Chapter 167 Pins and Needles

Every hook swung like a brass bell, the shadows between them filling with the tiny patter of running feet. Hundreds of dolls with thimble heads poured down the walls, their small limbs ending in needles of bright silver.

“Do mind the Pins, Mister Nilo, they adore company but they are terribly hard to hem,” the Collector said, lifting his teacup out of harm’s way.

Tears were already sliding down Nilo’s cheeks, the price of Sorrow arriving a few seconds before the fight did. He wiped his face with one glove, then counted the exits, which took no time with only one door.

“How many needles does a Pin carry?” Zinnia asked, drawing her rapier.

“Forty each, I counted while he poured the tea,” Calla said, flicking a glass vial between her fingers.

“Forty needles times three hundred Pins is a lot of tiny stabbing, who brought the bandages?”

Jingles squeaked from the bandolier, “Please keep everything pointy away from my crack, it is a very sensitive crack.”

The first wave leapt from the wall in a single glittering sheet, a hundred small bodies spinning like darts. Nilo flicked his wrist, the Scrapper’s vest snapping around his chest as a welded gauntlet closed on his fist.

‘Forty needles each means forty things a magnet can grab.’

[ SKILL USED ]

[Magnet Pull: draws loose metal within sixty feet]

Every needle in the room tore loose from its doll, ringing together in a bristling steel ball above his head. The Pins dropped to the floor as empty thimbles, kicking their cloth legs in a furious little panic like beetles.

“This is the worst pincushion I have ever carried,” he shouted, spinning the ball once overhead.

He hurled it down the aisle, where it burst against the hooks and scattered a thousand needles across the floor.

The dolls sat up at once, a fresh needle growing from every thimble like a thorn through snow. Zinnia slid in behind him with her rapier raised, studying one doll’s neck as if reading small print.

‘They regrow, so stripping the needles is a waste of breath.’

“Young man, a regrowing enemy is merely an enemy with excellent stamina,” Clangor said from the rack.

Plate rolled across his shoulders as the Knight’s round shield slammed down before Zinnia, needles rattling off it like hail. Clangor’s price tugged at him at once, the whole shadowy room becoming one long duel he was forbidden to refuse.

Zinnia stepped out from behind the shield, “Hold the line for three seconds, I need a look at their thread.”

“Three seconds is an eternity, Quartermaster,” the Knight boomed, “I shall make it a short one.”

Calla slid between two hooks like smoke through a keyhole, crushing a vial against the nearest Pin’s thimble. Violet fumes curled out in a lazy ribbon, the whole row of dolls sagging softly toward the floor.

“Poison works wonderfully on thread, who knew, nobody ever bothers to try it,” she said flatly.

“I did, it is in my notebook under things that work, right below the soup.”

Her lunge split the next doll open, spilling a coil of silver wire wound tight around a tiny spool. Every Pin in the row shuddered, a single thread running from each spool into the wall behind the hooks.

“They feed from the wall, cut the thread and the Pins drop,” Zinnia called.

A Pin the size of a cat landed on the shield and slapped a tiny thimble glove across the plate. Clangor’s price seized Nilo’s whole arm at once, bowing him into the formal stance of a proud duelist accepting terms.

“I accept your challenge, small sir, though I must insist upon a fair second.”

“You just made me duel a doll, that is the dumbest thing I have ever been forced to do.”

He flattened the challenger with one backhand of the shield, the rest of the dolls gasping in unison.

“Is the duel over… asking for a tiny cracked friend,” Jingles whispered.

“Not yet, Jingles, we have only met the appetizer.”

Pins swarmed the shield from three sides, needles drumming a rhythm that rattled his teeth inside the helm. Zinnia melted into Reynard’s light, three copper doubles circling the dolls to slice tiny seams wherever they ran.

Calla dropped from a hook onto a Pin’s back, “The appetizer was dry, I want the main course.”

“Then take the left wall, Violet, and leave me the ones that talk,” he said.

“How admirable, dear boy, you have fought a full minute without asking what the Pins are for,” the Collector said.

“I figured you would tell me, villains cannot resist.”

“They keep the shop tidy… and they sew the guests who refuse to sit down.”

Four Pins climbed the shield together, their needles knitting a web of silver across the visor in neat little stitches. Calla peeled them off one by one with a gloved hand, dropping each into her satchel like a dead moth.

Jingles whispered from the bandolier, “Nobody tell the Pins I am here, I would like to remain a rumor.”

“The wall pulses in time with his teacup, he is conducting them like an orchestra,” Zinnia called.

Nilo glanced at the teacup, where the Collector’s little finger tapped the porcelain in slow beats.

‘Tap, tap, tap… he keeps the beat, so break the beat and the Pins lose the dance.’

“Break the beat and the wall forgets them,” Calla said, already eyeing the cup, “I can throw a vial that far.”

“Wait for Zilch to cut the knot first, otherwise the wall simply grows new strings.”

A great thud shook the front door, followed by a muffled bellow that sounded like a hammer meeting a lock. The Collector set his teacup down with the patience of a man listening to slow rain on a distant roof.

“The barricade can hold itself, this door has insulted my entire bloodline—” Bruno roared from the street.

“The door opens only for guests who intend to pay, but your captain intends to break it,” the Collector said.

Nilo braced behind the shield, “Then Ganzo can wait outside until the lock changes its mind, I am not about to—”

A Pin hit the shield hard enough to end the argument, Cold Read settling over him as jokes slid away. Seven rows of thread crossed the wall, every row running to a single knot of silver above the Collector’s head.

“Zilch, I need that knot cut before anyone notices it is gone,” he said, his voice level.

The cloak of shadow dropped over him as the world went quiet, a dagger sliding into his palm. Zilch said nothing, as the price demanded, yet the mask hummed once with something very close to approval.

[ SKILL USED ]

[Shadow Step: travel between shadows within forty feet]

He stepped into the nearest shadow and surfaced behind the hooks, climbing the wall with his dagger held low.

The Pins turned as one, every thimble head tilting toward the dark shape of the shadow he left behind. The thread wall rippled, a woman in a gray apron stepping out of the weave as through a curtain.

“You cut Mister Lathe’s strings, little Hunter,” Miss Spindle said, a spool the size of a drum riding on her hip, “I have brought a better thread, a longer needle, a much sharper temper.”