Ember winced as the needle bit her finger again. The merchant mark she’d tried to stitch looked more like a child’s scrawl than the crisp emblem her mother created with such skill.


    “Here, love.” Sarah’s hands enveloped hers, adjusting her grip. “Feel that? The needle wants to move this way.” Her mother’s hair brushed Ember’s cheek as she guided the motion.


    The workshop’s familiar scents surrounded them - beeswax-coated thread, bolts of fresh silk, and the herbal sachets tucked between finished garments. At the workbench, Ember studied the correct angle, trying to match her mother’s fluid movements.


    “Better,” Sarah said, her smile evident in her voice. “Though perhaps we should save the good silk for when you’re not leaving quite so many holes.”


    “It still looks wrong.” Ember frowned at her uneven stitches beside a finished piece’s precise mark. “I don’t understand how you do it.”


    Sarah selected a scrap of practice fabric. “Oh, I was worse when I started. Once sewed myself to a customer’s order - right through my best dress.”


    “You’re making that up!” Ember stared at her mother, searching for any hint of teasing.


    “I wish I were. Spent an hour trapped there while my poor teacher wheezed with laughter.” Sarah’s needle flashed, leaving perfect stitches in its wake. “Think of it as drawing with thread instead of ink.”


    Ember tried again. The mark looked less like a disaster, though it would never pass for an official seal.


    “There you go,” Sarah said, correcting her posture. “Let the needle find its path - you’re not punching holes in armor.”


    When fresh blood spotted the fabric, Sarah produced a worn leather thimble from her pocket.


    “This helped me survive my learning days.” She smiled. “Your grandmother claimed she could read my progress like a trail of breadcrumbs - red ones.”


    They worked as shadows lengthened across the bench. Each attempt brought small improvements, though Ember’s stitches remained far from merchantable quality. Her mother’s gentle instructions wove through stories of her own apprentice days, each tale revealing a young girl as determined and frustrated as Ember felt now.


    “Mother?” Ember stretched her stiffening hands. “How long until you mastered it?”


    Sarah traced the uneven stitches thoughtfully. “Mastery took months. But making something worth selling? That came quicker than expected.” She squeezed Ember’s shoulder. “And you’re already showing more focus than I had.”


    Pride bloomed in Ember’s chest. She returned to her work, each careful stitch bringing her closer to understanding. Still imperfect, still learning, but now she could see the path forward.


    “Would you believe,” Sarah said, guiding Ember’s needle through another stitch, “that I once outran three of the city watch across these very rooftops?”


    Ember’s hand jerked, pricking her finger. “You did not!”


    “I most certainly did.” Sarah’s lips twitched as she dabbed at the drop of blood on Ember’s finger. “I was sixteen, and my tutor had scheduled an extra lesson on proper tea service. After three hours of ‘No, no, the second pot goes behind the first,’ I’d had quite enough.”


    Her mother’s fingers moved deftly, correcting Ember’s next stitch. “The merchant guild’s awning made a perfect ladder. I would’ve gotten away clean if that blasted flower pot hadn’t betrayed me.”


    Ember let her sewing drop into her lap. “Then what?”


    “The pot exploded right at their feet. Sent dirt everywhere - all over their polished boots.” Sarah demonstrated another stitch, her shoulders relaxing as she spoke. “They came thundering up the guild house stairs while I picked my way across the rooftops. Lost my slippers somewhere over the candlemaker’s shop.”The author''s content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.


    “But you’re always telling me about proper deportment and-” Ember glanced at her mother’s straight back and perfectly arranged skirts.


    Sarah snorted, a most unladylike sound. “Proper? Ember, I once convinced your Aunt Marion to help me swap every bottle in her father’s wine cellar with colored water. She still glares at me whenever someone mentions vintage Bordeaux.”


    The afternoon light dimmed as Sarah shared more stories - sneaking into harvest festivals wearing borrowed masks, creating diversions in the marketplace to steal pies cooling on windowsills, trading secrets with other merchants’ children in hidden alley meetings.


    “The real skill,” Sarah said, untangling a knot in Ember’s thread, “isn’t in the running. It’s in walking calmly past the guards the next day, nodding like you’ve never climbed a roof in your life.”


    “Did grandfather ever catch you?”


    “After six months. He found my collection of roof tiles - I’d been keeping one from each new route.” Sarah smoothed her skirts, but Ember caught the quick grin. “He said any girl who could plan escape routes that well deserved extra lessons in contract negotiation instead of tea service.”


    Ember traced the crooked stitches of her merchantmark, seeing her mother’s hands in a new light - not just tools for delicate needlework, but capable of scaling walls and mapping rooftop paths through the city she thought she knew.


    “And then,” Sarah dabbed at her eyes, demonstrating another stitch, “young Lord Blackwood sauntered into court, wearing what he thought was the finest doublet coin could buy.”


    Ember leaned in, her own needle lying forgotten. “What happened?”


    “The rain happened. That fool started leaving purple streaks wherever he went, marking his path through the great hall clear as a drunk’s trail to the tavern.” Sarah’s shoulders shook. “His precious white stallion ended up looking like a carnival horse.”


    The workshop door groaned and Thomas peered in. “How goes the learning?”


    “Father!” Ember lifted her latest attempt at embroidery, then faltered as she saw how the merchant mark sprawled across the fabric like a spider had seized with fits while spinning.


    Sarah caught her eye and snorted. “We’re telling tales about the Purple Panic of ''32.”


    Thomas’s ledger drooped in his hands. “The experimental dye batch? Gods, half the noble quarter looked like grape harvest gone wrong. Never heard such shrieking from the washerwomen.”


    “But that wasn’t even the best part,” Sarah wheezed. “It kept spreading. Every damp bench, every wet wall-”


    “Purple!” they chorused, breaking into fresh laughter.


    Ember’s sides ached as she watched her mother dab at streaming eyes while her father sagged against the doorframe. Her mangled stitches lay abandoned as Sarah described the city guard’s attempts to trace the source, leaving violet handprints on every surface they touched.


    “Your mother,” Thomas gasped, “convinced the entire merchant guild it was bad dye from the eastern provinces. Had them hounding their suppliers for months.”


    Sarah’s attempt at an innocent expression cracked. “Well, it was a dye problem. Just perhaps not quite as… distant as they assumed.”


    More laughter filled the workshop. Ember’s fingers still throbbed from hours of practice, but watching her refined mother cry with mirth over past mischief made her own crooked stitches sting a little less. Perhaps there was hope for her yet.


    Sarah squinted in the fading daylight as she set her needle aside. She gathered Ember’s practice pieces, the rough linen stiff with half-formed merchantry marks.


    “These go below.” She pulled open the workbench’s bottom drawer, the wood groaning as it slid.


    Ember frowned over her shoulder. “They’re crooked. That one’s barely even a mark.”


    “Here though,” Sarah pointed to a section of stitching. “You finally got the guild’s crossed arrows right. And look - these lines are almost even.” She traced the improving pattern of another mark.


    The drawer held a collection of worn fabric - crude attempts at hems, tiny boots with threads poking out like bristles, and practice marks that bore little resemblance to their proper forms. Ember winced at her earlier work.


    “I remember this one.” Sarah lifted a piece of faded silk. “Your first attempt at my nameday gift. You used up half my good thread on it.” Her lips quirked. “Wouldn’t let me help, even when your fingers were bleeding.”


    “You kept all that?”


    “Each one.” Sarah tucked the new pieces among the old. “When the guild masters come asking about your training, they’ll see you earned every stitch.” She nudged Ember’s shoulder. “Though perhaps we’ll hide that attempt at the merchants’ seal.”


    Ember settled against the workbench. “What about your training? Did you make mistakes too?”


    “Did I?” Sarah rifled through the scraps. “Once I took it upon myself to ‘fix’ Madam Blackwood’s wedding dress. Thought I knew better than tradition…”


    The workshop grew dim as Sarah spoke, her stories punctuated by the whisper of fabric. The street outside quieted as vendors packed away their stalls, but mother and daughter remained, surrounded by years of pricked fingers and determination.


    Sarah finally closed the drawer. “Supper won’t cook itself.” She touched Ember’s copper hair, so like her own. “Tomorrow I’ll tell you about the time I nearly ruined the mayor’s wife’s feast dress. Now there’s a proper warning about rushing work.”


    Ember gathered the remaining scraps, her fingertips raw from the day’s practice. In the drawer, her mistakes might rest alongside her mother’s, but each one marked another step toward her mark in the merchant’s guild.