Chapter 166 What Hangs Here

Nilo spun around so fast that the borrowed hat slid off, putting his back to the dress form. He stared at a wall of hooks, reading a mask tag as if it held the world’s secrets.

“I am looking at a hook, the tag on it is very interesting,” he said loudly.

Zinnia pressed both gloved hands over her eyes, turning her whole face toward the dark aisle. Her shoulders shook once with a single breath hauled in through her teeth, then held there.

“Read me the tag so I know you are not cheating,” she said through her fingers.

“Tobias Penrose, Bronze, fourteen years ago, it is extremely boring.”

Behind them Calla made a very small sound, less than a word, like a thread pulled far too tight. Nilo heard her step forward once, stop, then stand perfectly still on the mirrored floor of the whole hall.

“Please,” she said.

It was the first time Nilo heard that word from her, sounding like it cost every coin she owned. Her voice stayed low, but the usual dryness cracked slowly at the edges like old paint on a fence.

“Please do not look… I would like to be the only one who has.”

“We are not looking, there is nothing to see here,” Nilo said.

‘Rule one, nobody asks to see her face, I will keep it even if keeping it costs me the fight.’

“Young man, a gentleman keeps his eyes exactly where a lady requests,” Clangor whispered from the rack.

“Rule one, how touching,” the Collector said, delighted. “Two Hunters facing a wall to protect a stranger’s modesty.”

He strolled back along the aisle, hooks chiming at his waist, stopping beside the dress form like a gallery owner. His long fingers straightened a violet stitch at the face’s edge, tender as a mother fixing a sleeping child’s collar.

“She was twelve years old,” he continued, “standing on a stool in my front room for a school uniform, she held so still.”

“I held still,” Calla whispered. “That is all I did, I held very still.”

“Her family never came back to collect the alterations, the invoice remains unpaid to this day.”

Nilo felt the rack go cold against his ribs, every mask holding its breath before a blade falls. The floor beside the hat showed his reflection looking up, a smear of gray with a flat mouth.

‘She was twelve, standing on a stool, doing exactly what she was told.’

Zinnia whispered without moving, “I will keep my eyes shut until she tells me otherwise, even if I walk into a hook.”

“Walk into a hook, I will tell everyone you were extremely dignified about it.”

“Thank you… both of you,” Calla said, so softly the hooks barely heard.

“You are welcome, the hat is on the floor by the way.”

“I know where my hat is, it is the only thing here I trust,” he whispered, still facing the hooks.

His voice dropped to a flat murmur, the patter gone from it like a coat left in a fire. He turned his head just far enough to speak without seeing, careful as a man crossing a rope bridge.

“Give it back.”

“Of course I will give it back, dear boy, a tailor returns what is owed.”

“Into whose hands, under whose rules?” he asked.

“Into yours, under my rules, I am nothing if not fair to every customer who visits.”

“Fair to a tailor means the customer pays twice, I have read the charter.”

“Fair to a customer means he leaves with both his arms, Miss Aldermere, let us not be greedy.”

“What do you want for it?” Zinnia asked, still facing the aisle with her eyes covered.

“A signature, one name on one little sizing form, then the face goes home in tissue paper.”

The Collector drew a roll of cream parchment from his apron, letting it unroll across the floor. A ribbon of measurements ran down its length, ending in a blank line beside a waiting pen.

“Sign here, ‘Nilo’ will do, I do not mind the nickname,” he said.

Nilo’s eyes slid to the parchment on the floor, catching the smallest print in the bottom corner. The clause was stitched in thread rather than ink, saying exactly what he feared it would say.

“The signer lends the Seat for fitting, to be returned at completion, completion to be declared by the tailor alone,” he read.

“A lease with no end date, signed over a living face, that is fraud under any charter,” Zinnia said.

“Fraud is when a tailor lies, Miss Aldermere, I have never once lied.”

‘He has never once lied. That is the scary part, he only says true things in the wrong shape.’

“No,” Calla said.

Her voice came out as a blade drawn in one motion, with no tremor left anywhere inside it. She stepped past Nilo’s shoulder without turning her head, gaze fixed on the hooks as if reading them.

She lifted her chin, “He will not sign anything, I will not trade a face for a face.”

“Miss Nightshade, you are twelve years late for a bargain, I am simply being generous.”

“Keep it, I have worn the mask longer than I ever wore the face.”

“Such a pity, I laid out cake for the signing, three tiers with marzipan hooks,” the Collector sighed.

Zinnia lowered her hands at last, her eyes furious, holding the fox-head seal up between two fingers. The gold glowed under the lamplight, making every hook in the nearest row tremble on its peg.

“The charter forbids a lien on a living person, section nine says so—”

“Section nine protects garments, Miss Aldermere, never people, your father signed that clause himself.”

The seal in her hand dimmed slowly to a dull gleam, her fingers tightening around the gold fox. Nilo caught the flicker on her face, a girl learning what her family sold along with its reflections.

“Then we take it back ourselves,” he said quietly.

Zilch’s dagger hummed inside the rack, Drifter’s coin clinked once against its hook, the whole arsenal waking up. Nilo slid two fingers over the bandolier, counting hooks the way a pianist counts keys before a concerto.

“You may try, dear, though the tea has grown cold waiting for you to behave.”

The Collector lifted one foot and tapped it twice on the mirror floor, like knocking at a door. Every cup on the long table shattered at once, the porcelain flying outward in a wide bright spray.

“Pins,” Calla breathed, drawing her blade at last. “Do not let the needles touch your skin.”

Overhead ten thousand hooks began to swing together, the dress forms at every row’s end shuddering awake. From their sleeves, collars, pockets poured a rattling tide of small stitched dolls, each clutching a needle.

“I would like to lodge a formal complaint about the scale of this entrance,” Jingles squeaked.

The nearest doll hopped onto a hook rail and bowed to Nilo, needle raised like a blade. Behind it the rest fell into ranks of a hundred, their button eyes gleaming with endless patience.

Ten thousand needles caught the lamplight together, pointing at three people with nowhere to run.