The collection cart rolled through the market at dawn, and Theodore Windup had a hundred toys to warn and no way to run. He was a teddy bear with a brass key in his back. Someone had wound it too tight, years ago, so his legs only shuffled. He had promised the discarded toys of Turnbuckle a hidden place beyond the incinerators. Now the workers were emptying the discard piles first, and he would lose them all before he ever led them anywhere. He climbed onto the edge of the toy stall to see how far the cart had come. The stall stood crowded and worn, its shelves packed with faded bears and dented trucks. Paper tags swung from its rafters. From up here Theodore counted three discard piles still full and one already gone. The workers tossed armfuls into the cart without looking. A cloth rabbit landed on top and lay still. Theodore could not shout. His voice was a thin wheeze the market swallowed. But the key in his back could turn a music box drum. He had used it once to make a rooster toy crow. He set his back against the stall's brass bell hook and cranked the key against it, hard. The key caught. His spring groaned and snapped free inside him. A single loud clang rang out across the market as the bell swung. Workers turned. Down in the piles, dozens of toys froze, then scattered toward the shadows under the stalls. The cart driver cursed and looked for the noise. He did not think to look at a broken bear on a shelf. The warning worked. Most of the pile toys fled before the cart reached them. But Theodore felt the cost at once. His wound had run out. His legs would not shuffle now. His arms hung dead at his sides. He had spent the last of his spring on one clang, and a wound-up bear with a broken spring is only stuffing. The cart rolled closer. Theodore sat useless on the stall's edge, unable to climb down or hide. A hand reached for him. It belonged to a slouched teenage boy in a faded orange jumpsuit, the one who fixed broken toys at this very stall. People left their ruined playthings at his feet like gifts. The boy lifted Theodore, turned him over, and found the snapped key. "You rang that bell," the boy said quietly. He did not sound surprised. He tucked Theodore under one arm and shielded him from the cart with his body. The workers passed by without a second look. Theodore's toys were safe for today. But Theodore himself could no longer walk, and his rescuer had just carried the toys' only leader away from them, toward a workbench and a set of small silver tools.