“We’ll make dinner.” Sallie brushed a kiss across my cheek as she passed. Azura followed, weighted down with cloth shopping bags filled with the day’s excess produce harvest.
Maritza was standing in front of the dressmaker’s dummy, working on the bodice portion of the dress. The center panel, which would hug my ribs along with four other panels and drape from there, hung below. I stood at her side and marveled.
“The black-on-black stitching will hide the magical objects they depict,” she said.
“How can you see to do that?”
“Watch.” Maritza pursed her lips and blew across the fine wool cloth. The designs she’d embroidered glowed the pale green of the innermost celery stalks. Vines, complete with leaves and thorns, rose in vertical, sinuous paths up the front of the dress. Along the scooped neck of the bodice’s top, the outline of a linked chain created a collar motif. “This chain here,” she said, tracing the scoop with a finger, threads glowing a pale gold in its wake, “links you to the Brodeurs. It is our contribution to your protection. My brother spelled the thread to prevent you from sharing information that is not yours to give.”
I brought my hand to the base of my throat, touching the vulnerable softness in the hollow. “What will I say if Odilon asks me a question and I cannot answer?”
Maritza tapped her chin with a thimble-covered fingertip. “Drop your napkin? Spill your wine?” She waved away my question. “You’ll come up with something.”
I didn’t think verbal adroitness was one of my strengths, but I had proved myself capable of coming up with solutions under duress. Forewarned, I could do this.
“These vines are yours. I basted this panel to the bodice to see how the vines and the chains look together. Once I have finished, we will brew a tea of plant matter and blood and imbue the cloth.”
“I assume you mean my blood?” I asked.
“Yours, Harper’s, Thatcher’s, and Christoph’s.”
In other words, my closest living blood relatives. “Why include them?”
“You four are connected via the blood of family. You are connected to this land via your Blood Ceremony, and the vines that grow here have bound themselves to you. It is to your advantage they have tasted the blood of those who would do you harm, and it is to their advantage to know the blood of those they should not attack.” She swept her hand over the stitches and the color vanished. I had to look very closely to see her needlework, and once I put a bit more distance between me and the fabric—say, the width of a dining table set for two lit by candles—I could not detect either the vines or the chain.
Leilani’s voice joined the ones already chattering away in the kitchen. Maritza leaned closer to me and whispered, “This will be my niece’s first time working with magic-imbued thread.”
“Will she embroider more vines?” I asked.
“No. The front section is complete. Three more allies are needed to grace the sides and back of the dress, one from each of the four base elements. The vines represent your connection to the earth and living things. I was thinking a pair of wings on your back would connect you to air and further strengthen the bond with your grandfather.”
I nodded. Those two design motifs were simple enough understand and, potentially, activate. I also had Benôit’s rings. “Feathers would be useful, perhaps in the sleeves,” I said. “I use those to communicate specific messages with Christoph.”
Maritza agreed. “How many feathers?”
“Three. Also, I feel connected to both my mother and my father through the element of water, especially salt water. My mother and I swam together often, and my father—” I choked up. In that moment I realized I didn’t feel any kind of a real bond to Benôit. “Christoph told me my father had a selkie’s skin and that he chose to live an aquatic life. No one seems to know what happened to him.”
Maritza touched me lightly between the shoulder blades. “Seeing as you will be dining on a yacht, which requires being on water, I think it would be wise to call upon your memories. If you end up in the water, your mother’s presence should have a calming influence.”
“You can add a seal,” I said, decision made. Ending up in Ganges Harbor was not on my after-dinner to-do list, but if the magical shit hit the magical fan, I’d jump. “I don’t mind. And for Genevieve, kelp.” Every underwater memory was accompanied by the sensation of seaweed flowing across my skin.
“And fire? Any associations there?”
“Tanner,” I said without hesitation.
“The druid?” Maritza raised both eyebrows.
“Mm-hmm, the druid. Let’s just say there is a slow fire building and I am enjoying basking in its glow.”
“I understand.” She patted me again, adding a little circular rub this time, and asked, “What image would help you connect with what you feel for him?”
I lowered my voice. “I sometimes see golden sparkles around his head and in his eyes.”
Maritza moved away from where we were speaking, kids still loud in the kitchen, and bent to open one of her cases of supplies. She placed a stack of round tins on the table and twisted the lids off one by one.
Filling the containers were metallic sequins in shades of gold, silver, and copper. I pointed to the brightest of the golds. “That one,” I said.
“Perfect. Once the embroidery is finished, we can embellish the dress with these.” Maritza tilted her head and squinted at the dress. “The question is, where? Scattered all over. Or concentrated or—” Her voice drifted off.
“I would vote for scattered all over. Front, back, and sides.”
“I can see your point. We must also consider how the fire used in the creation of the metal will interact with what is around it. Water could douse fire’s power, whereas air could feed it. Earth can contain fire and assist with increasing its intensity. There are alchemical interactions to consider here. This is no simple frock.” She
