Our stepmother cursed my siblings while I slept one night.

I woke to desperate, strange sounds coming from the courtyard.

There was a note pushed under my door.

I hope this is enough. Aliandra’s writing, accented by a single gold feather folded into the paper.

Father stood in the doorway leading to the courtyard, transfixed.

The sounds came from the four swans in the courtyard. My siblings, for once in a form they couldn’t shed.

Aliandra cursed them, then flew away.

For days I hoped she’d contact me. Explain. How did she do this, and was there a catch? Would it fade?

I don’t think she predicted it would be me who got caught.

The curse didn’t fade.

When Father got over his shock he built them a fine glass aviary, determined not even this would diminish our family’s reputation.

But when a deal went badly, or a competitor got ahead of him, I saw him watch them, resentful at losing their talents.

He watched me like this was my fault. His anger wasn’t a thing of violence, or volume. It was silence, and a lack of attention.

He and I spoke only of work. As the only one of his children without a beak he gave me more responsibility, including errands that took me out of the office and sometimes even out of the city. Even though the latter meant the constant accompaniment of a Fabric Guild watcher, to ensure I maintained the necessary secrecy, I was grateful to see new places.

I never went near the aviary. For a time, I thought I was free of them.

Yet one morning, after a return home delayed by muddy roads, I slept later than usual.

I woke to swans at my window.

Thud.

Thud.

Thud.

Their beaks against the glass, summoning me.

It was easy to tell myself I was happy for them to be cursed, but I still moved toward the window.

The sound intensified.

I paused.

I was the only one of us who couldn’t transform myself into animals. Instead I had the thread magic. Fabric and dye and mordant spoke to me, and I could work them to my will.

My siblings liked to shift so they were faster than me, so they could chase me and corner me and remind me of what I couldn’t do. They would snap and snarl, but never bite. They knew my fear was more powerful than my pain.

Now they were at my window, again demanding my obedience.

The window glass cracked, spiderwebbing in the lower right corner. They changed their angles to work the weakness.

“Stop.” I raised the window. They flew in.

They’d gotten their way again.

They encircled me. One lunged. I cried out, stepping back only to be wrapped in wings. There was nowhere to go. Everything was feathers, and the touch of hard beaks to my forehead, a headache blooming in response.

At their touch I saw what they meant me to see, nearly drowning in their wings and wants.

I saw a pale, purple-silver plant, blooming in shadows. I saw, as they forced me to see, the thread that could be drawn from such a plant, and the power it would hold. Like the thread mages of legend, who could sew disguises impenetrable by all but the fiercest magics.

The wings were ready to break me if I resisted.

I saw the reversal they wished for, which only my hands could bring them.