Chapter 185: Jingles's Fourth Bell

Evening pooled against the windows of floor twelve, the silver threads over the Gilded District trembling whenever the wind changed. Nilo sat on the sill with the bandolier across his knees, watching a net still waiting for its last knot.

"Chat, the sky is knitting itself a scarf and nobody asked my opinion," Pipa murmured from the couch, her drone idling over her shoulder.

"Then keep your opinion quiet for ten minutes, the rack has been shaking since lunch."

She mimed zipping her mouth shut, then curled her legs beneath her to watch the window. The bells on the second hook rang once, thin as a spoon tapped against a glass.

"I need to say something before I lose my nerve," Jingles whispered.

Nilo lifted the cracked mask from its hook, the gold line along its brow flickering like a candle. Zilch and Cadenza went silent beside it, Clangor slowly lowering the rag he used on his dented visor.

"You have my full attention, the sky is on mute anyway."

"The Collector took something from me, a long time ago, at that table of hooks."

"Took what?" Nilo asked.

"He sat me down, very politely, and asked if I would lend him my smile," Jingles said, the words tumbling over each other. "I said yes, he asked so nicely, then I could not find it for years."

"Young man, a gentleman asks a lady for a dance, he does not borrow her smile," Clangor rumbled.

"Darling, that is not a theft, it is a crime against the theater," Cadenza whispered.

Days ago the mask offered half a memory, a long table, a hand sewing a smile onto a face. Now the mask trembled against his palm as though the rest of it pressed on the porcelain from inside.

'A smile. He took the one thing this mask never stops doing, I thought the jokes were just nerves.'

"Is that why you pun every time you're scared?" Nilo asked.

"Puns are what is left, you cannot sew a hole shut if you keep poking it with jokes... heh, sew, did you hear it?"

He tilted the mask toward the window light until the crack across its brow stopped looking like a flaw. It was a seam, neatly stitched, in gold thread too fine to see unless the whole sky was watching.

"Somebody sewed you back together, Jingles, the same way he sewed that smile onto a face that wasn't yours."

"Please do not say it out loud, if you say it out loud it becomes true," the mask squeaked.

"It was always true, we're just finally saying it with company."

Silence settled over floor twelve until Zilch spoke, three words falling like coins, "Pull the thread."

"Darling, a thread is only a very long sentence, and every sentence can be interrupted," Cadenza added softly.

Pipa sat up very slowly, her drone swiveling its red eye toward the rack on the wall. The gold line widened a hair along the porcelain, the window glass humming a note nobody played.

"I do not know how, I am a coward, I am the least qualified bell in the world," Jingles said, his voice cracking.

"You stood under a falling street in Ferrier Row, remember that one?"

"That was an accident, I tripped forward very bravely."

Nilo slid the cracked mask against his cheek, smiling a little, "Then trip forward again, I've got you."

The mask met his face and the world rang like a struck bell, teal hair spilling down his back. Red and teal diamonds closed over his coat, a chain whip uncoiling into his fist with every link chiming.

[ BOND UP ]

[Mask: Jingles]

[Bond: 4]

[Skill: Laugh Track]

"Chat, a man laughed at the sky... a stitch came undone, I want this on my gravestone," Pipa breathed.

A laugh rolled out of his chest that he never chose, huge and slightly out of tune. Beyond the window every silver strand shivered, one knot after another coming loose over the whole District.

"Laugh Track undoes a stitch wherever it lands, no thread is safe from a good joke," he said, grinning despite himself.

A single silver thread drifted through the glass onto the sill, curling there like a tired snake. It dissolved the moment Nilo laughed again, leaving only a faint scent of lavender and cold iron.

"Hahaha, that is the first time my own noise has been useful to anybody," Jingles sniffled, his bells rattling in happy circles.

He shrugged, "It's useful, it's loud, it's a little embarrassing, that makes it a signature move."

Then the price arrived, Jingles's hourly laugh honking out of him in the middle of the quiet. Pipa slid off the couch wheezing helplessly into the cushions while Clangor muttered something stern about decorum.

The bells sagged on the chain, "That one was on the clock, I am so sorry, it always is."

'Four bells. His very first reaction is to apologize to a printer.'

The door swung open and Zinnia stood there with her sleeves rolled, a teacup rattling in its saucer. Her gaze crossed the sill, the thread ash, the jester hair, then settled on him with plain suspicion.

"Every fork in the kitchen jumped when you laughed, I would like to know... whether that was intentional."

"It was a Bond level, Quartermaster, not a crime."

"Your Bond levels come with property damage, I have a form for it, section three."

Pipa waved from the floor, "Chat, the Quartermaster is filing a complaint against a laugh, subscribe for the verdict."

Zinnia set the teacup on the printer, which wheezed in gratitude, and crossed the room to stand beside him. She studied the mask in his hand the way she studied any ledger that finally balanced, with quiet respect.

"Congratulations, Jingles, I do not think I have ever heard you sound proud."

The mask rattled happily, "Nobody has, I am as shocked as the forks."

"Noodles are on the roof at nine, Pipa ordered for six and a half," Zinnia said, retrieving her teacup.

"The half is Gerald, please do not ask me about it," Pipa admitted from the floor.

Zinnia's mouth twitched at the corner, the closest she came to laughing in front of a witness. She picked up the teacup and drank, hiding behind the rim like a fox behind a fence.

"Tomorrow midnight belongs to the Collector, tonight belongs to noodles and one very large fourth bell," she said.

"Then I'll eat first and panic afterward, that's Tink's rule too."

A sound rolled down from far above the clouds, so deep it rattled the glass in its old frame. It was a laugh, vast and slow, as if something the size of the sky found the joke delicious.

"That was not me, that was someone else entirely, please tell me I am right," Jingles said.

"It's coming from up there, it sounds pleased with you."

"It knows my name," he whispered, the gold crack flaring bright, "it has always known my—"

"Then it can ask politely like everybody else," Nilo said, lowering the mask.

He rose from the sill, the room gone strangely quiet around him as the last echo slowly faded. In the window glass his reflection faced him with a wide grin, though his own mouth stayed shut.

The reflection laughed first, a full beat before the sound left his own throat.