Chapter 172 The Hem of the World

Darkness swallowed the ballroom whole, a bottomless drift of loose thread where up and down changed places without warning. Both halves of the hall hung in it like open palms, a thin silver seam stitched down the middle.

Ganzo roared, "Everybody grab something, the floor has left us!"

"I am holding a rafter and a grudge, in that order," Bruno shouted.

Zinnia flung a rope of gold light across the dark, lashing Bruno's horn to Calla's scarf and Ganzo's belt. The whole squad swung together like laundry on a line, shouting insults at gravity until it consented to return.

"Whoever is holding my belt, I am very fond of it, so please be gentle."

Both masks went cold on his face at once, the Double Mask's overload slamming shut like a door. He could not swap or summon a blade, only hang in the dark leaking rain from his sleeves.

'One minute locked out of every mask. He timed that cut on purpose.'

"Is the lockup my fault, I did say this would end badly, I keep saying that," Jingles whispered.

"None of this is your fault, just hold on to the bandolier," he murmured.

"Allow me to tidy up, gentlemen, I so dislike leaving a shop in this condition," the Collector's voice echoed.

A single bright needle drifted out of the dark, trailing silver thread that sewed itself into the seam. Each stitch drew the two halves of the hall together an inch, the dark closing like a mouth.

"Captain, can you hit that seam... before it closes for good?"

Ganzo's hammer blazed orange as Tusk's fire poured down the shaft, turning the dark around him to dusk. He swung across the seam, a crescent of molten light that split twenty stitches and scorched the night.

"Twenty stitches, Captain, I have forty thousand more, do keep swinging," Spindle called, already re-sewing.

Her silver thread coiled around the hammer's shaft in three quick turns, dragging it down like an anchor. Bruno hit the thread from the side with both horns, shattering it in a burst of splintered silver.

He shook splinters from his horns, "A Steelhorn does not get tangled, I get tangled only on purpose."

Zinnia caught his sleeve out of the dark, "How long are you locked out?"

"Forty seconds, give or take, I cannot even lift a mask," he said.

The Collector drew a dress form out of the dark, its head wearing a face Nilo refused to look at. Calla crossed the dark like a thrown knife, fingers stretching toward the cloth sleeve, a raw sound tearing from her.

"Not tonight, dear, the mending is unfinished, I do dislike a customer who snatches," the Collector said gently.

A needle pinned her sleeve to the dark, the form rising out of reach on a ladder of thread. She tore free with a strip of cloth in her fist, the only thing the dark let her keep.

"That face is mine, you had no right to hang it."

"Every face on a hook was surrendered the moment I cut it, dear, that is simply how a trade works."

He snapped his fingers, every hook in the hall flying into his apron like swallows into a chimney. The whispering masks went with them, a hundred voices fading to a thread, then to nothing at all.

"I read every name tonight, tailor, I will read them again in your hall," Nilo said.

"Do keep the hook warm, Mister Nilo, the seventh is yours, bring it to the Hall of Mirrors on the fifth—"

The brass hook spun through the dark and landed in his open palm, warm as a living thing. It tugged toward a distant glitter, a very old hall of mirrors the Foxes still called their own.

"That is my family's Hall," Zinnia whispered, "the Hall my father keeps."

Zinnia's face went still in a way he feared, the gold fading from her rapier by degrees. She was doing sums again, adding a father, a bargain and a hall into one terrible number.

"Then we walk into your family's Hall together, we walk out together, that is the whole plan," he said.

The last stitch pulled tight, the dark folding shut with a sound like a book closing. Cold cobblestones struck his back, then a gray dawn spilled over the roofs of Silk Row.

Pipa shouted from a chimney, "Chat... chat, is anybody there, the whole shop just folded up like a napkin and I watched it from here!"

Number one hundred and one was gone, the buildings on either side pressed together like a closed book. Squad Nine lay scattered across the empty road, soaked, scorched, breathing, rain still dripping steadily from Nilo's shawl.

"Everybody count your fingers," Ganzo said hoarsely.

Gold light crept along the awnings of Silk Row, touching mannequins that stood in their windows with perfectly empty faces. Shutters rattled open one by one, startled tailors peering out at a squad of soaked Hunters sprawled across their road.

"Is that the Bureau out there, we have a complaint about the noise!" a tailor shouted.

Ganzo lowered his hammer, shook out his enormous coat, draping it over Calla's shoulders without once looking at her. Bruno turned his back to the whole street, arms folded, a patient one-man Steelhorn wall against every watching window.

"Shut up and sit down, kid, you are bleeding from the nose."

Calla sat on the curb with the strip of cloth in both hands, shoulders very straight, looking at nothing. Zinnia sat down beside her without a word, laying her rapier across her knees, taking hold of her wrist.

"Do not say anything kind, I will have to stab someone."

"I was not going to say anything at all, I am merely sitting here."

The lockup broke at last, both masks warming against his skin, the rain shawl dissolving into plain gray mist. He sat down on Calla's other side, saying nothing, holding out the last dry handkerchief in his battered coat.

Calla took the handkerchief, "Rule one still holds, you did not look, I noticed."

"Rule one is the only rule I intend to keep forever," he answered.

"Violet, whatever you need, say it and the squad turns into a wall," Ganzo rumbled.

"I need something fried... ten minutes of silence."

"Fried it is, I know a stall that opens at six."

"Darling, the tragic third act has a chair waiting for you, do sit," Cadenza murmured from the rack.

"Rest first, fight later," Zilch said.

"Young man, a gentleman does not weep in the street, he weeps in a study beside a fire," Clangor sniffed.

He wiped his cheek, "Tell that to Sorrow, she cried in a canal for a thousand years."

"I would like it noted that I was brave for at least three seconds back there," Jingles whispered.

"Noted, I'll tell Tilly to put it on your page," he said.

The brass hook flared in his fist, silver stitching racing across the cobbles in long careful lines. Neat tailor's letters pulled tight one by one, spelling out a cold message meant for him alone.

"The fifth midnight," Zinnia read aloud, her hand tightening on Calla's wrist.

'Five nights to learn what the Foxes sold, plus one hook that wants to be hung.'