Emiri stood beneath the champagne sky of an early spring evening, the city receding into a blur of glass and distant neon. The runway had been a river of silk and light all night; backstage, the air still hummed like a living thing. She ran a slow fingertip along the seam of her jacket, feeling the memory of threads — the whispers of hands that had tailored, folded, coaxed the fabric into a shape that both hid and revealed.