Maskbound: The Ultimate Hunter

The archway opened onto a hall so vast that the lantern light vanished before it found a single wall. Beneath their feet a causeway of loom frames crossed the black water, each beam wrapped in pale silver thread.

Overhead, hundreds of masks hung from the dark on threads, turning slowly without any wind to turn them.

“There must be a thousand of them, the whole ceiling is a wardrobe,” Zinnia whispered, her notebook already open.

Tink’s cane tapped the planks, “Herons dived in those masks, kid, every Heron hung theirs here when they retired.”

“They did not retire, they sank.”

“Aye, the hall kept the tradition anyway.”

The water on either side lay perfectly flat, reflecting the masks above like a second hall hung upside down. Nilo leaned over the rail of a loom frame and found no reflection of himself among the hanging faces.

‘Every mask has a twin down there except me. I’m getting used to being the gap in the picture.’

“Your reflection is missing from every pane of water, I want that on the record,” Zinnia murmured.

“It’s probably sulking, it’s been a long week,” Nilo said.

“Nice hall,” Drifter drawled from the rack, “terrible neighbors.”

Tink stopped beside a hanging mask and slowly lowered the lantern until its light washed over the porcelain. Not one scratch marred its surface, not one dent, only a faint line where a tear once dried.

“What do you notice about these, boy?” he asked.

“Not a scratch, nothing chipped, nobody fought in this one,” he said, squinting at the porcelain.

“A Heron’s mask ought to be scarred from the reefs, so why is this one clean?”

“Either nobody fought in it… or somebody set it down gently.”

“Gently, aye, somebody wept while setting down every single one, I want to know who.”

Near the end of the causeway one plaque shone brighter than the rest, as though someone still polished it. It listed four names under the words Squad Six, Herons of the Third Tide, the last name scratched twice.

Zinnia read the names aloud, her voice dropping to a hush, “Orsa, Dunmore, Teel, Kiri, the Captain’s Heron sang the tide tables, so the last one must be hers.”

“Who polishes it?” Nilo asked.

Tink stared at the plaque for a long moment, “That is a better question than any I asked today.”

“Does the Captain know this plaque still shines?” she asked, closing her notebook.

“He knows the hall exists, he never knew where, I never told him.”

“He would have come down alone the same night, that man loves hard enough to drown in it.”

Nilo stared at him, “So you hid his own squad from him for twenty years?”

“I kept him alive for twenty years, that is a different thing entirely.”

A half-woven cloth still hung from the nearest loom, its pattern stopping mid-row where the weaver left. The threads shimmered in lantern light, each one thinner than a hair and cold to look at.

“Moonsilver, the thread the Collector sewed with,” Zinnia said, crouching beside the loom.

“The tailor said the last of it was spun here before the sky opened,” he said.

“Then the Collector walked this hall,” she said softly, “or somebody carried his thread out of it.”

“Or the hall gave it to him freely, that would be worse,” Tink said.

A cold prickle crawled over the back of Nilo’s neck, the old thief’s warning that someone stood too close. Lavender drifted down from the rafters, then a violet scarf slowly unrolled from a beam like a lazy snake.

“You did not bring one person who remembers your face, you brought two,” a dry voice said from above.

She dropped to the causeway without a sound, her cloak slowly settling around her like a closing book. Zinnia’s ears flattened so fast her tufts folded, a gloved hand dropping to the rapier at her hip.

“You,” she said, jaw tight, as though the word itself tasted sour.

Violet folded her arms across her cloak with all the calm of a cat on a windowsill, “Her.”

“I do not recall inviting you to anything, least of all a haunted hall.”

“Neither did the hall, but it has not complained yet.”

Tink pinched the bridge of his nose, “The masks are listening, so both of you whisper like you mean it.”

“Hello, Quartermaster,” she whispered, tilting her mask a fraction, “I am Calla, that is a good nose.”

The Quartermaster drew one slow breath, counted silently to three, then kept her rapier sheathed with effort. She scribbled a line in her notebook, underlined it twice, snapped the cover shut with a click.

‘Two girls, one drowned hall, zero chance this ends well.’

“Do not enjoy this even a little,” she warned him, her ears still pink from that greeting.

“I’m enjoying nothing, I’m a professional,” Nilo said.

They moved on along the causeway in a tight line, the lantern leading, Calla a silent shadow at the rear. The masks overhead drifted lower with every step, their empty eyes tracking the group like a field of curious flowers.

Zinnia fell into step beside him, holding the notebook open so the lantern showed his drawing.

“Your jaw is wrong in my sketch, I will correct it tonight,” she said, comparing the page to his face.

“You’re checking my face in a haunted hall, in front of a thousand masks?”

“A hall that steals faces is the best place to check one properly.”

“Fair… did I pass inspection, or do I need a second portrait?”

Her ears warmed, “You are within acceptable tolerances.”

Inside the bandolier the little bells went completely still, as though an invisible hand closed around them. Nilo pressed his fingers to the rack, feeling the porcelain turn as cold as a winter coin.

“Jingles, talk to me,” he murmured.

“That one is Marlowe, the next is Sable, I know them all,” Jingles whispered, “I remember the smell of wet silver.”

“You’ve been here before?”

“No… yes… it smelled like this before the Scar was a scar, when the weeping was only a song.”

The gold glow in the crack flickered once, then died, leaving the jester’s face as pale as bone. Cadenza lowered her voice to a murmur, as quiet as a stagehand sweeping up after the final bow.

“Darling, you have gone ghost pale, hold on to us,” she said gently.

“Young man, this hall has the manners of a graveyard,” Clangor muttered, “I disapprove of its curtains.”

Zilch said nothing at all, which was somehow louder than every joke Jingles ever told tonight. Nilo felt the black half mask tremble against his hip, like a breath held too long.

‘Even Zilch is nervous. Nobody tell Zilch I noticed.’

“How far is the center?” he asked.

“Far enough that we are already too deep to turn back politely,” Tink said.

Calla slipped a hand into her cloak, withdrew a vial, tilted it so the liquid caught the light. She pressed it into Zinnia’s palm without a single word, a bitter scent rising slowly from the glass.

“Antidote, for whatever the hall breathes at us,” she said quietly.

Zinnia stared down at the vial, “Why would you hand me this?”

“You carry his face in your notebook, I would prefer it stayed in one piece.”

“You have been in this hall before,” he said.

“Once, at fifteen, the Vipers sent me to fetch a Heron’s mask, the only way in is a roof crack.”

“Nobody leaves the way they came in,” Tink said, frowning at the cloak.

“I left through the ceiling, you will find the hole.”

“That explains the dust on your scarf,” Zinnia said, narrowing her eyes.

The Quartermaster blinked, caught between suspicion and gratitude, then tucked the vial into her satchel with dignity. Nilo noticed that she turned the exact color of her tufts for the second time that night.

“Quartermaster, you’re blushing again,” he whispered.

She patted her cheek, “It is the lantern, the lantern has a pinkish glow.”

Close to the platform the hanging masks began to whisper, voices overlapping like pages in an empty library. Nilo caught scraps of tide tables, half-remembered lullabies, a single name repeated until it blurred into the rain.

“They’re saying something, I can almost catch it,” he whispered.

Tink raised a hand, “Do not try, boy, the words belong to whoever sits in that chair.”

“I hear it too, it sounds like someone practicing a goodbye,” Calla murmured.

“I hear nothing at all, which I find insulting.”

“The Weeper does not fight, it does not threaten,” he said, “it asks one question, nobody answers it the same way twice.”

“What is the question?” Nilo asked.

“I never stayed to hear it, I was busy carrying my squad out.”

“Do you think it will ask me?” he said.

“It asks everyone, boy.”

Cadenza leaned out of the rack, “Darling, if it asks for your favorite color, give it something dramatic.”

“I can’t say green, I can’t say white, I’m running out of colors,” he whispered.

“Then say blue, nobody can prove otherwise,” she sighed.

Calla tilted her mask toward him, “Whatever it asks, give the answer that hurts least, it listens for the other one.”

Ahead, the causeway widened into a platform ringed by tall looms still strung with half-finished silver cloth. In the center stood an empty chair facing the dark, its back carved into a weeping face.

“That is the Weeper’s seat,” he said, barely above a whisper, “nobody has sat in it for twenty years, and whoever sits first—”

“The cushion is wet,” she noted, over him.

The lantern in Tink’s hand swung toward the chair, its flame leaning so far that it nearly went out. Every mask in the hall stopped turning at once, a single drop falling from the highest into the water.

The ripple spread across the black surface in slow rings as a thousand empty eyes turned toward Nilo.