Chapter 175 Steelhorn's Empty Hands

They reached the Rhino Hall at a dead run, Bruno's footfalls cracking the cobbles one after another. Pipa's drone trailed them down the long empty street, its red eye blinking like a nervous heart.

Pipa's whisper crackled in his earpiece, "Chat, every Rhino on those steps is awake, they are just very, very quiet."

The Rhino Hall stood at the top of Brass Row, a fortress of black beams with every lantern snuffed. Rhino guards lay on the steps in neat rows, breathing, awake, staring down at their own two empty hands.

Ironjaw barred the great doors with his war maul planted like a flagpole, jaw plate gleaming.

"Heir, your father waits in the great chamber, he asked for you and for no one else," Ironjaw said, lowering the maul.

Bruno nodded once, his jaw set so tightly that a muscle jumped along it in the dawn light. Ironjaw's eyes slid to Nilo, then back to the doors with a stiff shrug that cost him pride.

"Your friend may follow, I owe him the honor of one duel."

"I'll collect it on a quieter morning," Nilo said, stepping past the maul.

Lord Steelhorn sat alone on the top bench of his own hall, a mountain of a man folded small. His great hands lay open on his knees, palms up, trembling over a Seat that no longer answered him.

"The tailor came at midnight, he asked politely for my mask, I refused him," the old man said.

"He stood inside my mirror, Bruno, then I felt the Seat close like a door at the end of a long hall."

Cold Read settled over Nilo as he stood by the tall pillar, the rack gone silent against his chest. Clangor stayed rigid as a salute while Zilch counted the dead lanterns, Jingles saving every pun for much later.

The rack trembled with Jingles's whisper, "Please, nobody say anything clever, I have run out of the good puns."

Bruno crossed the long floor in six strides, dropping to one knee before the bench with a clang. His pauldron scraped the boards as he knelt, splitting a seam in the old dark wood beneath him.

"Father, I am here, I am not going anywhere," he said, his voice cracking down the middle.

"Then listen before I lose my nerve, I have never said this aloud," Steelhorn said, gripping the bench.

Steelhorn laid a trembling hand on his son's horned brow, the way a man touches something so fragile. A single tear tracked down through the gray of his beard, the first anyone ever saw him shed.

The old man's voice cracked, "I wrote that you were no son of mine, in front of my whole—"

"I remember it, Father, you were wrong."

"I was wrong," the old man said, "I say it now... while I have no mask to hide behind."

'A Lord who apologizes with nothing in his hands. That costs more than any Seat.'

Bruno said nothing for a long breath, the hall so quiet that the cold lanterns seemed to listen. When he spoke again his voice sounded older than eighteen, level, careful, each word placed like a stone.

Bruno answered, his hands steady, "I do not forgive it yet, Father, but I will carry you out of this hall."

"A Steelhorn does not carry his father like a sack," the old man muttered.

"A Steelhorn carries whom he pleases, it is in Article Nine."

He slid an arm beneath the old man's knees and lifted him like a sleeping child, without any strain. Lord Steelhorn's eyes found Nilo over his son's shoulder, narrow with fatigue, honest at last, free of any pride.

"You wept for strangers on Silk Row, Nilo, I watched the broadcast with my teeth clenched," he told him.

"I weep on a schedule now, it's very efficient," he said, wiping his cheek out of habit.

"Then stand behind my son tonight, the way you stood under that slab."

He met the old man's gaze without blinking, "I will, you have my word."

'I just promised a Lord I would stand behind his son. I have promised stranger things for less.'

Ganzo's voice rolled through the earpiece, the usual boom sanded down to something almost unbearably gentle. Behind him waves slapped the pilings while a hundred Whales hammered new doors onto the hall.

"The docks hold, kid, eleven masks are gone but not one Whale is on the floor," he said, his voice steadier now.

"Zinnia already cut two harbor windows out of the Collector's reach, the rest is carpentry."

Calla's voice came dry as paper through the earpiece, "Fourteen of the forty-one masks were Bronze, the Collector is shopping by size."

A quick tap of his earpiece, "Understood, we'll keep the Rhino end of the city standing."

Director Crown arrived on foot as the sun cleared the roofs, a tall figure in violet crossing the yard. Every Rhino on the steps rose to attention the moment she passed, though not one person gave an order.

"I have declared the Hook Curfew from sundown, every Guild door in the city will be sealed by dusk," she said.

"The Council voted at dawn, five to three, to give the Collector what he asks," she continued.

"He asks for me, that much is no secret," Nilo said.

"Five votes said yes, Lord Steelhorn's seat was one of them."

Bruno turned slowly with his father still cradled in his arms, the horns catching the morning light. He stared at Crown with the cold formal calm of a man who made up his mind.

"The seat is mine while my father recovers, Director, the Rhinos vote nay," he announced, standing a little taller.

Crown's brows lifted a single degree, "Then it is four to four, I abstain as always, a tie leaves the city exactly where it stands."

"A tie is a wall, not a roof, it will not hold forever," Ironjaw rumbled.

Ironjaw lowered his maul and pointed it toward the cellar stairs, where a lantern still burned alone. The door he planted beneath the hall last month stood untouched, its hinges still bright with oil.

"The tailor never touched the cellar door, he came by the mirrors, so that door is yours if you need it," the captain said, tapping the hilt.

"Keep it warm, it may be the only exit we have left," Nilo said.

'A door the Collector never saw. Everyone keeps handing me exits tonight.'

Crown studied the ruined hall for a moment, the dead lanterns, the silent guards, the stand where the helm rested. When she turned to Nilo her voice dropped, losing the Director's polish and keeping only the plain tiredness underneath it.

"Tell me what you need, I will try to find it before the Council finds a new majority."

"Time... a map of every mirror in the Foxes' hall, and my whole squad in one room," he answered.

"Then you have four nights after this one, do not waste a single minute of them."

Behind them the Rhino guards began to sing a slow marching hymn, one cracked voice at a time. Bruno carried his father down the steps into the pale morning and did not look back even once.