Artemisia Moretti's Arc

Chapter 7 of 7

After Elena left, the shop went quiet. Artemisia should have felt safe. Instead she felt the cold place behind her ribs where her power lived. Something was wrong. The amethyst in the forest had moved. She had known it the night before, a wrongness in her hands. Now she needed the one person who knew the shop's secrets to stay loyal. She went to the carved cellar door and knocked twice. Caterina came up slow. She was the mute girl Artemisia had kept below since childhood, the girl whose voice Artemisia had sewn shut with her own needle. Caterina wiped her hands on her apron and looked at Artemisia without warmth. She had learned to say much with a flat stare. "I need your help," Artemisia said. "Lucia has taken the stone. She means to prove what I am. I have to get it back tonight. Watch the shop while I go." Caterina did not move. She reached into her apron and drew out a folded paper. She held it out. Artemisia read the plain, hard script. *You seal my mouth. You ask my hands. I am not your dog.* "I know," Artemisia said. Her voice stayed soft. "I did a cruel thing to you." Caterina took the paper back. She wrote again, pressing hard. *Lucia already asked me to help her. She was kind. You were not.* The words landed like a slap. Here was the turn Artemisia had feared. If Caterina walked next door, every secret walked with her. The measurements. The threads. The truth of the stitching. Artemisia felt her plan crack. She did not reach for her needle. She had used the needle on Caterina once, and it had made this hatred. More magic would only deepen it. So she chose the harder thing. "Then go," Artemisia said. "If Lucia is kinder, go to her. I will not stop you. But hear me first." She sat down at the work table, small and plain. "I took your voice because I was afraid. That was my fear, not your fault. I have no right to your loyalty. I am asking, not ordering." She slid the cellar key across the table. "The door is yours now. Locked from your side, not mine." Caterina stared at the key. For a long moment she did not touch it. Then she picked it up and closed her fist around it. She wrote one last line and turned the paper so Artemisia could read. *I will guard the shop tonight. Not for you. For the others you could still ruin if it falls.* It was not forgiveness. It was a choice made freely, and that was more than Artemisia had earned. She rose and pulled her shawl from its hook. "Thank you," she said, and meant it. Caterina did not answer. She walked to the door, key in hand, and took her post. Artemisia stepped into the dark toward Lucia's house, and the stolen stone that waited there.