Down in the Sisa, rain falls from the ceiling.
Water drips from rusted pipes beneath the upper city, carrying the scent of iron, old oil, and sometimes something far worse. The people of the Sisa learn not to look up as they walk.
Six looks up.
He sits cross-legged on the roof of a wooden house, a crust of hard bread in his left hand. His eyes are not on the bread — they are on the threads.
Others might not see them. But to Six, every person in the alley below trails a thin strand of light behind them — long, always trembling softly, its end rising toward the ceiling, toward a place he has never known but always felt.
Most threads in the Sisa are grey. Dull, short, their ends frayed like burnt hair. The fates of the discarded.
Six bites into his bread.
Hard. He chews slowly, listening to the sound of his own jaw, watching an old woman push a cart of wilted vegetables across the alley. Seven more days and her thread will snap, at the market steps. Fever takes her, and no one will notice.
…
None of my business.
That was the first rule. He made it at thirteen, the night he severed the thread of a dying thief — and woke the next morning with hands that could not feel the cold for a week.
Second rule: Never let anyone know.
Third rule, the one he breaks most often: Do not care.
"Six! Hey, Six!"
Six doesn't look down. A voice from below, sharp and breathless — one he knows all too well.
"I know you can hear me!"
Six sighs and looks over the edge. At the top of the ladder, a round, scruffy head peeks up. Tavi. Eight years old, maybe nine — even Six isn't entirely sure, and neither is Tavi. Missing one front tooth, wearing shoes two sizes too big, stuffed full of crumpled newspaper.
"Go back down," Six says.
"Orsa says you stole her salted fish."
"That wasn't fish. That was an old shoe she soaked in brine."
Tavi snorts a laugh. He scrambles up with annoyingly good ease and sits down right next to him, uninvited, his eyes fixed on the bread in Six's hand.
"I'm not hungry," Tavi lies.
Six tears the loaf in half and holds it out without looking. Tavi takes it immediately. They eat in silence, and Six tries not to look at the boy.
But…
Tavi's thread is grey, just like everyone else's. But it does not hum and tremble like the thread of someone who is alive. It is taut, strained like a rope pulled too tight — and its end, the part that should stretch far into the future, hangs far too close.
Six stops chewing.
"Tavi."
"Mmm?"
"Where are you going next?"
"Lower market. Dorn said he'd pay me if I helped carry water buckets." Tavi licks crumbs from his fingers. "Why?"
Six doesn't answer. He closes his eyes for a heartbeat, opens them again, and forces his gaze upward, tracing that thread all the way to its end — to where this child's story stops.
The vision hits like lightning, bright and gone in a flash.
Lower market. Old iron scaffolding above the stairs. One rusted bolt, half-loose. The sound of metal screaming. A pipe as wide as a man falls.
Seven minutes.
Six doesn't remember climbing down from the roof.
One moment he's running, the alleys of the Sisa blurring past him. Tavi calls out behind him, breathless: "Six! Wait! What's wrong?" The smell of iron clings thicker to the air. Rule one, rule two, rule three — they thud in his head like a broken clock.
Do not interfere.
Tell no one.
Do not care.
But his feet have already decided.
The lower market is busy as always. Voices haggling, the sharp smell of cooking oil burnt black from too many uses, small children darting between adult legs. In the centre, an old iron staircase rises to a wooden platform. Above it, beneath rusted beams, a man heaves a heavy water cask onto his shoulder.
Dorn.
Six pushes through the crowd, eyes scanning. There it is — a thick iron pipe hanging from two bolts. One of them is barely holding. He sees it tremble.
Five minutes.
"Six!" Tavi finally catches up, panting, grabbing his sleeve. "Are you crazy —"
"Listen to me." Six grips the boy's shoulders. His voice comes sharper than he intended. "You cannot go up those stairs. Don't go near them. Do you understand?"
"But Dorn said —"
"I don't care."
Tavi stares at him. His eyes are wide and clear, and Six sees the thing he hates most in them: trust. Unasked, unearned trust.
"Why?" Tavi whispers.
Six has no answer. To tell the truth is to admit he sees death coming. To lie… this boy would still climb those steps anyway.
Two minutes.
Above them, something clicks.
Six lets go, lifts his right hand, fingers spread — as if reaching for something only he can feel.
And for Six, it is there.
Tavi's thread hangs right before him: grey, stretched thin, thrumming against his fingertips. He can feel its coldness. He can feel the weight of the fate hanging from it — and he knows, with sick certainty, that this thread will snap in less than two minutes no matter what he does.
Unless I cut it first.
His eyes burn.
He doesn't need a mirror to know what's happening. He's done this too many times. The world narrows to a single point. Sound fades. And somewhere behind his eyes, something glows — that colour he hates: red, bright as fresh blood.
He pinches the empty air between his thumb and forefinger.
The thread snaps.
No sound. No flash. Just a sudden lightness, as if something that had always held Tavi in place had suddenly let go. The boy blinks, startled.
"Huh?" he says. "Why do I feel like…"
Above them, the bolt snaps clean through.
The pipe falls.
The crash is deafening. It slams into the ground right at the foot of the stairs, dust and rust exploding outward. People scream. Someone stumbles. A mother yanks her child back.
Dorn, just stepping down, staggers backwards — shaken, but alive.
Tavi never took that first step up. He stands beside Six, frozen, staring at the massive pipe rolling to rest exactly where he would have been standing.
Silence.
Then slowly, the boy turns to look at him. And Six realises with a jolt: Tavi isn't as simple as he looks.
"Six," he whispers. "Your eyes."
Six walks away from the market, keeping his steps steady and slow.
Behind him, the crowd swarms around the wreckage, surrounding Dorn, calling on every name they know. No one looks his way. He pulls his hood low over his forehead and slips into the narrow alley between two warehouses.
He leans against the wall, closes his eyes, and waits for the red glow to fade.
It goes slowly. Always does.
Then comes the cost.
He's learned to wait for it — the only thing in his life that is ever consistent. This time it feels gentle, almost soft: like silk being pulled out from beneath his eyelids.
Six breathes out and opens his eyes. He pulls the last small piece of bread from his pocket and puts it in his mouth.
He chews.
Nothing.
Not bitter. Not bland. Just… nothing. Only the dry hardness against his teeth, and a fading memory of what bread should taste like — slipping away fast, like a dream you try to hold onto after waking.
He swallows and stands there for a long time.
That's it? he thinks. My sense of taste? For one life? Seems cheap.
But he has learned one truth well: the Loom is never truly cheap. It just lets you run a little longer before the bill comes due.
"Six."
A voice from the alley mouth.
Tavi stands there, alone, breathing hard, clutching the laces of his oversized shoes. He isn't crying. Just watching Six with the quiet gravity of someone who has learned a secret the world tells no one.
"I didn't tell anyone," he says quickly. "I promise. But —"
"Tavi."
"— but you know, back there, I was going to —"
"Tavi."
The boy falls quiet.
Six walks toward him slowly and crouches down so their eyes are level. For the first time in years, he looks at someone truly — not searching for the thread that trails behind them.
"You didn't see anything today," he says softly.
"But your eyes —"
"A trick of the light. The market lamps reflecting off something. You were scared."
Tavi bites his lip. His eyes glisten, but he nods slowly — the kind of nod that says he knows he's being asked to lie, and will do it anyway, because it matters to someone he cares about.
Six stands up.
And that is when he hears it.
Footsteps. Slow. Even. Too clean for the Sisa. People here drag their feet and stumble. This is the walk of someone who knows exactly where they are going — and knows no one will dare stop them.
The air in the alley grows cold.
Six turns.
At the far end, beneath the only working streetlamp, stands a figure in a white robe and a smooth porcelain mask — no mouth, just two dark empty holes for eyes. Stitched onto his chest in silver thread is a single symbol: a circle with no beginning and no end.
An Error Hunter.
A Weaver.
No one has seen one come down to the Sisa in three years. And they never come empty-handed. They always bring a body back with them.
The figure does not move. The mask does not turn toward Tavi. Those dark eye-slits are locked straight onto Six.
Then a voice speaks from behind porcelain — calm, almost gentle, like greeting an old friend.
"I saw that boy's thread snap."
Tavi gasps, a small sharp sound.
The masked man tilts his head just slightly.
"And I looked for yours."
Silence stretches.
"There is no thread at all."
Six's heart hammers once, hard and wild against his ribs.
"An Error," the Weaver says softly, stepping forward. "At last. I have found you."