Page 42 of A Light in the Dark
The woman laughed. “I’m partial to Shifter Twelve, but I’m married to him, so I have to be partial to Shifter Twelve.”
“You could talk me into getting enough yarn for a single scarf made from Shifter Twelve’s silk. He’s got nice silk. It’s not as nice as Shifter Five’s, but he was a contender.”
“We have a kit with his yarn for a scarf.” The woman headed over to a different section of the store, stood on her toes, and pulled down a blue box, which she carried over. “Since you seem to like blue and green, you’ll enjoy this one. The pattern is meant for beginners, and it’s his winter silk, which is a little coarser but warmer. Since it’s a little coarser, we sell the kit for three hundred.”
I patted the counter next to my project folder. “Please tell your husband I enjoyed fondling his silk today.”
She laughed and nodded. “I’ll do that, thank you. He’s going to be quite jealous over Shifter Five’s sales today, though. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone come in and buy so much before in one go.”
“I got paid a bonus, and for the first time in my life, I’m splurging on something utterly ridiculous that will make me happy for hundreds of hours to come. And Shifter Five, apologies to Shifter Twelve, has the best silk texture.”
“She really did fondle every single sample of silk, Yolana. All I did was tell her there were samples!”
“I saw.” The woman laughed and shook her head. “We have an agreement with most banks to do wire transfers, so if you hand me your debit card, I can initiate the payment. You can confirm the payment in your online banking portal,and as soon as the confirmation is sent, the payment will be ready to clear.”
I wielded my phone like the potent weapon it was. “I’m prepared to spend a shocking amount of money.”
“I’ll catch you if you faint when you find out how much a bolt of luna moth silk costs,” Joel muttered, shaking his head. “When I found how much a bolt cost, I almost fainted.”
“It’s true. He got on his knees, cried over the unfairness of it all, and acted like a child in my damned store, all because he wanted a silk suit and hadn’t priced out the yardage before coming in to buy the materials.”
“Did you buy the silk?” I asked, unable to mask my curiosity.
“I did, and I threw a fit on the floor of the store while processing the payment. With that much money spent, I feel making a public display over my anguish was appropriate.”
I narrowed my eyes. “I’m expecting ten thousand a bolt due to the price of the project holder.”
Yolana chuckled, scanned the bolts, and said, “Someone knows her way around material costs, labor costs, and rarity markups.”
“Two bolts of silk will last me a while, and I will be full of joy but short on money.”
“And with the amount of thread you bought, you won’t have to worry much about running out for a while. We can do special orders for matching silks.”
“How much for a complete color set of Shifter Five’s silk in the twenty yard spools?”
“We sell a spool for thirty a piece, and we can do four hundred different shades.”
I would regret it, but I said, “How long for a custom order of a full set of colors?”
Yolana made a thoughtful sound, went to the computer on the other end of the counter, and tapped at the screen. “We’d have to order silk from the shifter, but we have enough undyed silk in stock to do a hundred and fifty colors. That would take six months to custom dye. We should be getting the next contracted batch of silks two months from now, and we should receive enough to do the complete set. Once we have the silk, it’ll be two months to spin it and six months to dye it. It would be around a year to have the whole set done.”
“Do I pay up front?”
“We ask for a ten percent deposit, non-refundable.”
“Bill me,” I ordered. “Also, you made a very good call to mask the identities of the shifters producing this stuff.” I realized I knew who Shifter Twelve was married to, which would make it possible to locate him. I regarded the woman with wide eyes. “I promise I won’t abuse knowing Shifter Twelve is your husband.”
Yolana cracked up laughing and waved away my concerns. “I’m Shifter One, and I spin and dye all my silk. It keeps me busy when nobody is visiting the store. It’s so specialized that I spend a lot of my day in the back and rely on the security camera to warn me if somebody is coming in.”
Oh. “Now I feel badly I didn’t buy any of yours.”
She laughed. “I’ll toss in a present of some of my silk on the house. You’ve certainly earned a gift for your patronage. I feel like I should give you something for bringing her here, Joel.”
“I could use a bolt of Shifter Three’s silk in navy blue.”
“I will give you a hundred dollars off the bolt.”
Joel scowled. “You don’t have a bolt of navy blue. You never have a bolt of Three’s navy blue.”
