Chapter 171 Rain on the Shears

He touched Sorrow's mask on the bandolier, the rain arriving a full second before the Form itself did. A hooded shawl of falling water settled over his shoulders, silver-blue hair spilling as the lantern staff lit.

"Rain indoors, how very unfashionable, dear boy, it will ruin the wool," the Collector said, lifting his shears.

Sorrow murmured, "Let the tape drink, child, it has never tasted a grief that was not its own."

The yellow tape drank the falling rain and swelled, its numbers smearing into blue streaks that ran down his ribs. Wet wool cannot hold a number, so the cloth tore along its length with a sound like a long sigh.

"Dreadful, I cut that tape from a sunrise, do you know what a sunrise costs?"

"Tilly would add interest, then charge you for the sunrise she already owns."

The torn tape slid off his ribs in wet ribbons, leaving his arms free for the first time tonight. He walked toward the Collector through the puddles, each step ringing like a tiny bell, the lantern held high.

"A customer who walks away unfitted ruins the whole evening for the shop... I do hope you understand."

The Collector stepped sideways into the shine of a brass hook, vanishing like a man through an open doorway. He reappeared in a shining hook behind Nilo's shoulder, shears already closing on the reflection of the Weeper's hood.

'He needs a still surface to step through, so I make every surface move.'

Rain struck the brass and ran down it in silver streaks, the reflection shivering, rippling, then coming apart. The shears snapped shut on a puddle of nothing, jamming with a clang as water filled the blades.

"Oh, that was most inconsiderate of the weather," the Collector said, shaking the shears like a wet umbrella.

"Every drop is a door he cannot walk through, child, you have so many doors."

[ BOND UP ]

[Sorrow: Bond deepened]

[Skill: Lantern of Names, the lantern reads every stitched name aloud and the masks answer]

The water-glass lantern flared, pouring light across the hall in a slow silver tide, rolling over every hook. Names rose from the cut masks like bubbles, lifting off their tags to float in the lantern light.

"Kell Rowan, Imre Dask, Bette Orrin, Hallan Brack," he read aloud, the names pulled from the glow one by one.

"Here," whispered a hundred masks, rustling on their hooks, "we are still here."

Every hook in the hall rattled as the masks answered, a wave of whispers breaking over the Collector like surf. For the first time in twenty years the tailor's hands trembled, his stitched face tipping toward the sound of them.

"They are not supposed to answer, dear boy, I trained them to be quiet."

Hundreds of names hung in the lantern light, turning slowly like leaves on a very quiet river. Each one belonged to a Hunter somewhere in the city who woke tonight with an empty place.

He answered quietly, "Nobody trains a name to be quiet, you only train yourself to stop listening."

The grief of every name arrived at once, a weight that bent his knees and pushed tears down his face. Sorrow caught the weight beneath him, a hand of rain steadying his elbow, patient as a grandmother at a graveside.

"Let it pass through you, child, you are not the first to carry it, only the first to be asked."

Cold Read steadied him as the names settled, his voice dropping to a whisper over the hissing rain. He lifted the lantern until its light pinned the Collector's stitched face like an insect on a card.

"Every name on these hooks goes home tonight, or you do not leave this building," he said, the lantern steady in his fist.

"Oh, how I adore a customer with a deadline, dear boy... it makes the stitching so much tighter."

Rain drummed across the ceiling and the silvered corridor sagged, its glassy strands going slack in great wet loops. Zinnia stepped out of the ruin with gold dripping from her blade, Spindle slipping back into the thread wall.

She flicked gold from her blade, "Next time you rescue me from a cage, do it before I finish the duel."

Her sleeves were scorched to the elbow, her rapier still smoking, her smile fierce as a fox's grin.

"Wet wool smells of mourning... how tiresome," Spindle sighed, fading into her weave.

He pressed Cadenza's mask over the first, rain and music colliding in a blaze that lit the whole hall. The shawl glittered with sequins of water, the staff splitting into a tuning fork that rang with each raindrop.

"Fall like a chorus, drop by drop, until the shearing has to stop," he sang through gritted teeth.

The Diva sighed inside his skull, "Darling, a Rain Aria, I shall be insufferable about this for a month."

"It is raining music, I am officially the soggiest jester in the world," Jingles squeaked.

[ DOUBLE MASK ]

[Sorrow + Madame Cadenza: Rain Aria]

[Duration: thirty seconds, then overload]

Every raindrop rang like a struck bell on landing, shattering the reflection it touched across the hall. The hooks went dull one by one, the ballroom losing its mirrors like a woman losing jewels.

"Stop singing at my hooks this instant, they are not accustomed to being listened to," the Collector snapped, jabbing the jammed shears at the ceiling.

Blood ran from his nose onto the shawl, the Double Mask's strain pressing behind his eyes like thumbs. He counted thirty seconds in his head, then twenty-five, the rain still falling exactly where he pointed it.

'Twenty seconds. Spend them all, then pay for them later.'

Across the boards the Pins slumped one by one, thimbles filling with rain until their needles hung like wilted reeds. Calla dropped from the rafters into the puddles, stepping neatly between the fallen dolls with a shrug of her scarf.

"The Pins are drowned, I would like that noted, I did not even use a vial."

"Wet Pins, fewer problems," Zilch said from the rack.

Three coins rang on the threshold outside, clear as a bell, the door sagging open at last. Ganzo's hammer did not wait for the hinges, punching through the wall in a burst of splinters.

"I paid the door like a gentleman, now I am paying the wall," the captain bellowed.

Bruno shouted, shoulder-first through the hole, "Why is it raining inside a building, I demand a refund from the weather!"

"It is Sorrow's rain, Steelhorn, nothing in this room can be refunded," Zinnia said.

Zinnia, Calla, Bruno and Ganzo closed ranks around him in the ruined ballroom, rain dripping from every shoulder. Four of the strongest Hunters in town stood dripping on the boards, the Collector's smile refusing to shrink.

"You fitted my mop boy without asking the captain, that is a hammer-sized mistake."

"Captain Bellow, how lovely, do you take sugar?" the Collector asked, rolling his sleeves.

"Two lumps, plus a sincere apology from your teeth."

Water dripped from the hooks in the silence, one drop at a time, counting down to something.

The Collector raised the jammed shears overhead, the blades growing until they spanned the whole width of the ballroom. One snip drew a line of silver across the floor, the ballroom tilting wide open like a broken book.

"Do mind the seam, gentlemen, it is a terrible thing to fall between—"

The floor split along the silver line, dropping everyone toward a darkness that smelled of old thread.