The Phantom Tailor Controls the Fool

Backlund's fog is never just fog. I traveled here three years ago and became a stranger who couldn't even hold a tailor's needle. Three years later, I gained a firm foothold, opened a tailor shop, had a pair of eyes that could see "contamination traces" on clothes, and a drawer of things that should not be touched. Among the people who came to see me was a young detective wearing round glasses. The pocket watch he handed me had a faceless god engraved on the inside. There was a noble girl from a well-born family. The old brooch she sent contained a gray rough stone that could beat on its own. A neighbor with a missing companion found a piece of crimson silk thread stained with blood in the crack of the back door step. There was also the old housekeeper of Earl Hall's Mansion. She walked into my shop, put a copper button on my table, and said, "You have a banquet to attend next month." The letters sewn into the lining, the six removed copper buttons, a red brooch with a name engraved on the back, and a woman who had been dead for ten years. All the threads point to the same day, the same party, the same person whose full picture I have yet to see. I'm Janet Lim, a tailor on Queen's Road. The Extraordinaries in this world rely on sequences and magic potions to become stronger. I rely on needlework, scissors, and a pair of eyesight.