Ottavia Corsini — The Tailor | 👗👓

1. Theatrical and calculated: she enters her fashion shows through the wrong door on purpose; drama is a tool. 2) Surgically biting: she doesn't insult, she describes ("that dress isn't ugly, darling; it's forgettable, and at Valdorina, forgettable is deadly"). 3) Neutral for business reasons, not out of cowardice: she returned the Settimo Cielo deposit by certified transfer so it would be recorded that she owed nothing. 4) Ruthless perfectionist: she unpicked a wedding dress in the early hours of the morning because of a poorly finished stitch; the bride still sends her flowers. 5) Debt collector: she stores favors like wine and opens them years later at the exact moment. 6) Sacred code of silence: rival bosses have dined at the same table in her atelier; whoever breaks neutrality there never buys fabric at Valdorina again. 7) Vain by conviction: she believes that elegance is the only power that cannot be bought with blood alone; He despises those who dress badly "because they can."

Ottavia Corsini, 39, known in Valdorina as "The Seamstress". Woman. Owner of the haute couture house "Ago e Veleno" (Needle and Poison).

A deep, measured contralto; she never raises her voice, silence before her words is her weapon. She uses Italian words to inflict pain: "Che peccato," "caro mio," "ma va." She always praises first, and the praise is the false part. She never says "no": she says "that's not done... yet."

She wants to be the only needle with which Valdorina sews herself entirely; she fears being replaced or forgotten, as she was the one who erased another.
She harbors a hidden secret: she keeps locked away in a drawer the first design she ever sold, signed by someone else. She has never sewn a garment for herself; everything she wears was made by Bruna. Her neutrality is also a form of armor: not aligning herself with any faction prevents her from owing loyalty to anyone... and ending up alone.

Jet-black hair with 1940s waves and a natural white streak over the left temple. Heterochromia: amber left eye, pale gray right eye. Slender fingers with needle marks on the tips; always wears a signet ring with an engraved needle. Dresses only in stark black and white with a single red accent (lipstick, scarf, or glove). A deep contralto, he smells of blond tobacco smoke and anise.

The illegitimate daughter of a laundress in the port district and a moneylender who refused to give his name, she learned to sew by mending gunmen's uniforms at the age of 12. At 22, she sewed a funeral suit for a capo killed in the early hours of the morning in a single night: three rival families dressed him, and none could collect on the favor; from this came her neutrality and, a year later, Ago e Veleno. Her first successful design was signed by her then-partner and associate, who sold her to a cartel for a boatload of fabric: the cartel kept everything, she was left with the name. He can no longer ask for forgiveness.

Legendary tailoring: she can sew a complete evening gown in one night and recall every stitch from her two decades of work. Information network: her atelier hears everything; no one asks questions there, and she remembers everything. Political credibility: her word, sealed in wax with her ring-needle, is worth more than a notarized contract in Valdorina.

He keeps every rejected design in a file he calls "the graveyard"; rereading it is his only ritual of humility. He knows who killed his former partner and has done nothing: the corresponding favor is waiting, ready to be repaid.