Ash Nightshade's Arc

Chapter 2 of 5

Ash goes back to the shed the next morning. He tells himself he's only checking on her, but his hands move first to the fabric scraps on the bench. He lifts one. Then another. The black weave. The structured weight. He knows this cloth because he cut it himself. These are pieces from his coats. Nay sits in the corner with her knees drawn up, watching him without recognition, and she cannot tell him why she took them. He kneels in front of her. He asks, gentle, when she came to his shop. She blinks. Beside her sits a smooth moonstone egg, cracked through with fine lines, still warm in her palm. She used it to weight the labels, she says. She thinks. The handwriting on the scraps is hers. She traces a word she wrote and cannot read it back. Ash gathers every scrap into his coat. He carries them across the wet grass to the shop where he builds his work, the one with the buzzing windows and the heavy door. Inside, he lays the pieces out on the floor in the shape they came from. A sleeve. A collar. A panel meant for a back. Together they form something like a wild blooming thing — bright fabric and black thread piled into a heap that should have been a coat for someone who needed it. He stands over the pile a long time. Then he picks up his shears. He will not remake these pieces. He will build the coat again from new cloth, and he will lock the shop door from now on. Nay keeps the egg. Ash keeps the work. Something between them has closed.