The Incorruptibles

The unusual bit was her uncle pacing behind her, dissecting her every move and yelping at periodic intervals.

What was so important about this robe? Uncle Randal had been in tatters about it ever since the parcel of glittery rainbow fabric had arrived last week. The cloth was like nothing Fiora had ever touched before: soft like velvet, shiny like satin, and durable like polyester. It was sparkly, too, catching sunbeams from every direction. The fabric never seemed to settle on any one hue for long; it was a changing kaleidoscope of colors, depending on the light.

Uncle Randal had started working on the robe right away, and whenever Fiora had glanced at his work in progress, she’d had to fight the urge to try it on. And she’d never felt that way about the thousands of robes Uncle Randal had made for thousands of customers in the Temperates. Ordinarily she just wasn’t that interested in fashion. Fiora had learned the family business out of necessity, and she’d had no say in the matter.

But she had the talent for sewing. Like it or not, she and her uncle were cut from the same cloth.

“I should do this part,” Uncle Randal said, biting his nails as he watched her thread a button. “Let me. Move aside.”

When she didn’t budge, he leaned forward to reclaim the garment, but Fiora moved it out of his reach. She glanced at him curiously. “But I always do the buttons.”

“Not tonight. This is too critical to leave in an apprentice’s hands.”

Fiora wrinkled her nose at her uncle and continued to work. There was a reason why she did the buttons. First, her hands were smaller and her eyes were better. Second, Uncle Randal was the one who had taught her everything she knew anyway. He had been training her from the very moment she’d arrived at his house at six years old. It had taken her forever to master the basics. But a year later, after Fiora had finished her third embroidery, Uncle Randal had regarded her with a satisfied look that had made her heart swell with pride.

“No one in the family has sewn anything finer,” he’d said simply.

She’d been chasing that feeling ever since, but she knew she wasn’t going to get it tonight. Squinting, Fiora poked the needle through the fabric.

“Careful!” he snapped, his mustache bristling.

“Fine,” she said to her uncle. “You really want to do it?”

He blanched and looked down at his shaking hands. He gulped. “No, no—I simply cannot. I am far too busy!” And yet he continued to pace behind her.

He’s more tightly wound than a spool of thread, Fiora thought as the late-afternoon sun warmed the old wooden store. Her uncle’s shop was small, hot, and cluttered.

Organization would never triumph here. The storefront housed two mannequins, an explosion of textiles, a fitting area for customers, three worktables, and the old sewing machine that Fiora called Snapper Turtle, due to the hundreds of needles she’d snapped on it and because of how sluggish it was.

The cash register sat on a wooden table that also doubled as a kitchen countertop, since Fiora and Uncle Randal lived in the back of the shop, behind the curtain.

Sometimes Fiora wished she could work behind the curtain (where it was cooler) and sleep in the front of the shop (where it was warmer). The shop was especially sweltering today. Sweat slid down her forehead—

“You’ll drip on the robe!” her uncle warned.

Fiora stabbed the needle into a pincushion. “I swear to gods, if you don’t let me work in peace…”

She didn’t finish the threat. She didn’t need to.

Uncle Randal simply frowned and fled to his bedroom behind the curtain in the back of the shop. Several different locks clicked, each bolt and latch snicking into place. In the seven years she’d lived with her uncle, Fiora had never been inside his room. It was completely off-limits.

The forbidden room often haunted her thoughts. Fiora had caught glimpses inside her uncle’s room from the hallway, but it didn’t look that remarkable. It had a bed, a dresser, a filing cabinet full of client paperwork, a nightstand, and a closet. Ordinarily boring….

Except for one thing: the locks on the door. Uncle Randal’s system of locks became more intricate with each passing year. It had started as a standard lock in his doorknob. But in time he’d added a dead bolt, which he locked using a key, which he hid in a drawer, which he then locked with another key, which he then hid in a wall safe, its combination a secret.

With each new lock installation Fiora’s curiosity had grown… until she’d simply burned with it. Why the locks? Why did her uncle take such painstaking care to keep her out? What in dominion did a simple tailor have to hide?

After Fiora had finished attaching two buttons, Uncle Randal emerged again, locking the door behind him. He slipped the key into his puckered pocket. All the while he was muttering to himself. “Running out of time. Attach the buttons, fix the wonky hem in the back, press the label. So much work left.”

“Did you just check the customer’s file, Uncle Randal?”

He nodded.

“And,” she continued, “did we meet all their requests?”

He ignored her question. “Are you almost finished? I need it back.”

“Is it a new customer or old?” Fiora asked.

“Ah, ah, ah. The rules!”

Fiora exhaled heavily. She knew it was against her uncle’s rules to ask about the clients, but this delicate, bold, beautiful cloak was too exceptional.

What type of person would wear something this dazzling, especially when there were sorcerers out and about? Who would dare risk catching their attention?

Fiora hummed thoughtfully. “It has to be a new customer—”

“We’re not discussing this.”

“Because I’ve never seen you this tense,” she finished.

“I am not tense,” he refuted. She rolled her eyes. “I am perfectly composed— FIORA, WATCH YOUR STITCH!”

She jolted, and a button popped off the shimmering fabric and flew out the open window.

“YOU RUINED IT!” her uncle bellowed.

“Only because you startled me!”

He glared.

“It’s really not a big deal,” Fiora said carefully. She knew the best way to deal with her uncle when his mood started to curdle: keep things emotionless. He responded well to facts and logic. Fiora suspected that over the years, she’d learned to adapt to him far more than the other way around. “It’s not lost forever,” Fiora added with a shrug. “It’s just in the mulch outside.”

“Surely you’re not suggesting that this cloak smell like fertilizer!”

“I’ll wash the button.” Fiora stood to go retrieve the button. Her uncle held up a hand to stop her.

“No, no. That simply will not do. Perhaps you do not understand….” He paced across the shop, nearly knocking Snapper Turtle off its table. Floorboards creaked beneath his weight. “My reputation is on the line. This robe must be perfect. Perfect. But perhaps this was for the best. These buttons are entirely incorrect. With rainbow fabric like that, the glimmer ratio of robe to button requires something shinier…. What in Barrows’ name was I thinking?”

A hundred questions bubbled inside her, threatening to erupt like red sauce in a heated pot. But her uncle’s mention of the Barrows made Fiora hold her tongue.

Only rarely did her uncle evoke the name of the Barrows—the dreadful, bullish sorcerers who possessed their town. He spoke of them mostly when cursing or when Fiora was in trouble. (Oftentimes that was one and the same.)

Otherwise Fiora and Uncle Randal very much liked to pretend that the sorcerers did not exist. Even though their presence was a constant thumbprint on their lives.

Fiora knew that she and her uncle shared an unspoken hatred of sorcerers. Whenever they were out and about together and the sorcerers were nearby, Uncle Randal would clutch her shoulder, and she’d always look up at him to see his lips pursed, his expression taut, and his eyes shimmering with loathing.

It was actually one of the ways she felt most connected to her uncle.

Uncle Randal took the robe in his hands. “This garment,” he mumbled, “will never be good enough. These buttons will be the death of me.” Gingerly he cut out the other button she’d just sewn in. “Fiora, can you get me buttons?”

Fiora nodded and slipped behind the curtain that separated the storefront from their living area.

Back here the temperature dropped palpably and the lights barely worked because they barely mattered. Uncle Randal frequently told Fiora he’d never waste a cent on fixing anything behind the curtain. Not even the heat, the lights, or the leaky showerhead. Not even when Fiora had begged for a modest renovation. “If the clients don’t see it,” he’d said, “then who cares?”

Fiora paused at her room. Out of habit she looked out her one clouded window, but the neighbor’s shade was down. Again. For the thousandth day in a row. She continued walking down the hall.

There was no companionship in Barrowburgh, no friendly neighborly conversations. Everyone kept each other at arm’s length. Even the kids around town rarely spoke with one another.

It was safer that way.

Connection and conversations attracted attention. Attention attracted sorcerers. And by that point it would be too late. To the Barrows, community meant mutiny, and so they’d torment the humans who stepped out of line… or devise even worse punishments. Keeping your head down and minding your own business was the best way to stay invisible.

But some humans—cowards, in Fiora’s opinion—tried to stay in the sorcerers’ good graces by groveling before their power. To bend the knee, to kiss the ring—it was repulsive. Fiora hated these humans more than she hated the sorcerers.

For all Uncle Randal’s faults, not once had he ever licked their boots, not even when the Barrows had been harassing humans in the town square. Fiora admired the way her uncle lay low. It felt sneaky—almost defiant—for him to have a budding business without any fawning whatsoever.

At the end of the hallway, Fiora bent over the chest and pulled out the top drawer. She brought the whole thing back to her uncle. She set the drawer on the table and peeked over his shoulder as he rifled through its contents.

“No, definitely not. This one is lovely, but it has no match. Oh, none of these buttons will do.” He smoothed his mustache. “Fiora, I need you to get me buttons.”

She was confused. “But these are all the buttons we have.”

“Yes, and I need you to get me more. From the store. Now.”

Fiora drew a breath. “But—but the sun’s going down! Curfew’s starting soon, and the sorcerers come out at night! The Barrows!”

Her uncle’s expression was unreadable.

Surely—surely—this was some sort of joke. It had to be a joke, even though her uncle wasn’t the humorous type. But there was no way he’d send her out at the cusp of curfew. “You’re coming with me, right?”

“I need to work on the hem right now, Fiora. I’m running out of time on this cloak. It’ll take you thirty minutes, tops.” Her uncle frowned. “They won’t bother you. Trust me.”

Trust him? The Barrows were cruel. They wouldn’t take pity on her because it was her first time breaking curfew… or because she was young… if that’s what her uncle was thinking.

What was he thinking?

She tried to make eye contact, but he avoided her gaze.

“Of course the Barrows will bother me,” she said at last.

Fiora had artfully avoided the Barrows, but her neighbor Griffith hadn’t been so lucky. He’d had his voice stolen for a week, before the Barrow sorcerer had decided to oh-so-graciously give it back.

Of course, when Griffith had finally been able to talk about the incident, he’d refused.

“Did you hear me?” Fiora asked. Her uncle said nothing. He merely moved to grab her cloak off the coatrack. “Griffith said they stole his voice.”

“Who is Griffith?” Uncle Randal asked. He plucked her cloak from the bunch, and then he suddenly remembered. “Oh, that little butcher’s boy? What are you doing talking with him?”

“I see him delivering meat sometimes when I’m shopping for you.”

He snorted. “I do not like you talking to neighbors, especially those who are liars.”

“Griffith has no reason to lie.”

Her uncle scoffed. “That kid also said he saw an Incorruptible in town.”

Fiora inhaled sharply; she couldn’t help it. Could it possibly be true? Had Griffith really seen an Incorruptible? But no, of course Griffith hadn’t seen one. Incorruptibles weren’t real. A group of resistance fighters trying to take down sorcerers in a sorcerer-ruled world? A laughable idea! Fighting sorcerers was just as futile as trying to lick your elbow—it just couldn’t be done. “What would make Griffith say that?”

“He wanted attention, probably,” Uncle Randal said. “We both know no one is coming to save us from sorcerers.” He tossed her outdoor cloak at her.

Fiora didn’t catch it, letting it hit the worn wooden floor. “You’re punishing me? For popping off a button?”

He shook his head. “This is not a punishment. I am a tailor. You are a tailor’s apprentice. When I need something, you get it. Since I feed you and clothe you and shelter you, it’s the least you can do.”

“This isn’t fair!”

“Life rarely is. You should know that better than anyone.”

She did indeed. Fiora’s eyes drifted up past her uncle’s head, to the painting behind the register, a portrait of her father as a young man. Fiora had inherited his warm brown eyes, tall and plump body shape, and riotously curly hair that was either honeyed or toffeed, depending on the light.

She wished she’d inherited more time with him instead.

Uncle Randal followed her gaze. He frowned. “We both wish things were different. But here we are. Stuck with one another. We are not perfect, you and I. But we are all the family we’ve got left.”

“You’re right,” she said. “So please don’t send your only family outside after curfew. I could die out there.”

“I will not dignify your dramatic hysteria with a response,” Uncle Randal replied.

Slowly, reluctantly, Fiora fastened her gray cloak. Her eyes welled with tears. He’d raised her to fear and avoid sorcerers, and now he was throwing her out into the dark?

“Why are you doing this to me?” And why do you value buttons more than my safety? she wanted to ask. But it was a thought too emotional for her uncle, so she didn’t dare say it out loud.

He rubbed his temples. “Fiora, if the cloak isn’t perfect tomorrow…” He sighed heavily, letting his hand fall away from his round, flushed face. “There’s a lot riding on this robe. The buttons are critical. And I promise, the Barrows won’t harm you.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I do,” he said.

“No, you don’t,” Fiora insisted. She was so confused that her mind was reeling. Was this truly not a reprimand? Uncle Randal usually administered his punishments like he was giving an interview—lots of questions, measured discussion, eye contact, and even a handshake to seal the verdict.

There was no discussion here. His hands were now fidgety in his pockets. And strangely enough, his brown eyes would not meet hers. And if this wasn’t a punishment, and he really did need emergency buttons…

There’s a lot riding on this robe, he’d said.

“Uncle,” Fiora said, “what exactly is riding on—”

“The sun is still in the sky, you know,” he interrupted, shifting uncomfortably. “If you hurry, you can make it back before curfew even begins.” He held the door open for her. “Three different kinds of silver buttons please, Fiora. Give me something to work with here.”

Fiora shivered as she stepped outside. She drew her cloak around her.

Before gently closing the door, her uncle said, “It will be okay.”

Fiora wasn’t sure if that was supposed to reassure her or himself.