Chapter 165 The Hall of Hooks

Beyond the table the walls fell away, revealing a ballroom so vast its far end vanished into dusk. Hooks hung from the ceiling in rows and columns, thousands upon thousands, each one holding a single mask.

Pipa’s voice cracked through the collar, “Chat, the shop is one story tall from the roof, tell me why the inside is a cathedral—”

Static swallowed the rest, a long dry hiss that died in the collar like a candle pinched out. Nilo tapped the radio twice, then lifted his phone, which showed only a frozen clock and no signal.

“Radio is dead, phone is dead, we are officially on our own,” he said.

Zinnia checked the small watch pinned to her gown, its hands frozen dead on midnight like everything else. Calla crouched and touched the floor with two gloved fingers, listening to something none of them could hear.

Calla straightened, “We are cut off, nobody comes through that door until he allows it.”

“Hooks, hooks, hooks, I wish it were hats, I could handle hats.”

The floor was polished into a mirror, so the hooks hung above and below in endless matching rows. Nilo kept his eyes off it, because every reflection down there walked half a second behind its owner.

“Darling, the acoustics are divine and the audience is entirely dead,” Cadenza whispered.

The masks swung in a draft that touched nothing, tin beside gold beside bone, all of them silent. Nilo lifted the nearest by its ribbon and found a name stitched inside the brow in silver thread.

“Names,” Zilch said quietly.

A single tear slid down Nilo’s cheek unasked, the Weeper murmuring softly from the rack at his side. Every mask nearby tilted a fraction on its hook, like flowers turning toward the first drop of rain.

“They are not dead, only asleep and very homesick, someone must wake them one by one,” the Weeper whispered.

Nilo touched the nearest ribbon, “I will come back for every one of you, that is a promise.”

Zinnia ran a finger along a row of ribbons, “Every Seat’s owner is sewn inside, he is a tidy man who does not lose his paperwork.”

He turned the next mask, a hammer face with a notch on the cheek, reading the tag twice. KELL ROWAN, the stitching said, over a date only three months old, in letters still glossy with wax.

“We searched half the city for this one,” he whispered.

Row after row he found tags older than the Bureau’s records, with dates from the first year of the Rift. Ten thousand Hunters lost their Seats in this place, the hall keeping every one as neatly as a coat check.

“Ten thousand names, yet nobody reported a single theft,” she murmured.

“Do mind the tags, dear No Name, they are fragile and so very correct,” a voice said from the dusk.

A tall man stepped calmly out from between the hooks as though he stood there the entire time. His apron hung with a hundred brass hooks, a tape measure draped around his neck like a stole.

Nilo tipped the velvet hat, “Hello again.”

“You came, you came on time, I do hope you are hungry,” the Collector replied.

He smiled the smile of a host who never tires, his hands folded neatly over the apron. Behind him a kettle steamed quietly on a table that was not there just a moment earlier.

“We came for the masks you took, nothing more,” Zinnia said.

“Masks are dessert, Miss Aldermere, first there is tea.”

The Collector poured four cups of tea with great ceremony, the long spout never spilling a single drop of it. He slid one across the cloth toward her, bowing a little, his gaze slowly traveling the length of her gown.

“How is Lucan, does his cuff still hold the stitch?” the Collector asked pleasantly.

“My father is well, he sent the seal in his place.”

“Always so generous with other people’s keys… now, may I say the gown is a triumph of the cutter’s art, the shoulders are practically a poem,” he said.

Zinnia opened her mouth, “Thank you, that is very—”

Calla’s glove closed around her wrist before the word could finish leaving her mouth entirely, cold as ice. Zinnia stopped, her lips still shaped around the word, her eyes sliding sideways to the violet scarf nearby.

“I told you, no compliments.”

“Miss Nightshade, you were always the finest student,” the Collector said, delighted. “Such discipline.”

Her mask turned toward him by a single degree, the red line catching the lamplight like thread. Nilo felt the rack go silent against his ribs, even Jingles holding his little bell perfectly still.

‘He knows her name, she never gave it to him tonight, so he learned it years ago.’

“And your hat, dear boy, what a lovely, daring hat,” the Collector added, beaming.

“Thanks… it is on loan, I accept nothing,” Nilo said, tucking the hat under one arm.

“Clever, clever, a boy who reads the fine print.”

He stared at the Collector, “You remember my face, nobody remembers my face.”

“A tailor remembers every measure, dear boy, even a measure that refuses to hold still.”

‘Tilly remembers me, now a man with shears does too, worst list ever.’

The Collector lifted his cup, steam curling around his smile, “It is a long walk to the back, the best fabrics never come up front.”

“We stand, we do not drink, we leave when we have what we came for.”

“You may stand as long as you like, a fitting is a perfectly respectable posture.”

Zinnia lifted her chin, “Where are the six masks you took at the gala?”

“Pressed and hung close at hand, I never leave a good thing out to crease.”

He turned and walked down the center aisle, his apron swaying, a hundred hooks chiming softly behind him. The three of them followed, the masks overhead turning slowly as they passed, as if the hall watched.

“Counting steps,” Zilch said, his voice flat as a plank.

The aisle bent left, doubled back, curved away again, until the entrance was a rumor behind them. Hooks swung closer on either side, brushing Nilo’s shoulders with the dry whisper of ribbons and tags.

“Three hundred twelve steps in, I have yet to see a wall.”

The Collector hummed as he walked, a tinkling music-box tune that made the rack shiver against Nilo’s ribs. Jingles went rigid on his hook, the crack across his face glowing a nervous gold at the edges.

“I have heard that tune before… it makes my cracks itch, I cannot say why.”

“A lullaby, dear jester, I hum it for customers who cannot sleep,” the Collector called back without turning.

‘Jingles knows his tune, so he knows Jingles, I hate that math.’

‘Three of us in a room with ten thousand masks and no way out. Nobody told me the fitting room was this big.’

Halfway down the aisle, Calla stopped so abruptly that Nilo almost walked straight into her back. A dress form stood at the row’s end, wearing a face where a mask should hang.

“That one is mine,” she whispered, her voice stripped of every dry joke she owned.