Sethian Skin paused in the shadows in front of his boutique, fondly watching as the first gray lines of sunrise rose over the quay and cast a subtle light upon the black paint of the sign: “Maniaque.” Already, the door would be growing warm with magic, preparing to disappear from the city.

“Norgash sends her regards.”

The white-robed figure in the ivory mask lunged at Sethian Skin with a large iron nail in one hand. It would never reach him. Dark spikes impaled the attacker an instant after they spoke, and Sethian Skin looked up more in surprise at the spikes than the assault. He hissed, “Such simple regards are hardly worth note,” and glared at the iron nail. It was a repulsive, ragged thing in this person’s hand, the ugliest iron that Sethian Skin had ever seen. “Now, this is an insult. Unacceptable. She knows better. What of my regards, then? What of mine?”

Another masked-and-robed figure had been hiding around the corner with another nail, but they made the wise decision to bolt from their hiding place and flee. The one trapped in Sethian Skin’s spikes shouted for help, but now they were alone. They looked back to see something they wished they hadn’t glimpsed: from Sethian Skin’s sleeves and collar emerged a strange, tattered darkness that reached toward them.

To eat a fig, one splits it down a side and turns it inside out. The edible fruit clings to the inside of the skin in juicy filaments that, exposed, extend in all directions. Sethian Skin lifted one hand, and his hand did this same thing, the perfect darkness of his flesh splitting open and turning inside out, the filaments on the inside like a bramble of writhing razor wire. This shedding of flesh revealed white bone, a skeletal hand that hung limp. As darkness extended from Sethian Skin’s collar toward the ivory-masked figure, where once there was a smile beneath the brim of his hat, now there was the angular white jaw of a bleached skull.

“What is skin if not unprepared leather?” growled the skull in Sethian Skin’s voice, “Don’t mind the pins. They’re just to hold everything together until the last stitch is done.”

One hand still encased in his dark meat, Sethian Skin listened pitilessly to the cries of Norgash’s apostle as he made weaving gestures. He hated the simple, raw burlap robes that Norgash forced her followers to wear, but it wove well enough into the apostle’s skin. They blended together, pale, soft leather and white cloth, stitching into complicated knots that tore away from bone and meat. “You’ve so many fibers to work with,” Sethian Skin muttered as he wove ligament and gut into patterns, pulling them out to line the robe that he layered into a fine coat. Dyed red, of course.

“I hate bones” he said. “Do you really need so many?” Warm, wet scrap clattered to the ground.

*

It was a fast, impulsive design, but it satisfied Sethian Skin. He hung it up above the street, briefly considered silencing its continued cries, stilling its twitch. But it was part of the display, but of the artistry of it. Sethian Skin stood beneath the hooded coat he’d crafted from meat and burlap, from ligament and gut, and said, “If you’re still out here once the sun’s had some time to work on you…”

The apostle bellowed senseless sounds, managing desperately slurred, “Please… end… please…”

“Don’t interrupt.” Sethian Skin shook his head, idly smoothing his tar-black flesh back into place over his bones. “I was saying I’ll come back and get rid of the last little bone and organ you’ve got. For now it’s helping you hold shape, you know? And I really need blood to keep beating through your meaty bits so it doesn’t dry out too fast. But, you know, if someone runs off with you, then that’s fine. More than enough people in this city who would be happy for a new coat.”

“Let… let…” The body suspended over the road convulsed and screeched. “Please!”

“You’re a work of art.” Sethian Skin stepped carefully around the blood in the lane, pushing open the door to the Maniaque. He was surprised when snow and a frigid gust blew out of the door, rushing around him in a wintry flurry. Now, where was that coming from? There had never been snow in the Maniaque before. Sethian Skin considered two reactions. One was to hesitate to enter until he was sure what game the Maniaque was playing with him, and the other was to enthusiastically enter and seek it out. Of course, dawn was at his back by then, the door eager to close, so Sethian Skin put on a smile and hurried in, saying, “How interesting. Maybe this will be something fun.”