Rosewing's Arc

Chapter 6 of 3

The pot glowed now, but the sun still hung above the sill. Rosewing knew what Mystique meant. Judging began the moment sunlight cleared the window. By then the dusk would be gone. Her woven pot fed on that last soft light. In full dark, the shimmer might die, and the judges would see only dark strands and plain soil. She pressed her thumb to the crooked seam and watched the glow already thinning at the edges. Threadwick came back with a tape still hanging from his apron. He looked at the sky, then at the pot, and saw the problem before she said it. "It's fading," he said. "The paint only wakes at dusk. Once it's dark it goes to sleep." He crouched under the table. "I need light. The right kind." "There's no dusk left to give it," Rosewing said. "Then I make dusk." He pulled a coil of thin wire and a jar from his apron. Inside the jar was the same ground moonrock, mixed thicker. "I paint a strip. I string it above your bloom. Angle it down. The pot won't glow on its own much longer. But if I shine steady light on it, it throws the sparkle back." He worked fast, wrapping wire, brushing the strip. "Same trick as a window. It doesn't matter where the light comes from, only that it hits." Rosewing held the wire steady while he tied it to the stand. The bloom rose between them, pink and violet against the dark vessel. Her hands shook. "If this fails, I have nothing to show." "It won't fail." He didn't look up. "I ran out of time on the seam. I'm not running out on this." The sun slid down. Its last edge touched the sill, then cleared it. Across the hall a bell rang. Judging had begun. The natural dusk winked out, and Rosewing's stomach dropped as the pot dimmed to plain black. Threadwick angled his painted strip. It caught the hall's fairy lights and threw a soft blue wash straight onto the vessel. The sparkles woke again. Blue and purple sparks lit across the woven strands, and the whole pot shimmered as if the dusk had never left. The bloom sat inside a pool of starlight. Magistrate Thornbloom stopped at the table. She lowered her glasses and looked a long moment. "This one holds," she said. "The others faded when the sun did." She wrote something short, then moved on. Rosewing let out her breath. Mystique stood two tables away, her display gone dull in the dark. Her lashes lowered, her smile gone. Threadwick tied off the last knot. "Told you." Rosewing looked at the glow, then at him. Her entry led the row now. But the judges were still walking, still weighing. The title was not won yet, and the night had only begun.