For about twenty minutes, I considered doing nothing. I imagined Sienna on a runway under bright lights, hearing the applause that was meant for my hands, while I sat at home and told myself I had been mature. It would be easier to avoid a fight than to face my mother's anger. But every time I tried to close the portfolio, I saw the date on the first sketch: March 18. I knew exactly what had happened in the seven months since then. The truth had weight, and for once I was going to let it stand.
I called Imani. She listened without interrupting while I told her everything. Then she said, "Send me the confirmation email from your application. Now."
"What are you going to do?"
"Help you stop apologizing for being robbed."
Within an hour, Imani had organized my photographs into a dated sequence. We had images of the original sketches in March, the muslin fitting in April, the first rose embroidery in May, and the finished bodice in July. She saved the video files with their original metadata rather than editing them into a dramatic montage. She also located a screenshot of Sienna's promotional post, where a cropped photograph of my gown appeared with the words *Designed by Sienna Monroe*. The caption was recent enough that it could not explain away the months of documented work preceding it.
I telephoned Evelyn next. She told me to come to her house and bring everything I had. When she opened her door, she looked at my face and didn't ask whether I'd been crying. She simply put a cup of tea in my hands and pulled two chairs close to her dining table. I spread out photographs, receipts, and the pattern book. She moved through them with the calm concentration I'd seen her bring to a difficult fitting.
"Where's the signature?" she asked.
"Inside the left hem facing. Under the seventh rose."
"And you photographed it before closing the seam?"
I showed her. She leaned back and looked at me for a moment, as though she wanted me to hear the answer to a question I hadn't asked. "Then you have more than a story, Talia. You have a record."
We wrote to the Aurora organizers together. I included the reference number from my original submission and explained that a close family member had taken possession of the completed garment and intended to present it as her own. I asked them to preserve both entries and arrange a provenance review before publicly crediting the dress. I did not accuse anyone of crimes I couldn't prove. I simply described what had happened and attached the material supporting my account.
At nine that night, a reply came from the program director, Helena Ward. She confirmed that my entry had been received under my name weeks earlier and said that a second applicant, Sienna Monroe, had submitted images of what appeared to be the same garment through a sponsored showcase channel. Because authorship was disputed, neither entry would be eligible for judging until a review could be completed. She invited me to bring my physical patterns and source files to a private appointment the next afternoon.
I read that email three times. I had been afraid nobody would even open my message. Someone had read it and believed it deserved a fair hearing.