Lyra Threadwing opened the thread chest and found it bare. Three empty spools rolled against the wood. The festival was in nine days, and she had nothing to weave her entry from. She pressed her violet eyes shut and counted, the way her grandmother had taught her when the storage sacks tangled. The count did not fill the chest. She had spent the last of the grove's stock on the cocoon shelter, spinning composite thread through the blight-wind nights until her fingers cracked. Every fairy in the grove had watched her do it. None of them expected her to win the festival. That was the point. First place would answer them without a word. Her robe brushed her ankles as she stood. The hem carried a slack row she had never gone back to fix. Her master had seen it once and looked away. Lyra had been holding that silence in her chest for a year. She went to Celestia Threadwhisper's shed because she had nowhere else to go. Celestia sat on the step with her hands wrapped, the giant silk moth folded against the shed wall behind her like a second roof. Its feathered antennae twitched at the smell of Lyra's dye. "There's no thread," Lyra said. "Not for a festival piece. Not for anything." "No," Celestia said. "We used it." "I used it." Celestia looked at her. "Then you know where it went." Lyra's throat closed. She turned to leave and almost walked into Aldric Silverweave. The old scholar stood in the path with his gossamer robe dragging in the dust. He was holding a small bundle wrapped in oiled cloth. He did not offer it. "You spun composite," he said. "Daisy and moth." "Yes." "Held against the blight." "Yes." He studied her a long moment. Then he set the bundle on the step beside Celestia and stepped back. Inside were the swept remains of the cocoon effort: short daisy stems, moth-silk scraps, tangled leavings from the shed floor. Not enough for a proper bolt. Enough, maybe, for one small square. "That's all there is," Aldric said. "In the grove. I checked." Lyra stared at the pile. "I can't win with scraps." "Then don't enter," Aldric said. "Or enter with what held." He walked off before she could answer. Celestia did not fill the silence. Lyra knelt and gathered the leavings into her arms. The stems poked through her sleeve. She thought of the workbench patch, the one that had held warmth for three days, and how she had used forbidden thread that fell apart in her hands, and how the patch had held anyway. Not because of the thread. Because of how she had sat with it. She carried the scraps home. She had nine days and one small square's worth of hope, and she had decided to weave it.

Lyra worked the scraps for two days before she carried her half-finished square to the festival grounds to register. The daisy stems had softened in her hands. The moth-silk remnants held when she coaxed them slow. She had wrapped the piece in a scrap of her own robe and tied it with a stem. She thought registration would be a line and a name in a book. The official at the gate did not open the book. He looked at her robe, then at the bundle, then past her at the fairies behind her in line. His eyes stopped on the slack row at her hem. "Apprentices need a sponsor's word," he said. "For the booth." "I've entered before." "You've watched before. This is the grand festival. You bring a master's word, or an elder's, or you step out of the line." Her master was three groves away buying dye and would not return in time. Lyra knew it before she opened her mouth. She stepped out of the line so the fairy behind her could pass, and she stood on the trampled grass with the square pressed against her ribs. She went to Celestia Threadwhisper's shed because she had gone there once and been told the truth. Celestia sat on the step with her hands still wrapped in linen. The giant moth folded its wings behind her, antennae twitching at Lyra's approach. Lysander Brightwind stood at the shed wall, sorting empty stem baskets. He looked up when Lyra spoke. "They want a sponsor," Lyra said. "Or I don't get a booth." Celestia lifted her bandaged hands and set them back in her lap. "I can't hold a pen for six days." "I know." "I'd sign it if I could." Lysander set the basket down. "I'm not an elder. My word won't count at the gate." He paused. "My mother would have signed for you." Lyra nodded. She had expected both answers. She unwrapped the square on the step so Celestia could see it. The composite held. The rows were even. The color came from the daisy centers, pink and yellow shot through the pale silk. Celestia looked at it a long moment. "Take it to the official. Not for a booth. For a table." "A table?" "They keep side tables for pieces without booths. No judging. No prize. But the piece sits under the tent." Lyra's throat tightened. "That's not the festival." "It's the tent," Celestia said. "That's where the judges walk." Lyra rewrapped the square. She walked back to the gate. The official wrote her name on the side-table list and pointed her to a low bench at the tent's edge, past the booths, past the ribbons. She set the square down on the bare wood. No sign. No stand. Only the piece, and the judges' path six steps away.

By the second morning, Lyra heard her own name at the tea urns. Two apprentices stood with their backs to her, cups in hand. One said the side table was pity work. The other said the official had only written her down to be kind, that the piece was scraps because no one would give her real thread. Lyra held her cup until the heat stopped registering. She set it down and walked to the side table. Her square sat where she had left it. A fairy passed, glanced, and kept walking without slowing. She knew how rumors set. They set like bad thread. If the judges heard it before they walked the tent, they would look at the square and see leftovers, not weaving. She had one day before judging. She needed a voice at the tent that fairies would trust. She went to Celestia's shed. Celestia sat on the step with her bandaged hands in her lap. The moth shifted behind her. Lyra told her what the apprentices had said. "They're calling it charity," Lyra said. "If that's what the judges hear, they won't look." Celestia was quiet a moment. "I can't sign. I can talk." "Talk won't reach the judges in time." "Not mine alone." Celestia looked past her. "Aldric brought you the scraps. He knows what they were. He's an elder. Ask him to stand by the table for one hour before judging." "He refused to sponsor a child. He'll refuse me." "Sponsoring is a signature. Standing is a choice. Ask." Lyra found Aldric at the edge of the festival grounds, watching the tent from under a tree. His grey hair moved in the low wind. He held nothing in his hands. "They're saying my piece is pity," Lyra said. "Will you stand by it before judging? An hour. That's all." He studied her. "Standing is not endorsement." "I know." "Fairies will read it as endorsement anyway." "I know." He weighed it. She watched him weigh it. "The thread I brought you was all that remained," he said. "That is a fact. I will say the fact if I am asked. I will not say more." "That's enough." He came at the hour before judging. He stood at the side table with his hands folded. He did not touch the square. He did not speak unprompted. Two weavers stopped to greet him and looked down at the piece. One asked where the thread had come from. Aldric answered in four words. The weaver nodded and moved on. By the time the judges entered the tent, the tea urns were quiet on the subject of Lyra's square. The judges walked past the booths first. When they reached the side table, they stopped. One bent close. Another lifted a corner between two fingers and set it down. They wrote nothing. They moved on to the next row. Lyra stood at the tent post and watched them go.