Sweat rolled down Jocelynn's brow, gathered at the tip of her nose, and hung there for a heartbeat before she dared to lift one hand from the loom and brush it away with the back of her wrist.
Even that small motion felt reckless.
The lace stretched across the frame in front of her was barely the width of her palm, and yet she'd spent two days weaving it, one thread over, one thread under, one careful twist at a time, while dozens of slender wooden bobbins dangled from the threads like tiny pendulums waiting for her to make a mistake.
The thread itself was finer than a strand of her own hair, so fine that she could only see it when the lamplight caught it just right, and every time she drew it a fraction too tight, she could feel it straining, ready to snap.
