Chapter 188: Every Mirror in the City

Dusk settled over the Lower Town like a gray blanket, puddles holding the last pink light of the sky. Tilly's stall glowed at the far end of the lane, a string of salvaged bulbs swaying above her counter.

"You are early, you are scared, you owe me a deposit, that is the whole equation," a voice called from behind the counter.

Nilo ducked beneath the awning with his hood up, the bandolier pressing against his ribs harder than ever before. Dot and Fen sat on upturned crates mending radios while Pico hugged a toolbox bigger than his own chest.

Zinnia saw only his plain face in the morning mirror, leaving the brass hook a secret he kept alone.

Nilo lifted his chin, "I'm not scared, I'm punctual, there's a very big difference."

"Your left hand is shaking, I charge by the tremor."

Tilly looked up from a tangle of wires, her goggles pushed high like a second pair of eyes. She studied him the way she studied every broken thing that wandered in, measuring what it would cost.

"Fine, put it on my tab, how much does a tremor cost these days?"

"Two marks per shake, I'll do the math after the world stops ending."

Every window along the Lower Town lane flickered at once, the glass going black before it showed anything else. For exactly one second each pane held the same picture, a narrow shop door with no sign above it.

"That's Silk Row, that's the shop," Dot whispered, backing into a crate.

Fen threw her wet rag over the nearest window like a woman covering a birdcage at bedtime. Dot yanked Pico behind the counter, making the little boy drop his toolbox on his own foot.

"Ow, that hurt my ears, did everybody hear it or only me?" Pico yelped.

"It was loud for everybody, breathe, nothing in that glass can reach through it."

Pipa's face popped up on every cracked phone in the lane at once, hair wild, eyes huge behind her glasses. She was broadcasting from the Bureau roof with the silver sky behind her, talking faster than the signal could carry.

"Chat, every mirror in the city just showed the same door, I counted eleven thousand reports in forty seconds, please cover your glass."

The crew's phones buzzed together with a single flat Bureau tone, an alarm Nilo only ever heard at drills. Crown's voice came through every speaker in the Lower Town, calm as a closed door in a quiet house.

"Hook Curfew is extended to every district, cover all glass, every polished surface, patrols will knock once and expect an answer," she said.

Tilly slid a sheet of cardboard across the stall window, then another, until her counter was sealed on every side. Only a single bulb remained lit, and under it the two of them stood alone in the cramped little shop.

"Come here, you idiot, I'm not doing this in front of a toddler," she muttered.

She reached into her apron and slowly pulled out a folded page, soft at the edges from being handled. It was torn from her notebook, covered in small pencil faces, each one a little different from the last.

"That's the last page of this week, I drew you every night, in case I woke up and the memory was gone."

Nilo unfolded it carefully and found his own face looking up at him, drawn from memory a hundred ways. Every sketch carried a crooked mouth, a stubborn jaw, tired eyes that never quite settled on anything at all.

'Nobody else keeps me like this. A hundred tries, she never once gave up on getting me right.'

"It's me, you got the ears wrong in the third row," he said, his voice cracking on the joke.

"The ears are right, you just never look at them... take the page, if the Collector steals a reflection you carry the original."

"Tilly, I'll bring it back, I'll bring everything back."

"Tch, you promise like a man buying time, say it properly," she snapped.

His hand closed around hers on the folded page, the tremor in his left fingers finally stopping. He made himself meet her eyes, the one person who never needed him to be anyone else.

"I'll come back with my face, my tab, a very long list of everything I owe you."

"Interest starts the moment you walk out of that Hall, so you had better walk out," she said, wiping her nose.

"Take the stairs... do not take the shortcut, bring back every mask that man has stolen."

"I'll take the stairs, I'll even hold the railing," he said, tucking the page into his coat.

The lane outside fell silent as the last window shut its eyes, patrols marching past with thudding feet. Somewhere above the Lower Town the silver threads shivered, as if the whole sky were holding its breath.

A loudhailer droned from the corner, "Windows covered, doors latched, Bureau patrol, keep moving."

Zinnia waited at the tram gate with her coat closed to the chin, a lantern in one gloved hand. She fell into step beside him without a word, close enough that their sleeves brushed twice before the platform.

"You look like you said goodbye to somebody," she said.

"I said hello to the person who matters most in the Lower Town."

"Then do not make her regret it," Zinnia said, squeezing the lantern handle until her knuckles paled.

The tram climbed toward the Gilded District, lanterns passing in the tall windows like slow golden fish. Nobody spoke, the only sound a steady rattle of wheels over the rails far below the cars.

"Lord Steelhorn waited on those steps all day, he refused to let anyone carry him in," she murmured.

The Hall of Mirrors stood alone at the end of the boulevard, every window shuttered, every lantern snuffed. One lantern still hung above the great doors, swinging gently on its chain although no wind touched it.

"Chat, six carriages and one flag shaped like a thimble, this is the worst wedding I have ever crashed," Pipa whispered into her brooch.

Squad Nine gathered on the steps, Ganzo still wearing the sunhat, Bruno cracking his knuckles one at a time. Pipa checked her drones while Calla appeared from nowhere beside the tall pillar, a trick nobody ever mentioned aloud.

"Five minutes to midnight, the Court's carriages are already inside the gate."

"Then we do not keep them waiting, a Fox is never late to her own—"

The great doors began to open on their own, hinges singing in a long note like a tuning fork. Warm gold light spilled across the steps, and from deep within came the sound of a string quartet tuning.

'Lamplight, a waltz, an open door. It's the nicest trap I've ever walked into.'

Ganzo adjusted the sunhat, "Remember, children, a Bellow never breaks a mirror, he merely corrects it."

"Captain, you have corrected eleven this week," Pipa whispered.

"Then tonight I shall correct twelve," he said.

Calla tapped the inside of her wrist, "Three words are written here, so the doors may open as wide as they like."

"Then we go in together, nobody walks through that door alone," Zinnia said, drawing her rapier.

Nilo touched the folded page inside his coat, took a breath, and stepped through first—