The shop was finally quiet as I finished stitching the last hem, my fingers sore and aching from seating in one place without stretching. Madam Therrow had long since retreated to her quarters, and Lidia and Fayra had flounced off with a toss of their heads and murmured giggles, leaving me to clean up their scattered pins and half-folded fabrics. It was always the same: me, left behind with the mess, the only sound my own breath and the rustle of cloth as I put away tools and needles.


When I was finally done, the air in the shop had grown colder, settling into a stillness that felt heavy and lonely. I drifted to the cupboard by the door, the same one we all shared for meals. Most days, there was little left by the time I got to it, and tonight was no exception. Inside were a few stale pieces of bread and the remains of some dried meat—coarse and chewy and far from appetizing. My stomach gave a faint growl, and I swallowed back the taste of disappointment.


I took my meager supper back to my work station, pulling the stool close and setting the bread down. I ate slowly, in silence, breaking off rough bits and chewing them mechanically. The taste was as bland and dry as dust, and it did nothing to ease the gnawing emptiness in my belly. I wished, for a moment, that it could be different—that this bread might be fresh and warm, that perhaps a rich stew might sit in front of me, something that smelled of herbs and thick broth. But that was a fantasy too far, so I forced myself to eat what was there.


As I chewed, my thoughts drifted, carried away by the silence. I wondered, not for the first time, what it might have been like to be born into a different life. If, somehow, I had been born a noble, like the ones who walked the streets in silks and jewels, their heads held high as though the world were made for them alone. Would my hands be softer? My clothes clean and warm? Would my days be filled with learning, laughter, and music, instead of the scraping sounds of needles and thread?


I touched the locket around my neck, feeling its cool metal beneath my fingers. It was old, the clasp worn and scratched, and the chain felt fragile against my skin, but it was the only thing that had ever truly been mine. I couldn’t remember a time without it, though no one could ever tell me where it had come from. I only knew that I’d been found with it, wrapped around my neck when I was little more than a bundle of rags and cold skin.


With careful fingers, I lifted the locket and opened it, the small hinge creaking as it always did. Inside, faded with time, were two faces—strangers to me, but with a kind of elegance and poise that suggested a life far from my own. The woman wore a high collar and her eyes were dark, thoughtful, almost sad. Beside her, the man, with brown hair and glasses, his jaw set with the kind of determination I only ever saw on the faces of those untouched of hardship. I didn’t dare assume anything about them; people like me didn’t dare to dream that we were descended from anyone worth knowing.


But sometimes, in the quiet hours, I wondered if it were possible. Was it foolish to imagine that someone might have cared for me once, might have looked at me with pride, instead of the pity and disdain I’d known my whole life? No, I told myself, that was a dangerous fantasy, the kind that only led to disappointment. I was likely born from a mother who couldn’t afford to feed me, or worse—a child left unwanted, another mouth to feed in a world that had too many mouths already.


People like me came from the gutters, from the back alleys where desperation bred quicker than weeds. The slums had been my first home, the streets my first playground. I could remember days spent scrambling for scraps, stealing crusts of bread from shop stalls, ducking around guards who wouldn’t hesitate to run me out with their boots. The envy had settled in my heart back then, watching others eat, laugh, and stroll without a care while I shivered on the cobblestones, hungry and cold.


I’d always been an outsider, a shadow against the light of those who had more. The locket in my hand, with its mysterious faces, was perhaps the only thread that tied me to a different world. But it was a frail, brittle thread, one I didn’t dare pull too hard for fear it would snap and leave me with nothing.


I snapped the locket shut and let it fall against my chest. The shop was nearly pitch-black now, the last candle guttering beside me. I finished my meal, if it could be called that, brushing the crumbs from my fingers with weary hands. Tomorrow would be the same—a cycle of stitching, cutting, and enduring, with little to break the monotony. And yet, I clung to the smallest hope, the faintest spark, that perhaps someday, things would change. That maybe there was something more for me, something beyond these walls and the cold streets.


But tonight, all I had was the silence and the darkness, and the weight of a locket filled with secrets I’d never know.