Hope and Honeysuckle

Some mornings show up wearing blood on their sleeves. Others come in quiet, tiptoeing like they’re trying not to wake the neighborhood demon. This one? This one strolled in grinning, sun peeking through the fog like a drunk uncle trying to hug you after too many ciders. I didn’t buy it. Not for a second.

I was being dragged…no, led… by a half-dryad woman who smelled like hope and honeysuckle. That alone should’ve been my first warning. Trixie bounced like she had springs in her shoes, practically humming as she marched us down the wet cobbles of Graywatch’s Merchant Quarter like we were on our way to a garden party and not some godsforsaken fitting room of doom.

Behind me came Steven. Barbarian, client, walking slab of muscle with a face that wasn’t nearly as dumb as it ought to be. He looked amused, probably because he wasn’t the one about to be sewn into silk and forced to pretend she had manners.

Murk had ghosted after we left the Guildhall, muttering something about loose ends and whispers in dark places. Typical. He got to vanish into shadows and riddles while I got to play dress-up like a noble’s pet dog.

The worst part? The birds were singing. I swear to the seven thrones, actual birds. I hadn’t heard birds in Graywatch since… maybe ever. And the sky? Clear enough that I could see the sun’s smug face peeking between the towers like it was in on the joke.

I narrowed my eyes at a passing cloud and seriously considered punching it.

Everything was too clean. Too cheerful. Too much perfume and not enough grit. And I knew better than to trust that. This wasn’t joy, it was the calm before the alley knife. And I was heading straight into it, one reluctant step at a time, with a smiley forest nymph on one side and a half-naked axe-wielding himbo on the other.

Tailor’s block or executioner’s? At this point, I wasn’t sure there’d be a difference. Either way, I was walking to my doom in the daylight. And I hated it.

Trixie hadn’t stopped talking since we left the Guild square. I’d caught bits and pieces…empire-waist silhouettes, charcoal velvet with saffron embroidery, backless, but tasteful, structured corsetry with a hint of danger. The words floated around me like midges in a swamp, annoying and persistent.

She wasn’t even asking questions anymore. Just narrating her fantasy like a bard who’d had too much mead and not enough reality.

“Now, I was thinking something dusky,” she chirped as she tugged me down another alley that smelled like roasted chestnuts and broken dreams. “You’ve got the shoulders for it, and if we go with a plunging neckline, we can imply softness without compromising your general aura of, how shall I say it… murderous authority.”

I grunted. That was about the extent of my enthusiasm.

Inside my head, I was calculating exits, plausible excuses, and the statistical likelihood of a spontaneous snapdragon-riding wizard invasion that might save me from this particular nightmare. Hells, I’d settle for a sinkhole.

She stopped in front of a modest building with a hand-painted sign that read Needle & Nonsense. It wasn’t pink. It didn’t have frilly lace curtains or floral nonsense in the windows. The paint was a muted navy, the windows dusty. A sigh of relief tried to escape my throat. I strangled it before it got out.

Maybe… just maybe, this wouldn’t be so bad.

Then the door opened.

Whatever mild hope I had took one look at the inside and threw itself off a cliff.

The walls were covered in bolts of fabric arranged not by color or pattern, but mood. There was a section labeled Brooding Romance and another marked Scandal at Sunset. A half-mannequin wore a gown that looked like it had been stitched by a fever dream. And glitter. So much glitter it should’ve been a fire hazard.

And in the center of it all stood a gnomeling.

He had wild tufts of snow-white hair that shot out in every direction like he’d been struck by lightning while holding a ball of yarn. He wore a vest that had more buttons than logic, and goggles with so many lenses stacked and folded and flipped that his face looked like a spyglass that had given up trying to focus. Bare feet. Fuzzy toes. A belly that declared he either ate well or stole food from nearby bakeries.

“Darling!” he cried, arms wide. His voice had the musical rasp of someone who'd smoked pipeweed in a thunderstorm and lived to critique the weather. “You brought me a project!”

Trixie beamed. “She’s a challenge, yes… but just look at that canvas.”

I wasn’t sure if I was flattered or being compared to a barn wall. Either way, I didn’t like it.

“I take it you’re the girl under all that scowl?” he said, shuffling over and reaching for the measuring tape around his neck like it was a holy relic.

I didn’t answer. I was too busy cataloguing the exits and wondering if I’d need to punch a gnomeling today.

He circled me like a merchant inspecting questionable goods. “Hmmm. Shoulders like a warhammer. Hips like a country road… unexpected curves but somehow leading somewhere interesting. And those legs… Gracious gods, you’ve got legs for days!”

“Got fists for minutes, too,” I muttered.

“Oh, I like her,” he said to Trixie. “I really do.”

I didn't.

Not yet.

And if I didn’t walk out of here with my dignity intact, someone was going to pay. In stitches. Literal ones.

Trixie clapped her hands once, sharp as a whip-crack in a quiet alley, and the gnomeling straightened like he’d been waiting behind a curtain for his cue.

“This,” she said, voice all bright and rehearsed, “is Hibbledy Quent.” She rolled the name off her tongue like it was dipped in sugar. “Best needle in the northern stretch of the Veridian Kingdom and tailor to the misfit elite. He’s a gnomeling, obviously. His mother was halfling nobility, minor house out near Duskenfeld, the kind that used to host apple blossom pageants. His father was a gnome from the Redstone Warrens, got himself kicked out of three academies and married up instead. True love, scandal, the usual.”

Hibbledy gave a sweeping bow that sent measuring tape fluttering like ribbon in a storm. His goggles made a series of clicks as he flipped lenses up and down, then adjusted a monocle that didn’t seem to magnify anything except his enthusiasm. “A pleasure and an honor, my dear. Been years since I got to build something for a canvas quite like you.”

I narrowed my eyes. “Canvas?”

“Oh, hush now,” Trixie chirped. “You know what he means.”

Steven loomed behind us like a polite avalanche. He didn’t say anything, but I caught the flicker of a grin on his face before Trixie swatted him toward a nearby partition. “You. Wait over there. No peeking, unless you want to be turned into a bolt of linen.”

As soon as he vanished, she leaned close to the gnomeling and whispered just loud enough for me to hear. “She’s the new soft-shoe merc. The one people are whispering about in the guildhalls and broadsheets. She’s on a case. Something very hush-hush. So whatever you make, it needs to scream noble flower, not bare-knuckle brawler with blood on her collar.”

Quent made a noise somewhere between a gasp and a cackle. “Say no more.”

He was already circling me before I could blink. Tape in one hand, chalk in the other, his feet pattering like excited ferrets across the floorboards. I barely noticed when my coat was gone. Then my hat. My boots followed. Somehow, I’d been swindled out of everything but the last scraps of dignity and a threadbare undershirt.

He climbed up a stool and pressed a brass rod along my shoulder. “Taller than sense, aren’t you?” he muttered with something like admiration. “Hmm. Broad shoulders, narrow hips. You’re built like a cathedral. Got any more scars under there or are we keeping it PG?”

I glared.

He ignored me.

“You’re gorgeous, in the way a thunderstorm is gorgeous,” he said. “Raw power. Catastrophic beauty. The kind of thing poets write about just before getting trampled by a runaway carriage.”

Trixie beamed from the sidelines like a proud stage mother.

“She needs something that looks expensive, feminine, delicate, but also practical. Something that says don’t mess with me without actually saying I could punch out your jaw and use your teeth as a bookmark.”

“Ah,” he said, eyes twinkling. “Subtle threat couture. A personal favorite.”

I didn’t know whether to laugh or punch them both. Instead, I settled for scowling and thinking dark thoughts about every life choice that had brought me here.

He took every measurement twice, muttering notes to himself in a language I was ninety percent sure he was inventing on the spot. He measured my wrist, elbow, the space between my ears, the exact slope of my shoulder blade. At one point I’m pretty sure he charted the longitude of my ankle bones. There was zero magic in the air, but it felt like sorcery anyway. The man moved like he was casting a spell: efficient, obsessive, unstoppable.

By the time I realized Steven had been completely herded out of the room, I was in my smallclothes and draped in six bolts of fabric I didn’t remember agreeing to. One was gold. Another was something that shimmered between stormcloud and midnight. A third had embroidery in thread that looked suspiciously like actual moonlight.

“Don’t worry,” Quent said cheerfully, “I’ve worked with assassins, opera singers, and one half-ogre duchess who insisted on rhinestones. You’re practically reasonable.”

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

Trixie nodded enthusiastically. “He’s a miracle worker.”

I sighed and stared at the ceiling. Somewhere out there, the gods were laughing at me. Probably all of them. Except maybe Exterus. That old tramp likely understood my pain. And if one more person measured my ear length, someone was going to bleed.

Somewhere along the way, I lost control of the situation. One minute I was being measured like a prize cow by a gnomeling in six pairs of glasses, the next I was draped in silk so soft it had to be illegal. A robe. Pink, no less. Belted at the waist with something that might’ve once been ribbon, if you squinted past the humiliation.

And my toenails... gods above, when did my toenails get painted?

I looked down at the little traitors, each one glistening like a lacquered cherry blossom. I didn’t remember sitting still long enough for anyone to touch my feet, let alone commit floral sabotage.

Across from me, Steven sat like a well-groomed avalanche stuffed into a velvet chair meant for a bard with fragile bones and too many feelings. His fur cloak had been replaced with a thick robe that barely fit his shoulders. He looked like a bear that had wandered into a noblewoman’s parlor and was too polite to leave.

Between us sat a table loaded with a tiered tray of pettifors so delicate I was afraid if I looked at them too hard, they’d weep. A porcelain tea set completed the ensemble, each cup painted in swirls of ivy and gold. Trixie, who had summoned this chaos like a smiling dryad of decorum, beamed with pride.

“That tea set,” she chirped, “is patterned after the Queen’s own. It’s rumored her majesty had the molds shattered after commissioning them…”

She prattled on like a merchant at a festival booth, but I wasn’t listening. Not really. I was too focused on the surreal sight of a man who once chopped bandits in half now sipping jasmine tea with his pinky raised like he was auditioning for the opera.

Somewhere in the back of my mind, I started to suspect I was under a spell.

Then came the brush.

Trixie had taken to my hair like it was a battlefield that needed order. She stood behind me, running that brush through my curls with the ruthless precision of a drill sergeant. Every time I twitched, she’d give me a firm whap on the shoulder with the back of the brush.

“Sit still,” she warned sweetly. “You’ve got a lot of hair, and not nearly enough patience.”

I opened my mouth. Closed it. Opened it again. “Are you even licensed to do hair?”

She grinned, smug as a cat in cream. “Of course, darling. Thirteen counties, two duchies, and the capital proper. Got a scroll somewhere if you want to see.”

I didn’t. I was too afraid she’d pull it from her cleavage or some secret dimension sewn into her skirt. I was about to ask why she wasn’t doing that for a living when she cut me off again, like she knew the question was coming.

“Hair’s a hobby. I mastered it years ago. These days I like a challenge. Like transforming storm clouds like you into something passably radiant.”

Steven tried to speak then. Maybe to rescue me. Maybe to add insult to injury. I wasn’t sure and didn’t care. I shot him a look that said I could still punch through brick walls, bathrobe or not.

He wisely took another sip of tea.

It was too quiet. Too soft. The kind of moment people like me don’t get to have without someone bleeding at the edges. And I wasn’t bleeding. Not yet.

Which meant it was only a matter of time. Because nobody walks into a dream like this without waking up in a nightmare.

The gnomeling finally emerged from the back of the shop just as Trixie was putting the final touches on my hair, humming some nonsense about symmetry and goddess-blessed curls. I caught his silhouette first, stubby legs and wild hair framed by a haze of floating fabric… and then he came into full view, arms outstretched like a magician unveiling the final trick of the night.

He held up two outfits. One in each hand.

The first was a dress.

Not just any dress. No, this one had the kind of quiet authority that didn’t shout so much as it whispered just loud enough to command a room. A deep, rich color, somewhere between stormcloud and midnight wine… that didn’t scream look at me, but you’d remember it anyway. It moved like shadow and silk. Powerful, sure. But gods help me, there were frills. Lace, too. Enough that I felt my jaw twitch just looking at it. Not exactly combat-ready. Not unless your plan was to seduce the enemy into surrendering.

The other garment surprised me even more. Rugged. Tailored. Functional. The kind of thing you’d wear if you were about to walk into a fight where someone might try to poison your wine and challenge you to a duel in the same breath. It was clearly made for Steven. What threw me was that he’d been fitted at all. I hadn’t noticed the tailor measuring him. Hadn’t even seen it happen. Either that gnomeling had a gift for subtlety or I’d finally cracked under Trixie’s warbling.

Steven smiled like a man who hadn’t had new clothes since the last feast day, grabbed the outfit, and disappeared into a side room.

Me? I was less eager. But when the tailor turned his multi-lensed spectacles on me and gestured like a conductor directing the world’s most reluctant symphony, I found myself being herded into the changing room like a cow at a branding gate.

The dress fit like it had been sewn by fate herself.

When I stepped out, the whole shop went still. I don’t mean polite silence. I mean the kind of hush that drops right before a duel begins or the first note of a funeral dirge plays. Even Steven, who usually looked like he'd rather wrestle a thunder elk than say something poetic, was standing there with his mouth open, jaw unhinged like someone had clocked him with a frying pan.

And Trixie?

She just exhaled a soft little “Well, damn.”

Then louder, with a grin too big to be harmless, she said, “You are stunning, Lena.”

I rolled my eyes. Waved it off. Muttered something about not needing to breathe through lace. But deep down? Buried beneath the sarcasm, the scars, and the smoke-stained soul of a woman who’d seen too much?

There was a flicker. A memory. The girl I used to be, back when my father was still alive. Back when he used to talk about dances and courtships and futures filled with silks and ballrooms, not blood and shadows.

He’d wanted this for me. And maybe, just for a second, I wanted it too. But that wasn’t the path I took. Not in Graywatch. Not in this life.

I looked at the mirror one more time. Let the silence settle in my chest. Then I turned away from the reflection. Because no matter how good the dress looked... I was still a soldier. And there were monsters that needed killing.

****

Later that evening, I sat at a table that cost more than most people paid in rent pretending like I belonged. The dress helped. Trixie’s little gnomeling tailor had worked some sort of stitched miracle. and I hoped Murk’s magic charm would polish off the rest. The plan was that on the surface, I would be no longer Lena Blackthorn, quarter-giant bruiser and Queen’s army dropout with a grudge against the upper crust. I would look like every other delicate half-elf debutante with more coin than good sense.

But underneath the lace and glamour, I would still be me. And I was still hunting.

Trixie, Steven, and Murk had joined me at a corner booth in the Gilded Vine, a tavern just upscale enough to turn away the loud drunks and just discreet enough to host nobles in need of sins without consequences. I nursed a glass of something spiced and golden while Murk finished his report.

“I found the run lines,” Murk said around his pipe, smoke curling from his nostrils like some smug little dragon. “Three still active. Four cabs total, but our friend Terry won’t be driving anytime soon.”

Steven grunted. He had his arms folded, axe leaning against his leg like a loyal hound. “What did he say, exactly?”

Murk tapped ash into a tray shaped like a gilded lily. “Same thing he said before. Each cab’s warded. Seats are inscribed with sleep spells. Alchemical mist does the rest. Knockout and memory loss in one pretty package. They’re designed to capture, not kill. He doesn’t know what happens once they’re dropped off, only that the back gate of Mornvale Manor doesn’t open for passengers on the way out.”

I nodded slowly. That tracked. Meant the inside was locked down tighter than a miser’s coin purse.

Trixie sipped from a wineglass and crossed one leg over the other. Even in the flickering candlelight, her smile was too bright to trust. “So the plan’s set? You go in, I make contact, the boys go wading through the mud like brave little swamp rats?”

“I resent that,” Steven said flatly.

“You resent a lot of things,” she replied without missing a beat.

I reached into a pocket and pulled out a folded note, sealed with the same wax I used when I reported back to the Queen’s agents. Quiet seal. Meant for eyes that could read between lines. I handed it to Trixie. “Deliver this to Ansel Farrow. He works the ledger desk at the Roseglass Shipping Office. Tell him the sunset is early this season.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Poetic.”

“Not my words. The spooks like their riddles,” I muttered.

The others quieted while Murk dug into a pouch and pulled free a necklace made of dull, cloudy beads. It looked like something a child would string together at a temple craft table. Useless. Until he started to hum.

The tune was soft, old, and carried the weight of something you couldn’t put into words. He pulled out a bone flute, worn and yellowed, and played a few notes. The necklace sparked once, twice, then settled into a low glow.

He handed it to me. “Twist the third bead when you’re ready. Illusion’s simple. It won’t stand up to strong magic, but it’ll fool the eye and the lazy arcane.”

I slipped it over my neck and twisted the bead. The air shimmered around me, bent in on itself like smoke in a bottle. I blinked. Everything looked the same. But Steven stared at me with open surprise.

“You look… smaller,” he said.

“Careful,” I warned.

“No, I mean… fragile.” He blinked. “Delicate. Elfish.”

“Don’t push it.”

Murk just chuckled and leaned back, pipe between his teeth. “What can I say? I’m an old-school bard. I collect tricks like other folks collect debt.”

That wasn’t exactly comforting, but I let it pass. I had a clock to beat.

“I’ll need to be in position soon,” I said. “Just helpless enough to tempt one of those cabs.”

Steven shifted uncomfortably. “Still think I should go.”

“No one’s picking you up, sweetheart,” Trixie said sweetly. “You look like you eat kidnappers for breakfast.”

He didn’t argue after that.

I downed the last of my drink and stood. The dress fluttered softly around my legs, and the necklace’s magic kept me wrapped in the illusion of fragility.

“I’ve got one shot at this,” I said, glancing toward the window. “They’ll be looking for prey. So I’m going to play the part. When they bite, you follow.”

Steven nodded, his face grim. Murk just grinned wider, and Trixie leaned in and brushed a speck of lint off my sleeve like I was headed to prom, not a trap.

Outside, Graywatch had gone quiet. The night was settling in thick as molasses. Somewhere out there, a black cab was hunting.

And tonight, I wasn’t just the bait: I was the hook, the line, and the bruised knuckles behind it. Somewhere inside Mornvale Manor, a noble girl named Elira was screaming into silence, and a wild-eyed boy named Thorne was shackled for sins he never understood. If there were answers buried in that house, I’d find them… or bleed trying.

****

I stood under the crooked neck of a flickering oil lamp, its glow puddling around me like a drunken spotlight on a sidewalk stage. The hem of my borrowed dress fluttered with the breeze, and my heels, curse them, clicked against the wet cobblestones like a clock counting down to something I didn’t want to name. I swayed just enough to look convincingly vulnerable, like some soft-hearted half-elf out past curfew, full of cheap wine and bad judgment.

Cabs rattled by like I didn’t exist, their lanterns glowing cold and yellow behind the rain-streaked glass. I threw up a hand, let it linger in the air, lips parted like I might call out for someone who was never coming. I hated how natural I looked doing it.

Then it came. No crest. No number. Just black paint and deeper shadows. It rolled to a stop slow and smooth, like a beast that knew it didn’t need to run to catch its prey. My fingers twitched at my side, instinct screaming at me to draw a blade I didn’t have. Instead, I leaned in and called up to the driver.

“Take me to 222 Vilmer Street.”

He didn’t answer. Just tapped the brake once, and the rear door unlocked with a soft click like a trigger being pulled.

I climbed in.

The door shut behind me with a sound that felt final. Like a coffin lid. The interior was dark, too clean, too quiet. The seat was plush, stitched in strange patterns that itched at the back of my mind. I barely had time to settle before it hit me.

Magic.

It slid around my skin like warm silk, coiling from the seat beneath me, tendrils of enchantment brushing the edges of my mind. It wanted me sleepy. Wanted me docile. But my elven blood flared, old and stubborn. I gritted my teeth, locked my jaw, held on to the pain from the ghost of a slap across the face from my first sergeant. Anything to stay awake.

The cab turned a corner. And that’s when the gas hissed.

Sweet. Metallic. Too smooth to be natural. It seeped from the floorboards, coiling up like fog over a swamp. I yanked my scarf up over my mouth, but it was already too late. My limbs felt heavy, like someone had poured lead in my boots. My thoughts turned thick, syrupy, molasses slow.

I clenched my fists. Dug my nails into my palms. Reached for that part of me that never quit.

But even iron breaks if you bend it long enough.

The cab rolled on into the dark, wheels whispering over cobblestones. And me? I sank with it, down into the velvet quiet of forced dreams, the city blurring away into black.