The storm began with a whisper.
A missing prototype. A corrupted blueprint. A name scrawled in red thread across Sloane's studio mirror:
"You are not alone. He is watching."
Cassien found her standing in front of it, her back tense, fists clenched.
"Who the hell knew about the Chainstitch project?" she asked without turning.
"Only seven of us," he replied grimly. "And none of us talked."
"They didn't need to talk," Ari said, stepping into the room. "They stitched it into the lining of a decoy coat. Someone's bleeding secrets through their seams."
Sloane walked to the mirror, touched the red thread.
It shimmered faintly.
Council ink.
They'd been compromised.
---
That night, the Velvet Rebellion's compound initiated a lockdown. Communications were severed. Emergency tailoring protocols were enacted — all living suits set to defensive mode. The walls themselves pulsed with glyph-stitches.
Sloane stood before her inner circle.
"There's a mole," she said. "Someone passed the Chainstitch design to the Council. We don't know why. Yet."
Chainstitch was her next revolution — a wearable tech line capable of turning emotional intensity into combat armor. Anger became heat shields. Fear, cloaking. Desire, raw propulsion.
If the Council replicated it, they wouldn't just win. They'd erase everything the rebellion stood for.
Cassien's voice cut through the room. "We interrogate everyone."
"No," Sloane said. "We give them a stage."
---
The Trap: Runway Revival.
Sloane announced a surprise fashion event — "Legacy/Lineage" — billed as an homage to forgotten designers from the Old World. All rebel designers were required to contribute a piece.
But each look contained a code, unique to its creator — a proprietary stitch designed to activate under pressure.
Sloane would watch each garment. Wait for the signature thread to match the leak.
Whoever had betrayed them… would expose themselves through their work.
---
The night of the show arrived, raw with tension.
The opera house had been transformed again — a deconstructed cathedral of light and shadow. Each designer stepped onto the runway wearing their own creation, claiming their history.
The air was so electric even the audience barely breathed.
Cassien's design was a stitched memory of Sloane — brutal, elegant, devastating. It pulled thunderous applause.
Ari's look glitched on purpose, crashing light with sound, the song of a lost mother encoded into every sleeve. People wept.
And then came Finn.
Sloane's old protégé. The quiet genius who had once dyed her boots with powdered rust because it "smelled like rebellion."
His design was… perfect.
Too perfect.
No error. No emotion. Every line surgically correct. But as he stepped offstage, Sloane's gloves burned cold.
The signature stitch matched.
He was the leak.
---
Backstage, chaos unfolded.
Sloane cornered him in the archival wing, fabric ghosts rustling as they passed.
"Why?" she asked.
Finn looked at her, shame in his eyes. "They offered me a label. A seat on the Council. My own line."
"You sold the rebellion," she whispered. "For a brand."
"You told us fashion is power," he said. "I just believed you."
Sloane stared at him. He looked so young. So stupid. So much like she had once been.
She stepped back.
"Remove your coat," she said.
He hesitated.
"Do it."
He obeyed.
Her gloves sparked. She scanned the lining.
Not just one leak. Four.
Blueprints. Names. Backdoor access to the Chainstitch servers.
"You almost brought us down."
"I wanted to belong, Sloane."
"You wanted a throne you didn't earn."
She turned to Cassien, who had just entered, face like steel.
"Exile him."
---
Later, as the compound lights dimmed, Sloane sat alone in the Thread Room, surrounded by reels of memory-imbued thread. Cassien joined her silently.
"Do you think I'm becoming what I hate?" she asked.
He sat across from her.
"I think power reveals who we are. Not who we pretend to be."
She smiled, tired.
"You still love me?"
"I didn't fall for you because you were perfect," he said. "I fell because you made the world bleed color."
She leaned against him, and for a rare, fragile moment, they were just two people in a war of stitches.
---
Meanwhile, across the city—
Dorian stood in the Council's crystal atrium, staring at the prototype they'd built from Finn's betrayal.
Chainstitch, Version: Empire.
But something was wrong.
The power wasn't stable. The design collapsed under emotional spikes. The armor buckled with fear. The propulsion misfired with lust.
Dorian frowned.
"She stitched a faultline into the design."
The other councilmen looked confused.
He smiled grimly.
"She gave us a bomb wrapped in silk."
He turned away.
"She's not just leading a rebellion," he said. "She's building a new empire. And we're running out of time."