Maskbound: The Ultimate Hunter

The tram dropped them at the edge of the Gilded District as the last light bled out of the towers. Beyond the gate, lanterns shaped like fox heads lined a broad boulevard that looked rinsed in gold, every window glowing.

Pipa adjusted her brooch, whispering, “Chat, I am wearing a gown, this is not a drill, it has forty pockets and I have a plan for each.”

Bruno tugged at his collar, wheezing, “Whoever cut this for a Steelhorn tailored it for a smaller Steelhorn.”

“Stop fidgeting, a man who fidgets is a man who is being watched,” Zinnia said, smoothing his lapel.

Ganzo peeled away at the first alley, a Bureau inspector’s cap perched three sizes too small on his head. He carried a covered tray as if it held the fire codes, which in his case was entirely possible.

“Kitchen calls, children, nobody touch the sugar,” he boomed over his shoulder, vanishing between two dumpsters.

‘Seven masks under borrowed silk, a ribbon on my belt, a jacket that costs more than the Lower Town.’

A Fox attendant in a silk half mask stood at the gate with a brass scanner shaped like a fan. Guests ahead of them glided through, their sigils flaring one by one beneath the lanterns like very polite little fireworks.

The attendant lifted the fan, “Guests of the House, please present your Seats.”

Nilo stepped forward and tried his most forgettable smile on the machine.

[ MASK SCAN ]

[Seats: 0]

[Rank: F]

The brass fan clicked twice, flickered, then the numbers swam together into a single question mark.

“Your Seat reads zero, sir, then it reads nothing at all,” the attendant said, frowning at the fan.

Zinnia lifted her chin, “He is the Quartermaster’s guest, the fan is older than my father.”

“Then the fan is wrong, welcome to the Hall of Mirrors,” the attendant answered, bowing so quickly his mask slipped.

The Hall of Mirrors opened ahead like the inside of a diamond, glass panels rising thirty feet on every wall. A thousand guests drifted across the floor, each one multiplied into endless silver crowds that bowed whenever anyone else turned.

‘A room made of reflections, a face nobody remembers… perfect, the room and I have so much in common.’

“It is worse than the photograph,” Pipa murmured, her brooch glinting.

“Every Fox child learns to walk on this floor, the old rule says it remembers every misstep.”

“Does it ever forgive one?” Nilo asked.

“Only the ones my family makes,” she answered, a shade too lightly.

Beneath the central chandelier stood Lord Steelhorn, a wall of brass and silk with his arms folded across his chest. Bruno saw him across the floor and slowed, the way a boat slows when it finds hidden rocks right ahead.

“You came,” the older man said as they drew near.

“I was invited, Father, so was my squad.”

“Then stand where I can see you, the whole room is watching how a Steelhorn behaves tonight.”

“That is the plan,” Bruno answered, his voice shaking only once.

Lord Steelhorn gave a short nod, then turned to Nilo and studied him a heartbeat too long. The look slid away unseeing, the stranger already fading from his mind before he faced his son.

“Your father looked straight through me,” he whispered.

“He does that to everyone who is not a Steelhorn, you are in excellent company.”

A voice like a foghorn rolled across the crowd, announcing a sunburned man in a pale captain’s coat. Beside him walked a small gray woman in a nurse’s apron stitched with silver doves, her smile wary.

“If it isn’t the lad who made Rook sweat through his collar!” the sunburned man roared.

Zinnia dipped her chin, “Captain Wavecrest of the Azure Whales, I presume.”

“Brannoch to my friends, Captain to my crew, Dinner to the shark who tries me,” he said, pumping Nilo’s hand until his shoulder rattled.

“Matron Ilse of the Pearl Doves, glad to see the two nays in this room have company,” the woman said softly.

“Two nays and one abstention do not make a majority, Matron.”

“No, child, but they make a conscience.”

Neither of them looked straight at his face, their gazes sliding off his cheek like rain off glass. By the time the Captain finished crushing his hand, the man was already wondering whose hand it was.

“My daughter would adore you, lad, she collects loud people and bad ideas,” Wavecrest rumbled, releasing him at last.

“Is she dangerous?” Nilo asked, flexing his fingers.

“Only to dry land, and to anyone who calls her Marinade.”

“Mind the Master, lad, he smiles at funerals,” Matron Ilse added, steering the Captain away by his sleeve.

A tall figure in silk and gold crossed the floor like a man who owned every inch of it. Silver touched his temples, a fox mask pushed high on his brow like a crown he refused to wear.

“Zinnia, you arrive precisely when I expected, with company I did not,” the Master of the Gilded Foxes said.

“Father, Squad Nine is my squad, I wrote the acceptance myself.”

“I read it twice, one more time than I read most Council minutes.”

His gaze moved to Nilo and stayed there, an amber stare exactly the shade of his daughter’s. He felt weighed the way a tailor weighs a man for a funeral, inch by careful inch.

“Mister Nilo, I am told you can wear seven faces, yet tonight you wear none,” the Master said.

“I’m saving them for the dancing, sir, it seemed rude to arrive overdressed.”

A smile touched the Master’s mouth and left again, quick as a coin vanishing into a sleeve.

“Mind this floor, it remembers everything—”

Zinnia finished the line for him quietly, “Except the people who walk across it, Father, I know.”

“The dinner invitation was not a request, I expect you at my table once the night allows.”

“Yes, Father… if the night allows it,” she said, her fingers tightening on her clutch.

The Master glided away into the crowd, the mirrors closing slowly behind him like a heavy velvet stage curtain. For a moment they stood together in the great glittering silence, listening to a string quartet begin a waltz.

“He knows more about tonight than he says,” she said quietly.

Bruno muttered, “Everyone in this room knows more than they say, that is what makes it a ball.”

Along the east wall a table held a tower of sugar swans, each one spun so fine it trembled. Pipa leaned toward them with shining eyes until three separate hands caught her collar and hauled her firmly back.

“Tink’s rule, leave the sugar alone,” he said.

“But the swans, they are looking at me.”

“That is exactly why we are leaving them alone, sugar swans are the oldest trick at any ball.”

Pipa sighed, patting her brooch, “Chat, I have been denied a swan, remember this when you vote on my next stream.”

A young woman in a plain half mask lifted a glass from a passing tray, winking at Zinnia. A Silver mask shaped like folded glass wings hung at her hip, swaying with her every confident stride.

“Dessa Crane, the Foxes’ champion, she once beat me in nine moves… I counted,” she said.

“I counted ten, but I was being kind,” Dessa called back, raising her glass, “your father says you are slumming tonight, I say you are early.”

“Rowan was only the start, the Collector likes this District, so I wear my glass wings and sleep with one eye open,” Dessa added, lowering her voice.

“Then do not stand near the mirrors.”

“Darling, it is a hall of mirrors, there is nowhere else to stand,” she said, tipping her glass to Nilo before vanishing into the crowd.

A gloved hand came to rest on the pillar beside them, belonging to Captain Venn of the Night Vipers. Her usual swagger sat thin on her shoulders tonight, a coat that no longer fit her properly at all.

“Careful, Hemlock’s friend, the mirrors in this hall are hungry,” she murmured, then slipped away before he could answer.

The quartet slid into a slower waltz, couples beginning to turn across the glittering floor in pairs. Bruno gave Nilo a shove between the shoulder blades that nearly sent him into a passing duchess.

“Dance, it is the one job the Captain says nobody can accuse you of stealing,” he hissed.

Zinnia held out a gloved hand, “One dance, Tink’s rule allows exactly one, I intend to collect it.”

“I should warn you I only know the steps from a window,” he said.

“I learned the waltz through a ballroom window in the Crown District one winter, I was mostly hiding.”

Her gloved hand settled on his shoulder, light as a held breath, the other taking his in the lamplight. They turned together across the ballroom floor, three whole bars passing before the mirrors remembered to look at them.

“You are a beat behind, you are counting exits instead of steps,” she murmured.

“I’m counting both, it’s called multitasking.”

“Your left foot is lying again.”

For once the tally stayed shut in her satchel, her notebook forgotten somewhere beneath the silk. His heart tripped over the music twice, a fact the nearest mirror reported with infuriating accuracy.

When the last note faded, she let go first, tucking one hand behind her as though it still held something.

Inside the rack, Zilch finally spoke in his flat voice, “Something is watching.”

“Everything is watching, there are a thousand mirrors,” Jingles squeaked, “I am going to be sick in a silver bowl.”

He drifted toward the nearest wall, drawn by the sound of his own footsteps echoing a half beat late. In the glass a swan masked woman stood at his shoulder, yet the woman herself wore a wolf instead.

“Zinnia, look at the glass,” he whispered.

“I am looking, my father’s reflection is wearing a mask I have never seen on him.”

He turned back to the glass, slower this time, studying the reflections of the nearest swirling dancers. Every guest wore a different mask in the glass than on their face, none of them noticing.