Naoni gave her a tentative smile. Her father, in keeping with their new-found affluence, had insisted they hire a servant, but his elder daughter was still not sure how a mistress should treat a hired lass.

Her sister had no such worries. To Faendra, every stranger was a friend yet unmet, and any girl living under her roof as good as a sister. She picked up a skein of glittering purple and draped it around Lark's shoulders.

"What say you? Wouldn't you love to wear a gemsilk gown?"

Lark carefully lifted the skein and set it aside. "For my work, in this heat? It'd be as wet as washrags by highsun."

"Don't be goose-witted. You wear such gowns to noble revels, not for cheese-making!"

"I've been to many such," Lark replied, in a tone that implied her memories of revels were neither fond nor impressive.

"To serve, yes, but not on the arm of some handsome, wealthy young man!"

Lark's lips thinned. "I know my place and want no other."

"Let's wrap and bundle the skeins," Naoni said hastily. They all got on well enough, but Lark had little patience for Faendra's thinking: beauty was its own guild, and the business of its members was to charm all the world into doing their will.

Faendra gave her sister a sunny smile. "I'll just change my gown and freshen my hair." She danced out of the room, humming.

"She'll not reappear until the task is done," Lark murmured.

True enough, but such truths would sit ill with the master of the household. "My father would not like to hear it said that any Dyre shirks work," Naoni observed carefully.

"Then I'll say instead both Dyre sisters are willing workers," Lark replied dryly. "Naoni's willing to work-and Faendra's willing to let her."

Naoni smiled faintly, shook her head, and wrapped linen over her basket. "That's the last of it. It seems strange so much thread can be woven from a handful of gems."

"Stranger still you can do it at all."

Faendra reappeared, twirling to show off her new blue gown and slippers dyed to match. The bodice was fashionably tight, the sleeves thrice-puffed and slashed to best display her rounded, rosy arms, and the slim skirt hugged her hips and thighs before flaring out in a graceful sweep.

Naoni frowned, gray eyes stern. "You're dressed very fine for the Warrens. Is that wise?"

Her sister danced over to kiss Naoni on the tip of her nose and then spun away with a grin. "You worry overmuch. Let's be off!"

As the three girls made their way through Dock Ward, the streets were as crowded and bustling as usual, but no fights or spilled wagons drew crowds and slowed them. Even the everpresent handcarts were fewer and less precariously loaded than usual.

They were soon standing in a narrow alley that ended in a tangle of ramshackle buildings. Naoni tapped on a sagging door half-hidden behind a rotting pile of broken barrel-staves.

It swung open to flickering torchlight amid darkness and the familiar hard stares of a pair of halfling guards. Mostly hidden beyond the doorframe, they were dressed as human urchins, and their belts bore cheap, bright-painted leather scabbards. Despite their childish, harmless appearance, those scabbards held swords that were very real and very sharp.

"A fine afternoon to you both," Naoni said, hefting her covered basket. "I've business with Jacintha."

The guards nodded and silently drew back to let her pass. The three girls ducked inside, and Lark spread her hands, palms up, to show she bore no weapons.

"You, too," one hin said in a surprisingly gruff voice, nodding at Faendra. "Palms, pretty one?"

The younger Dyre sister rolled her eyes and held her arms out wide as if to ask "And where might I be hiding anything in this gown?"

The guard nodded, and the door was already being thrust closed behind them as Naoni handed the basket to Lark and took a torch from the guards' barrel. Lighting it from their wall-torch, she started along the tunnel.

The smell of damp stone arose strongly around the three, and they took care not to brush against the walls. The Warrens was one of Waterdeep's lesser-known neighborhoods. It had been centuries in the making, beginning with stone houses built along hilly streets. Betimes a higher floor would be added here, or a walkway built across a street from house to house there, and with the passing years stretches of streets were completely hidden from the sun, and many lowest floors became cellars. Rebuilding shored up the lower levels and worked upward from there, and beneath a few blocks of bustling Waterdeep, the slow result of this tireless reaching for the grander was a forgotten layer.

Many Small Folk dwelt here. Gnomes, halflings, and even the occasional dwarf found a congenial and discreet address amid the dark cellars and narrow tunnels of the Warrens.

The lasses passed several gnomes coming the other way, and polite nods were exchanged. Jacintha was so highly regarded that Naoni, by association, was counted among their own.

Soon they reached a familiar arched door. Twice as wide as it was tall, it stood open, letting out a rhythmic, slightly ragged clatter to echo in the tunnel.

A soft clack and sweep filled the room, swelling around the three lasses as they entered. Half a dozen looms clattered busily in the low-vaulted stone hall, but one slowed smoothly as the weaving-mistress left off her work and bustled over with a smile of welcome.

Jacintha was, as usual, too busy for additional pleasantries, taking the basket from Lark without pause to unwrap the skeins and hold them up into the lantern light.

She stared hard and nodded. "Fine, very fine."

Faendra had already wandered over to Jacintha's loom, which bore a silky, almost translucent amber fabric. Woven into it was a pattern of dragonflies with brilliant, glittering wings.

"How's this done?" she marveled, peering closely. "Many colors… but all the threads, warp and weft, seem of one…"

"And are," the gnome said briskly, "made from your sister's amber thread and silk I dyed to match. One drop of amber had a dragonfly trapped in it, as I recall. The pattern's none of my doing; it came of itself as I was weaving. 'Tis a pretty thing."

"Indeed it is," Faendra said longingly. Something brighter caught her eye. "What of this?" she asked, waving at a nearby glittering swath of red cloth.

The gnome smirked. "That'll become a nobleman's evening cloak. Take two paces to your left and gaze on it, letting your eyes lose focus."

Faendra did as she was bid, and after a moment burst out laughing. "There's a pattern: a male peacock, all a-strut!"

"Fitting for those who wear such things," Jacintha observed dryly, "and fitting amusement to those of us who don't."

She unstrung a pouch from her belt and handed it to Naoni. "Your coins are on one side, and the next gems to be spun on t'other. Peridot, a very fine pale green."

"That hue would suit Naoni, with her hair and eyes," hinted Faendra.

Her gaze slid to a bolt of shimmering blue that matched her own eyes, then moved to the pouch holding Naoni's payment, her meaning all too clear.

Naoni looked up from examining the gems to give her sister a warning glance. "A lovely green," she told Jacintha. "I'll enjoy spinning it."

It was the way of gnomes to remember faults, longings, and other weaknesses for future bargaining. Before Faendra could say anything else, her elder sister made swift work of the farewells and hustled her companions back out of the Warrens.

As Father expected her to know the sites where Dyre money or men were at work, Naoni led them up Redcloak Lane to check on the recent damage.