For three days, Maya didn't sleep. She devoured the PDF like a sacred text. She learned that bias-cut fabric wasn't just stretchy—it was “vulnerability, because it cannot stand alone; it must drape over a body to find its shape.” She learned that a raw edge wasn't unfinished laziness—it was “grief that refuses to heal neatly.”

Her final project was due in two weeks. She abandoned V7 entirely.

Maya snorted. “I’ve memorized Fashionpedia . I can recite the difference between a gauntlet and a bishop sleeve in my sleep.”