Maskbound: The Ultimate Hunter

The new office on floor twelve smelled of fresh paint, with windows so clean that birds kept hitting them. Squad Nine sat around a table that finally matched its legs, eating cold breakfast out of crumpled paper cartons.

“Chat, floor twelve has windows, I may never go outside again,” Pipa sighed, chewing a pastry.

Sunlight poured through the new windows onto a floor crowded with boxes marked FRAGILE and DO NOT ASK. Kevin Two coughed in the corner and printed a single page, a long row of tiny question marks.

Nilo hung his coat over the chair back, then froze, staring at the third button.

“Somebody sewed my button back on during the night, in violet thread, with a perfect knot.”

Zinnia leaned over his shoulder, inspecting the stitches like evidence, “That is a tailor’s knot with eight turns, nobody learns that by accident.”

“Perhaps the Quartermaster sewed it in her sleep and forgot the kindness.”

“I own no violet thread, Steelhorn, but I would certainly sew it crooked on purpose,” she said.

Ganzo sniffed the thread, “Lavender, with something bitter underneath, my nose has never been wrong.”

Pipa tapped her slate, “Chat… the hallway camera shows eleven seconds of static at three in the morning.”

“Static does not sew buttons, it merely hides the sewer,” the Captain rumbled.

A chill crept down Nilo’s spine as he realized the office door was locked from the inside. Someone walked in, sewed a button, then strolled out without waking a captain, a sniper or him.

‘A locked door, a sleeping captain, a sniper with owl ears. Nobody woke.’

Nilo’s phone buzzed against the table, Tilly’s name glowing on a screen that was mostly cracks.

“I heard a ghost fixed your coat for free, that is undercutting my entire market, find her so I can bill her.”

“I’ll pass on your rates,” he said.

“Interest starts at sunset, the button counts as a service.”

Zinnia lifted the gold ribbon from the brass hook on his bandolier, turning it toward the window light. She tested the knot with one nail, her whole face as serious as a judge reading a verdict.

“Friday’s inspection was skipped, so the knot passes late,” she said, setting it down.

“Do I get a certificate?”

“You get to keep the ribbon,” she answered, her ears turning pink.

At noon Nilo slipped into Auntie’s noodle stall, the one counter in the Ring where nobody stared.

Steam rolled off the pot in fat clouds as Auntie ladled broth with unholy speed into six bowls at once. Nilo sat on the last stool, chopsticks raised, a bowl of pork noodles steaming under his nose like an apology.

Auntie slapped the counter, “Twelve marks, noodle boy, no credit, the girl with the notebook already warned me.”

“Tilly has been mailing you my debts again, hasn’t she?” he asked.

“She sends a monthly newsletter, the horoscope section is accurate.”

Around the counter the lunch crowd slurped in a happy fog, nobody sparing the quiet boy a second glance. That was the one gift his face gave him, to eat in peace while the city forgot his name.

He reached for the chili oil with his left hand, finding bare fingers where his glove belonged.

Nilo patted his empty pockets, “Auntie, my glove was on my hand a second ago.”

“Gloves wander, honey… my customers lose everything but their appetites.”

A minute later the steamer lid lifted by itself, releasing a cloud of steam and a folded glove. It rested on the dumplings, still damp from the steam, a tiny paper tag knotted around its thumb.

He read the tag aloud, “Borrowed, returned, no interest.”

“A thief who charges no interest is planning something enormous,” Jingles squeaked from the rack.

Cadenza purred from the rack, “Darling, an admirer with manners, how thrilling.”

“Pale as a boiled egg, never said a word, left twenty marks for your noodles and my trouble,” Auntie said, wiping a bowl.

“Which way did she go?” he asked.

“Up, honey, she climbed that drainpipe like it owed her money.”

‘She steals small and returns it. Fine, I know a mask that does exactly that.’

At dusk Nilo crouched behind a laundry cart at the plaza’s edge, a plan taking shape behind his eyes.

The plaza at dusk swarmed with apprentices carrying bolts of cloth and lamp lighters trailing fire on poles. Every shadow looked like a hiding place, every stranger’s shoulder like a quiet hand waiting patiently to land.

“Young man, one does not ambush a lady in a crowd, it is dishonorable,” Clangor said from the rack.

“She stole his glove first, Sir Knight, that is practically a duel,” Jingles squeaked.

“Then I demand a fair duel of manners.”

“Darling, let Magpie handle the manners, he has so few,” Cadenza sang.

He hooked the Tin mask over his face with a quick flick, Magpie settling in with a wink. The coat flipped into a tailcoat missing one color, a top hat popping onto his hair from nowhere.

“Ooh, somebody has been picking the wrong pockets lately, shall we teach her some manners?” Magpie sang inside his head.

Every hand in the plaza lit up with a gold outline, each pocket glowing like a coin in a pond.

“Just find her hands,” Nilo whispered under the brim.

One hand in the crowd moved against the current, its gold outline flickering as it slid toward a stranger’s purse.

“Third from the lamppost, hands like a pair of doves.”

Beside the lamppost stood a girl in a violet cloak, a long dark braid hanging over one shoulder. Her mask looked to him like an oval hole in the world, split by one thin red line.

“Nice hat,” she said without turning her head.

He touched the brim, grinning, “It’s on loan, apparently it suits me.”

Her voice came dry as old paper, “Everything is on loan with you.”

A silver scarf pin slipped from her collar into his palm before she could blink, a clean steal.

She turned her head a fraction, the red line on her mask catching the lamplight like a fresh cut. Then she was gone, a swirl of violet through the crowd, leaving only the smell of lavender behind her.

He cupped a hand around his mouth, “Hey, that’s no way to treat a fellow thief, I was just getting started.”

Rooftops flew past in a smear of chimneys and laundry lines, the grapple line singing in his glove. She never looked back once, yet every turn she took seemed designed to make the chase more fun.

“She’s fast, I love her, can we keep her?” Magpie cackled.

Jingles wailed from the rack, “I am going to die on a roof, somebody tell my pun collection I loved it.”

She ran up the wall of a tailor’s shop, violet cloak snapping, as if gravity were an unconfirmed rumor. Nilo plucked a grapple gun from a passing Hunter’s belt, fired it, then rode the line up after her.

“Ooh, steal the baker’s tray next, it is so shiny,” Magpie giggled.

Along the route he lifted a baker’s tray, a constable’s whistle and a stunned pigeon, all returnable by tomorrow. Magpie cackled in his head like a kettle, delighted with every theft, while the ledger quietly filled itself up.

[ LEDGER ]

[Owed by Magpie: grapple gun, scarf pin, tray, whistle, one pigeon]

[Due: sunset tomorrow]

‘Five stolen things and one angry pigeon. The Ledger has never looked so ridiculous.’

She stopped on the ridge of a high roof, a dark shape against a sky he could half see. Nilo landed close by with the grapple gun swinging from one hand, the scarf pin glinting in the other.

“You blink before you steal,” she said.

“You tilt your head when you’re amused, it’s a very small tilt, like a sparrow deciding about a crumb.”

“I am not amused,” she said, folding her arms across her cloak.

“Tilting,” he said, pointing at her with the pin as though it were a tiny sword.

He lowered the grapple gun, “Why are you following me?”

“You are the only Hunter in the district he spoke to who walked away,” she said.

“Seven masks… and he named every one,” he muttered.

“Is that why the Vipers sent you?”

“The Vipers sent me to catch a tailor, you are simply standing in the way.”

“In the way of what?” he asked.

“Whatever he plans to wear,” she added.

He studied the hole where her face should be, “You were at the ball, I saw a violet scarf in the mirrors.”

“I was in every mirror, you simply stopped looking after the third.”

She held out one gloved hand, palm up, “Return that pin before sunset tomorrow… that is how Tin masks work.”

“Do you at least have a name, or should I keep calling you Violet?”

“Violet is fine… it is more than most people remember of me,” she murmured.

“You know a lot about my masks for someone who has never introduced herself, so who are you working for—”

She flicked a folded card toward him with two fingers, landing it neatly in the crown of his hat. When he looked up from the card, the empty roof held only wind and a single violet thread drifting.

Zinnia dropped onto the roof behind him, rapier half drawn, “I counted three thefts and a chase before I lost you.”

“Someone returned my glove and left me a warning,” he said, holding up the card.

She read it, her ears pressed flat against her hair, “Fitted for what?”

Wind tugged at the card in Zinnia’s fingers, flipping it once as if it wanted to be read again.

Cadenza sang from the rack, “A note in violet ink, darling, the mystery thickens like a good gravy.”

“A coat, a coffin or a mask, I’m hoping for the coat.”

“Hoping for the coat is how coffins get ordered,” Zinnia said, snatching the grapple gun from his hand.

“That belongs to a Hunter who is looking for it right now, you will return it before sunset tomorrow.”

“Already on the list, Quartermaster.”

“The list is in my notebook now, in the first column or the other, depending on how the return goes.”

“Can we keep her, tell me we can keep her,” Magpie begged.

“She’s not a hat, Magpie,” he said, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Everything is a hat if you steal it right, that is the first rule of the trade.”

Bruno peered over the edge of the roof, brass pauldron gleaming, “I propose we bait the next trap with an enormous button.”

‘Fitted, as if I were a suit on a hanger waiting for his tailor to come back.’

Below them the lanterns of Silk Row flickered on one by one, each shop window a small gold eye. Somewhere among them a pair of shears was already open, patient as a prayer, waiting for his exact measurements.