Sophia Alderwyne's Arc

Chapter 2 of 2

Sophia came back to the atrium at dawn with a fresh roll of lapis weave and no illusions. The cyclops had shown her yesterday that her warp couldn't hold a squeeze from a hand only half divine. Today Hermes had promised her a god to hit it. She spread the new sample across the marble under the great globe and waited. She already knew the answer before he arrived. The fiber wasn't the problem. The material was. Hermes came in with a scrap of gold leather in one hand and a grin. He dropped a sandal on her desk, wings folded, straps still warm. "Test piece," he said. "Try not to burn it." Sophia laid her weave against the sandal's edge and pulled. The lapis thread frayed against the divine leather without leaving a mark on it. She pulled harder. Her fabric split. Hermes watched. "Told you," he said. "Your loom's fine. Your thread's mortal." She sat down. She had known it in her hands since the cyclops's fingers. Silk and steel wouldn't do. She needed a fiber that came from the same place gods did. "Then I need to weave something that isn't," she said. "Point me at it." Hermes tipped his hat back. "Adamantine. Hephaestus keeps the raw stock. He isn't lending." He paused. "But I owe you a god a day. I don't owe you clean methods." He whistled once. A white ram walked into the atrium, gold horns curled tight, saddlebags heavy with scrolls and something wrapped in oilcloth. Hermes lifted the bundle out and set it in front of her. Inside was a folded square of cloth that caught the light in every color at once. The weave was so tight it looked solid until she moved it. "Sample," Hermes said. "Off a shipment that took a wrong turn last week. Enough to prove the pattern. Not enough for three suits." Sophia touched it. The cloth didn't give. She pressed her thumbnail into it and left nothing behind. She took it to the loom in the alcove, the one Eliza had shipped up from London on her first day, her name carved across the top beam. She threaded a single adamantine strand into the warp beside her lapis and ran the shuttle. The two fibers took each other. The mortal thread held because the divine one carried it. She cut a strip and handed it to the cyclops. He squeezed. It sang and did not tear. She rolled the strip flat and looked up at Hermes. "I need the source, not the scrap. Get me into the forge, or get me a supplier who'll sell to the Alderwyne name." Hermes pocketed his sandal and smiled. "Forge is closed to buyers this week. Hephaestus is busy for Hera." He shrugged. "I'll find you a back door by morning." Sophia set the woven strip on the desk beside yesterday's torn one. The problem had a name now. The next one already had a shape.