I had six days to save my future, almost no money to do it, and a family that wanted me to fail.

The fit was an act of violence.

Simone’s proportions were longer and leaner than mine, which meant the leather spine had to be loosened, the brass stays retied, and the entire waistline re-anchored under her ribs. For four hours, Simone stood on an overturned transmission crate while I crawled around her feet with pins held between my lips, my fingers bleeding through the chalk marks.

“Tighter,” Simone commanded, not flinching as I pulled the braided leather cord around her torso. “If I can breathe comfortably, the skirt will bounce when I turn at the marker. McQueen didn't let his girls breathe. Make it fit like a bullet casing.”

“It’s going to bruise your hip bones,” I muttered through the pins.

“Bruises heal by Tuesday,” she replied, her eyes fixed on her reflection in the dirty plate-glass window of the garage office. “Disgrace lasts until you die. Again. Pull it.”

When the final knot was secured, Simone took three steps across the oil-stained concrete.

The effect was hypnotic.

The hemp understructure held the hem in a wide, sweeping arc that didn't sway like normal silk; it cut through the air with a rigid, geometric momentum. The burgundy satin caught the harsh garage lights and turned the color of dried blood, while the brass wire braided through the leather spine gleamed like polished vertebrae.

She didn't look like a girl going to a graduation ball.

She looked like an empress walking toward an executioner's block—and she looked like the one holding the axe.

“We have an issue,” Leo said, walking in from the front office with a clipboard. “Julian Thorne just updated the check-in protocol for tomorrow. Every entrant has to submit their raw construction logs and source invoices at the preliminary staging desk by 10:00 AM tomorrow, or they don't get backstage credentials.”

My heart plummeted. “Invoices? For what?”

“Fabric provenance,” Leo said, spitting into a trash can. “It’s a rule they usually ignore, but Thorne just sent a mass update. Vanessa’s hand is all over this. They know you don't have receipts from luxury distributors. They think you’re using stolen material from her studio.”

“I have my receipt from Abernathy’s,” I said, digging into my pocket.

“For agricultural hemp and fishing wire?” Leo shook his head. “Thorne will throw that out in five seconds. He’ll claim it doesn't meet safety or quality standards for the Parsons showcase. You need an invoice for the silk.”

I stopped. My breath hitched.

The burgundy satin hadn't come from Abernathy’s.

It had come from the bottom of my mother’s cedar chest. It was the last bolt she had bought in New York thirty years ago, saved for a bridal gown she never got to make before the sickness took her. There was no receipt. The company that milled it had gone out of business during the subprime crash.

“If I can’t prove provenance,” I whispered, “they’ll disqualify me at the desk. Before Simone even steps onto the floor.”

Simone turned slowly on the transmission crate, her eyes flashing.

“Julian Thorne isn't looking for invoices because he cares about the rules,” she said coldly. “He’s looking for them because he wants an excuse to hand Brianna the ribbon without an awkward comparison. I know Julian. He’s vain, he’s broke, and he owes three different textile syndicates money for his failed ready-to-wear line in Atlanta.”

She looked down at Leo. “Where is the ledger?”

Leo paused, his grease-stained face freezing. “Simone, don't bring that up. That was three years ago.”

“Where is the ledger, Leo?” she repeated, her voice dropping an octave. “The one with Thorne’s private kickback accounts from the regional textile board? The ones he used to pay off the girls who complained about him?”

Leo stared at his sister for a long, terrible moment. Then he reached behind the fire extinguisher on the wall, pulled a flat brass key from a hidden magnetic box, and walked toward the small safe bolted beneath his desk.

“If you use this,” Leo said, his voice flat, “you’re burning the house down. You won't just win a scholarship, Nia. You’ll make enemies who will follow you to New York.”

I looked at the burgundy dress, at the blood-stained hem, at my own swollen, bruised wrist.