Chapter 1: THE MAN IN THE MIRROR
The needle caught the lamplight and slipped through the silk with a whisper.
Lili loved this hour, when the market street outside her little shop went quiet and the only sound was the hum of her old Singer. Bolts of cloth leaned against the walls like sleeping dancers. Chalk dust powdered the floor. This was the only place in the world where her hands knew exactly what to do.
She was hemming a wedding gown for a client when she felt it: the strange hush of being watched.
She looked up at the tall standing mirror in the corner, the one she used for fittings.
A man stood behind her reflection.
Lili froze. He was tall, with dark hair damp as if from rain, and he wore only a gray training shirt, soaked through at the collar. Even through the fabric, she could see the hard lines of his chest and the cut of his abdomen, like something carved by a patient sculptor. He wasn't looking at the dress or at the shop. He was looking at her, with a soft, steady curiosity, as if he had been waiting a long time to see her face.
She spun around.
The shop was empty. Only the ticking clock and the rattle of the ceiling fan.
"Okay," she whispered, pressing a hand to her chest. "You're tired, Lili."
When she turned back, the mirror showed only herself: a small woman with a measuring tape around her neck, tired eyes, and a pin cushion strapped to her wrist like a bracelet.
She laughed shakily and went back to work. Her hands trembled for the rest of the night.
"You're doing it again," Nora said the next morning, sliding a cup of tea across the kitchen table.
"Doing what?"
"Staring at nothing." Nora tucked her feet beneath her, her braids piled in a messy knot. At twenty-two, she was two years younger than Lili and twice as perceptive. "You've stirred that tea for five minutes."
Lili set the spoon down. She almost told her. I saw a man in the mirror. A beautiful stranger who looked at me like I was already his. But the words sounded insane even inside her own head.
"Just tired. Big orders this week."
"Mm-hm." Nora narrowed her eyes. "Or maybe you're tired because Victor called you again at midnight to complain about your 'little sewing hobby.'"
Lili's stomach tightened. "It isn't a hobby."
"I know that. You know that." Nora leaned forward. "Does Victor?"
Lili said nothing. Victor, her boyfriend of two years, with his pressed shirts and his bank job and his plans, had never once called her work what it was. When we're married, you won't need to do this, he said, always smiling, always certain. You'll be at home. Wouldn't that be nice?
It would have been nice, she supposed, if she had wanted it.
"Mama and Papa like him," Lili murmured.
"Mama and Papa like that he has a pension plan." Nora snorted, then softened. "I just want you to be happy, Li. Truly."
From the doorway came a deep laugh. "Are you two plotting again?"
Their brother Elstein ducked under the doorframe, broad-shouldered and grinning, his gym bag slung over one arm. He kissed the top of Lili's head and stole a piece of toast from Nora's plate. She smacked his hand.
"Where were you all night?" Lili asked.
"Training. Big competition coming up for my friend." He crunched the toast. "You've heard me talk about Daniel. The sprinter?"
"The one with the rich parents?" Nora said, eyebrows lifting. "The ones who own half the coastline?"
"His parents are rich. Daniel just runs." Elstein shrugged, fond. "He's the hardest worker I know. Gets up at four every morning. Never complains. Honestly, you'd like him."
Lili barely heard the rest. The name settled somewhere deep in her chest like a stone dropped into still water.
Daniel.
That evening, Victor came by the shop.
He stood in the doorway in his gray suit, his nose wrinkling at the scattered threads. "Still working? It's nearly eight."
"I have a deadline."
"You always have a deadline." He sighed, the kind of sigh that was an argument. "Lili, we talked about this. My mother asked again why my girlfriend works in a tailor shop. It looks bad."
"It looks like a business," she said quietly. "Mine."
"It looks like a phase." He reached out and tucked a stray hair behind her ear, and the gesture felt like a hand closing around her wrist. "Give it up after the wedding. Just think about it."
After the wedding. She hadn't even said yes to a wedding.
When he finally left, Lili sank onto her stool and let out a breath she felt she'd been holding for two years. She reached for her scissors, then glanced up at the mirror.
He was there again.
Standing just behind her left shoulder, closer this time, his face gentle and unbearably real. His lips moved.
She couldn't hear the words. But she read them as clearly as if he had stitched them into the air:
You don't belong to him.
Lili's scissors clattered to the floor.
And somewhere in the dark of the street outside, a pair of running shoes pounded closer, closer, toward her door.
