“The girl knew a threat when she saw it.
“She met his demand, and when the god tried on the shirt, it fit perfectly. Its colors changed him, made his face seem not quite as pale. The seamstress studied him and had thoughts she knew weren’t wise to share.
“The god paid her in generous gold, though she hadn’t named a price. He was pleased.
“Yet it was not enough. He returned, ordered a cloak of company, and left even before the seamstress agreed to do it. They both knew that she would.
“She was putting the finishing touches on the cloak’s hem when an old woman entered the shop and looked at all the things she couldn’t afford to buy. The woman reached across the counter where the seamstress sat at her work. Wizened fingers wavered over the cloak of company. Faded eyes became so starred with longing that the seamstress gave her the cloak and asked nothing in return. She could make another one—and quickly.
“The god, however, was quicker still. He returned to her village sooner than he’d said. Who did he see but the elderly woman sleeping by her fire, wrapped in a cloak that was far too big for her? What did he feel but the grip of betrayal, the swift, deep dart of jealousy that should shame a god?
“He came to the seamstress’s shop in that silent way of his, like ice forming in the night. ‘Give me the cloak,’ he demanded.
“The seamstress held her needle. It was no weapon against a god. ‘It’s not ready,’ she said.
“‘Liar.’”
The word dropped with its own weight. Kestrel said, “Am I the seamstress in this story, or the god?”
Enai continued as if she hadn’t heard. “He would have destroyed her then, but another path of vengeance occurred to him. A better means to wreak her misery. He knew that she had a nephew: a little boy, the only scrap of family remaining to her. She paid for his care out of her earnings, and he was sleeping now in a neighboring town, snug under the watchful gaze of a nurse the god could distract, and trick, and lull.
“He did. He left the seamstress’s shop and slipped up to the slumbering boy. There was no pity for the small, rounded limbs, the cheeks flushed with sleep, the smudge of wild hair in the dark. The god had stolen children before.”
Kestrel said, “This is the god of death.”
“When the god drew back the blanket, his finger brushed against the child’s nightshirt. He went still. Never, in all his immortal years, had he touched anything so beautiful.
“The shirt had been sewn from the cloth of love. He felt the plush of velvet, the skim of silk, the resilient woof and weft that would not fray. Yet there was one thing to it that didn’t belong: a small, damp circle the size of a fingertip.
“Or a god’s tear.
“It dried. The cloth smoothed once more. The god left.
“The seamstress, meanwhile, grew anxious. She hadn’t heard from her best and worst customer for days. It didn’t seem possible that she could have escaped him so lightly. One didn’t defy the gods, and never this god. A fissure of thought began in the seamstress’s mind. A suspicion. It widened into an earthquake that shattered her, for she suddenly saw, as the god had, the surest way to bring her to despair.
“She rushed to the neighboring town and the nurse’s house. Her hand trembled against the door, for death was what she would find behind it.
“It flung open. The boy clambered into her arms, chiding her for being so long away this time, asking why she had to work so hard. The seamstress caught at him, held him until he complained. When she fluttered fingers over his face, certain that death had crept under his skin somehow and would burst forth in an hour, or a minute, if not now, she saw that the boy’s forehead had been marked.
“Marked by the sign of the god’s protection. His favor. It was a gift without price.
“The seamstress returned to her shop and waited. Her hands, for once, were not busy. They were calm strangers. They waited, too, but the god didn’t come. So the seamstress did something frightening. She whispered his name.
“He came, and was silent. He wore nothing she had made, but his own clothes. They were impressively cut, an assured fit. Yet the seamstress didn’t know how she had ever missed their threadbare state. The fabric had rubbed down to thin clouds.
“‘I wish to thank you,’ she said.
“‘I do not deserve thanks,’ said the god.
“‘Nevertheless, I want to give it.’
“The god did not reply. Her hands did not move.
“He said, ‘Then weave me the cloth of yourself.’
“The seamstress set her hands in his. She kissed him, and the god stole her away.”