The apprentice's hands had stopped shaking three months into her training. She stood in the dyer's shop on Waterdeep's Mermaid Street, measuring out the pearl dust grain by precious grain, and didn't think about the nobles who'd wear this color or what they'd buy with it. She thought only about the precision. One grain too much and the shade shifted toward sickly. Too little and it fell flat, ordinary. Mistress Vera watched from her stool by the window, saying nothing, the way she always did when the work was going right. The morning light caught the mixture as the apprentice folded it, and for a moment it held the color of dawn on still water. That was the moment she understood why Vera had chosen her. By afternoon, a bolt of silk hung in the shop window, and three nobles sent messages before sunset asking for commissions...