so in as many words," Robette replied, "but it's certainly implied."

"I want to help with it."

"No. This is a delicate order."

"Well, when is the fitting? Can I at least watch you make it?"

Robette frowned, and Lona realized there really was something wrong here.

"There isn't going to be a fitting. They sent me all the measurements."

"What? That doesn't make any sense. How could they possibly have—"

Wordless, Robette held up the letter—at least five pages stapled together. From across the room, Lona saw the first sheet was a short letter, barely half the page. Robette flipped the pages for her. The rest of the sheaf, front and back, was covered with rows of data. Nine pages of it. Lona gaped.

"Everything I could ever wonder, as far as measurements go," Robette said dryly. "Wrist, chest and neck—and then some."

"I guess so," Lona said, awed. "What could that all possibly be?"

"They have, in effect, written the pattern for me, in degrees and angles. '45 degrees from third vertebra to waist; Cuff circumference; Inseam to knee—"

"Wait, what do you need that for if you're making a coat?"

"Darling, I have no idea. I told you, the upper class are all rather insane. Have you done a thing on that dress?"

"Mama… how are you supposed to make a coat without ever fitting it?"

"That's part of the test, I suppose." Robette made a motion as if to fling down the letter, then controlled herself and tucked it into her pocket once more.

"It's not a test, mama. It's a job."

"Of course it is. Now let's see some progress on those ribbons."

Lona walked quickly to the tanner's, her feet well accustomed to the way.

"Ah, it's Lady Robette's daughter. Welcome."

"Hello, Mr. Cote."

"What can I help you with?"

She showed him the ticket; not the biggest order for leather they'd ever placed, but the most for a single garment surely. The lining would be something close to satin, but must shed water. Her mother was waffling between treating the satin or going with another material entirely. Lona would not be allowed to do the actual cutting of the pieces, but there were dozens of long, straight seams her fingers could work quickly. She sat in the chair at the tanner's, swinging her feet and breathing the accustomed animal stink of chemicals and the sweet scent of treated leather.

"This is quite a hefty amount," Mr. Cote remarked as they wrapped the carefully rolled leather in tissue and tied it securely. "Making saddles?"

Lona paid him, then returned to the shop heavily burdened. The stones rolled and pitched under her feet, long-ago pavement crushed and cracked by heavy traffic.

Under the gold lamps of the tailor's shop the leather glistened, seemingly lit from within. It was incredibly supple and buttery. It smelled divine.

"This is expensive," Lona said simply, meaning it as a question. Her mother looked at her sharply.

"I told you the upper class is impossible to work with—I didn't say they're impossible to work for. There's a reason people do it."

"Did they pay in advance?"

"Only for the materials."

"It's so beautiful."

"And wait until you see it finished," Robette sighed, excited in spite of herself. If she was able to make this the way it was ordered, it would be a masterpiece. Her masterpiece. She was too old; her peak was past. She would never get another commission so fine. Lona, maybe, if her hands proved as skilled as they were starting to become, but if the shop died with her, she wanted to know that at least she had finished this one piece.

"It won't take too long, right? It's all straight seams."

"Ordinarily, no."

"Wait, what does that mean?" Lona glanced up at her mother's graying hair, her blue eyes still bright.

"It's to be completely hand-sewn, God save us."

"Are you joking?"

"Not at all."

"There's no way," Lona moaned, looking over the expanse of leather, black as night, with a new gaze. "There's just no way."

"Double rows of stitching in every seam," her mother said.

Lona could only sit in shock.