The next two weeks blurred into one long, sweat-soaked montage of steel needles, spider silk, and frustrated triumphs.

  Swift worked shoulder-to-shoulder with Lee nearly every day, their hands raw from cutting, threading, and layering the silvery fibers. At first, the spider silk resisted manipulation. It frayed under pressure, refused to stitch evenly, and reacted to heat in unpredictable ways. But Lee, relentless as ever, kept experimenting—twisting fibers, layering in patterns, interweaving tension anchors into key points for mobility and durability. Swift brought in his field knowledge—where padding needed to go, how seams could fail under stress, what friction points would shred through poor stitching.

  Together, they turned theory into reality.

  After nearly fifteen days, it all came together.

  The finished set was beautiful in its simplicity—lightweight, modular, and unmistakably Swift.

  The gloves came first—thin, but reinforced along the knuckles and back of the hand. They remained flexible at the joints, with spider silk woven into the lining like a second skin. They didn’t shift, didn’t slide, and held up under real pressure.

  Next were the elbow and knee pads. Simple, but rugged, with curved bands of layered silk threads shaped and sealed into semi-rigid plates. They could take a hit without shifting out of place and were sewn directly inside the flight suit in segmented fashion.

  Then the vest.

  The vest was a masterwork.

  Modeled closely on Swift’s military-issued plate carrier, it had modular webbing attachment points across the chest and waist—rigged to fit a number of custom-made pouches that Lee had put together in the evenings. Two magazine pouches, a dump pouch on the right side, and another general utility pouch on the left flank. Excalibur didn’t use magazines—yet. But Swift hoped that day would come. In the meantime, the pouches were good for holding extra tools, rope, or even snacks.

  “I hate how proud I am of this,” Lee said, admiring the gear under the lantern light. “This is better than anything we’ve made so far.”

  “Yeah,” Swift said, quietly, running a hand along the vest’s chest panel. “It’s right.”

  Then came the problem.

  Waterproofing.

  Kevlar needed it to keep its strength. Moisture weakened the fibers over time. Even though spider threads aren’t Kevlar, Swift assumed that a similar material with heat resistance could be weak to water. Plus, waterproofing gear is always useful. Waterlogged gear could weigh a person down in a fight.

  Lee had suggested animal hides—sealant made from oil-treated leather, or even layering with fur—but Swift immediately shut that down.

  “You’re not wrapping my gear in wet dog coats,” he’d said flatly, imagining all his sleek, modern lines matted with damp fuzz.

  Instead, Swift remembered a simpler method. Old school. Tree sap.

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  He explained to Lee how to boil it down, strain it, and mix it with ash or oil to form resin. A crude waterproofing agent, but effective—and natural. Lee pointed out the nearest forest, and Swift made a day trip, returning with a satchel full of viscous sap and sticky fingers.

  Only two items left on his list.

  The bivy sack—easy.

  And the helmet.

  The moment Swift mentioned it, Lee gave him a look like he’d asked her to build a siege cannon from sticks and prayer.

  “I knew you’d bring this up eventually,” she muttered.

  “Come on,” Swift said. “It’s the last piece.”

  “You’re asking for moving parts, protection, visibility, and—what was it?—a floating magic display inside your eyeball?”

  “Sort of,” he admitted. “Let me show you.”

  He pulled out his notebook and flipped to the sketch—refined since their last talk.

  The base design combined a Kevlar-lined baseball cap, worn backward, with a rotating mask and visor pivoting from points at the temple. The mask itself was based on a thermal paintball mask—curved and tight, offering full-face protection without choking vision.

  Attached to the side were slim over-the-ear cups, modeled after the communications headset Swift used as a JTAC—not bulky, just enough to shield from explosive noise and ideally, amplify quiet sounds.

  She studied the sketch for a long while, eyes narrowing. “Okay... I can probably figure out the cap. Kevlar structure, reinforced seams. These pivots?” She pointed at the hinges connecting the mask to the hat. “They’ll take some trial and error, but doable.”

  She moved her finger down the page. “The mask shape? Yeah, with the silk hardened and maybe layered with glass or polished crystal… I can get it close.”

  Then she frowned, pointing to the labels Swift had scrawled around the ear panels and visor interior. “‘HUD’? ‘Sound amplification’? Magic lens readout?” She looked up at him. “What the hell is all this supposed to be?”

  “That’s the part that isn’t physical,” Swift said. “The tech part—heads-up display, hearing enhancement—that’s not going to be crafted like the rest.”

  “Then how the hell do you plan to get it working?”

  “Through blessings.”

  Lee squinted. “What?”

  “Blessings,” he repeated. “Like permanent enhancements. It’s how our weapons evolve. How we bond to them. There are tattoos that represent it.” He held up his wrist, showing the faint two dots. “Same system. You can infuse objects with abilities—if you know how.”

  Lee slowly leaned back. “I’ve never heard of any of that.”

  Swift blinked. “Really?”

  She shook her head. “I’ve heard of bonded weapons. Everyone knows about those. But ‘blessings’? Tattoos doing magic? No one I’ve known ever talked about that.”

  Swift paused.

  They kept it from civilians? Even crafters like Lee?

  He hesitated, then said, “It’s written in a weird language. Or symbols? You need to know how to read it to make the blessing take. That’s what I’m missing.”

  Lee tapped the table absently, thinking. Then, with a spark of realization, she stood up.

  “Wait here.”

  She disappeared into the back of the shop. When she returned, she carried a heavy, dust-caked book bound in worn leather. Its corners were battered, the edges fraying with age. She set it down with a thump.

  “My grandfather gave me this before he passed,” she said. “Told me to keep it safe, said it was old knowledge from the early generations. I opened it once a long time ago but couldn’t understand the writing. Figured it was just religious babble.”

  She slowly cracked the cover open. Inside, the pages were filled with strange diagrams, symbols, and notations in a language Swift couldn’t immediately read—but the structure… the flow... it felt right.

  “This… this might be it,” he said, running a hand along one of the diagrams. “These look like blessings. Maybe even schematics. The stuff they never told us.”

  Lee folded her arms. “You really think you can read it?”

  “I can try,” he said. “But if this works... it could change everything.”

  She nodded, serious now. “Alright. You read it here. Don’t take it out of the shop. If word gets around that I’m sitting on some ancient god-script, I’ll have a lot more than spider-silk requests at my door.”

  “Agreed.”

  Swift turned the page, heart beating faster with every line of unfamiliar script.

  These symbols are like the ones on Morrow’s boots.

  Outside, the sun dipped behind the stone rooftops of Crescent City.

  Swift might have found a key to unlock blessings.

  Lee just happens to have a book...