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am not requesting justifications or explanations, Lord Waxillium. I merely thought I’d do what I could to help.” He grumbled, but took the book, flipping through it by lamplight as they walked across the grounds. At the back of the book were descriptions of the various people likely to be at the party. He’d memorized some descriptions VenDell had sent, but this list was far more extensive. As usual, Steris had done her research. He smiled, tucking the book into his jacket pocket. Where had she found the time? They continued up the path, though Wax froze as he heard rustling in the shrubbery nearby. He burned steel instantly, noticing some moving points of metal, and his hand went to the pistol under his jacket. A dirty face peered out and grinned. The eyes were milky white. “Clips for the poor, good sir,” the beggar said, stretching out a hand and exposing long, unkempt fingernails and a ragged shirt. Wax kept his hand on his weapon, studying the man. Steris cocked her head. “Are you wearing cologne, beggar?” Wax nodded as he too smelled it, faintly. The beggar started, as if surprised, then grinned. “It’s got a good kick to it, my lady.” “You’ve been drinking cologne?” Steris asked. “Well, that can’t be healthy.” “You should be away from here, beggar,” Wax said, eyeing the cluster of attendants and coachmen closer to the building’s entrance. “These are private grounds.” “Oh, my lord, I know it, I do.” The beggar laughed. “I own the place, technically. Now, regarding those coins for old Hoid, my good lord…” He pushed his hand forward farther, eyes staring sightlessly. Wax dug in his pocket. “Here.” He tossed the man a banknote. “Get off the grounds and find yourself a proper drink.” “A generous lord indeed!” the beggar said, dropping to his knees and fishing for the banknote. “But too much! Far too much!” Wax took Steris’s arm again, walking her toward the imposing front doors. “My lord!” the beggar screeched. “Your change!” He saw the blue line moving and reacted immediately, spinning and catching the coin, which had been hurled with exacting accuracy at his head. So, not blind after all. Wax snorted, pocketing the coin as a passing groundsman saw the beggar and shouted, “Not you again!” The beggar cackled and disappeared back into the shrubs. “What was that about?” Steris asked. “Damned if I know,” Wax said. “Shall we?” They proceeded down the row of waiting carriages, and though the line had sped up during their stroll, they still reached the front doors before they otherwise would have. Wax tipped his head toward a large woman who barely fit through the door of her carriage, then strode up the steps with Steris on his arm. He presented his card at the door, though they would know to watch for him. This was no simple reception; this was about politics. There would probably be only one official speech—that of the host to the attendees—but everyone knew why they were here. To mingle, share ideas, and likely
be invited to donate to one of many causes reflecting outer cities interests. Wax passed the doorkeeper, who cleared his throat and pointed toward an alcove in the side of the entryway. There, servants were taking hats, coats, and shawls. “We’ve nothing to check,” Wax said, “thank you.” The man took Wax’s arm gently as he tried to proceed. “The lady of the house has asked that all attendees be unburdened of items of a vulgar nature, my lord. For the safety of all parties attending.” Wax blinked, then finally got it. “We have to check weapons? You’re kidding.” The tall man said nothing. “I don’t think he’s the joking type,” Steris noted. “You realize,” Wax said, “that I’m a Coinshot. I could kill a dozen people with your cufflinks.” “We’d appreciate it if you didn’t,” the doorkeeper said. “If you please, Lord Ladrian, there are to be no exceptions. Do we need to call the house Lurcher to make certain you are being honest with us?” “No,” Wax said, pulling his arm free. “But if something goes wrong tonight, you’re going to wish we’d never had this conversation.” He walked with Steris to the counter where white-gloved servants were taking hats in exchange for tickets. He reluctantly took Vindication from the holster under his arm and set her on the counter. “Is that all, my lord?” the woman there asked. He hesitated, then sighed and knelt, pulling his backup gun—a tiny two-shotter—from the holster on his calf. He dropped it onto the counter. “Might we have a look in the lady’s purse?” the servant asked. Steris submitted. “You realize,” Wax said, “that I’m a deputized constable. If anyone should be armed, it’s me.” The servants said nothing, though they seemed embarrassed as they handed back Steris’s purse and gave Wax a ticket for his weapons. “Let’s go,” he said, pocketing the pasteboard and trying—unsuccessfully—to hide his annoyance. Together they approached the ballroom. * * * Wayne liked how banks worked. They had style. Many people, they’d keep their money out of sight, hidden under beds and some such. What was the fun of that? But a bank … a bank was a target. Building a place like this, then stuffing it full of cash, was like climbing atop a hill and daring anyone who approached to try to knock you off. He figured that must be the point. The sport of it. Why else would they put so much valuable stuff together in one place? It was supposed to be a message, proof to the little people that some folks were so rich, they could use their money to build a house for their money and still have enough money left to fill that house. Robbing such a place was suicide. So all that potential thieves could do was stand outside and salivate, thinking of the stuff inside. Really, a bank was like a giant sign erected to say “rust off” to everyone who passed by. Which was magnificent. He and Marasi stopped on the long flight of steps up to
the front, which was set with stained-glass windows and banners, after the classical cantonesque style of architecture. Marasi wanted to come here before the graveyards. Something about the bank records leading them to the right location. “All right, see,” Wayne said, “I’ve got it figured out. I’m gonna be a rich fellow. Made loads off of the sweat and blood o’ lesser men. Only I won’t say it like that, ’cuz I’ll be in character, you see.” “Is that so?” Marasi said, starting up the steps. “Yup,” Wayne said, joining her. “Even brought me fancy hat.” He held up a top hat and spun it on his finger. “That hat belongs to Waxillium.” “No it don’t,” Wayne said, putting it on. “I gave ’im a rat for it.” “A … rat?” “Minus the tail,” Wayne said. “On account of this hat bein’ kinda dusty when I took it. Anyway, I’ll be the rich fellow. You be my younger brother’s daughter.” “I’m not young enough to be your niece,” Marasi said. “At least not one who…” She trailed off as Wayne scrunched his face up good, emphasizing wrinkles, and brought out his fake mustache. “… Right,” she added. “I’d forgotten about that.” “Now, my dear,” Wayne said, “while I am distracting the employees of this fine establishment with a depository request, you shall steal into their records room and acquaint yourself with the requisite information. It shouldn’t test your skills, as I shall regale them with descriptions of my wealth and prestige, which should draw the attention of most who are still working at this late hour.” “Wonderful,” Marasi said. “As an aside, my dear,” Wayne added, “I am not fond at all of your dalliance with that farmhand upon our estate. He is far beneath you in stature, and your indiscretion will surely besmirch our good name.” “Oh please.” “Plus he has warts,” Wayne added as they reached the top of the steps. “And is prone to extreme bouts of flatulence. And—” “Are you going to talk about this the entire time?” “Of course! The bank’s employees need to know how I toil with the next generation and its woefully inadequate ability to make decisions my generation found simple and obvious.” “Grand,” Marasi said, pushing through the bank’s broad glass doors. A banker immediately rushed up to them. “I’m sorry. We’re very near closing.” “My good man!” Wayne began. “I’m certain you can make time for the investment opportunity you will soon find present in—” “We’re from the Elendel Constabulary,” Marasi interrupted, taking out her engraved credential plate and holding it up. “Captain Marasi Colms. I’d like to look over some of your deposit records. Shouldn’t take but a few minutes, and I’ll be out of your hair.” Wayne floundered, then gaped at her as the banker—a squat, swarthy man who had a gut like a cannonball and a head to match—took her certification and looked it over. That … that was cheating! “What records do you need?” the banker asked guardedly. “Do any of these people have accounts with you?” Marasi
asked, proffering a paper. “I suppose I can check…” the banker said. He sighed and walked farther into the building to where a clerk sat going over ledgers. He slid through a door behind the desk, and Wayne could hear him muttering to himself in the room beyond. “Now I’ve gotta say,” Wayne said, pulling off the top hat, “that was the worst example of actin’ I’ve ever seen. Who would believe that the rich uncle has a constable for a niece, anyway?” “There’s no need to lie when the truth will work just as well, Wayne.” “No need … Of course there’s need! Why, what happens when we have to thump some people, then run off with their ledgers? They’re gonna know it was us, and Wax’ll have to pay a big heap of compensatory fines.” “Fortunately, we’re not going to be thumping anyone.” “But—” “No thumping.” Wayne sighed. Fat lot of fun this was going to be. * * * “I’ll have you know that we take the privacy of our patrons very seriously,” the banker explained, hand protectively on the ledgers he’d retrieved from the records room. They sat in his office now, and he had a little desk plaque that named him MR. ERIOLA. Neither of the others seemed to grasp why Wayne snickered when he read that. “I understand,” Marasi said, “but I have a healthy suspicion one of these men is a criminal. Certainly you don’t want to abet their activities.” “I don’t want to violate their trust in me either,” the banker said. “What makes you so certain these men are criminals? Do you have any proof?” “The proof,” Marasi said, “will be in the numbers.” She leaned forward. “Do you know how many crimes can be proven by looking at statistics?” “Considering the question, I’m going to assume it’s a nontrivial number,” the banker said, leaning back in his chair and lacing his hands on his ample belly. “Er, yes,” Marasi said. “Most crimes can be traced to either passion or wealth. Where wealth is involved, numbers come into play—and where numbers come into play, forensic accounting gives us answers.” The banker didn’t seem convinced—but then, in Wayne’s estimation, he didn’t seem completely human either. He was at least part dolphin. The man continued plying Marasi with questions, obviously stalling for some reason. That made Wayne uncomfortable. Usually when people stalled like that, it was so their mates could have time to arrive and administer a proper beating. He bided his time playing with objects on the banker’s desk, trying to build a tower of them, but he kept his eyes on the door. If someone did arrive to attack them, he’d have to toss Marasi out the window to get away. A moment later the door swung open. Wayne grabbed for Marasi, his other hand going for one of his dueling canes, but it was only the clerk from outside. She bustled over to the banker—so Wayne didn’t feel a bit guilty admiring her bustle, so to speak—and handed him a half sheet
of paper. “What’s that?” Marasi asked as the woman left. “Telegram,” Wayne guessed, relaxing. “Checkin’ up on us, are you?” The banker hesitated, then turned the paper around. It contained a description of Wayne and Marasi, followed by the words, They are indeed constables under my command. Please afford them every courtesy and liberty in your establishment—though do keep an eye on the short man, and check your till after he leaves. “Here, now,” Wayne said. “That’s right unfair. Those things cost a clip every five words to send, they do. Old Reddi wasted good money libelin’ me.” “Technically, it’s defamation,” Marasi said. “Yup,” Wayne said, “manure, through and through.” “Defamation, Wayne, not … Oh, never mind.” She met the eyes of the banker. “Are you satisfied?” “I suppose,” he said, then slid the ledgers over to her. “Numbers,” Marasi said, digging in her purse for a moment. She brought out a small book and tapped it with one finger. “This contains a list of the common wages for workers in the cemetery business, by the job they do.” She pulled open the ledgers. “Now, looking at the deposits by our men in question, we can find patterns. Who is putting more money in the bank than their payroll would reasonably account for?” “Surely this isn’t enough to convict a man,” the banker said. “We’re not looking to convict,” Marasi said, looking through the first ledger. “I just need a little direction.…” In the minutes that followed, Wayne got his tower to balance with six separate items, including the stapler, which left him feeling rather proud. Eventually, Marasi tapped on one of the ledgers. “Well?” the banker asked. “Did you find your culprit?” “Yes,” Marasi said, sounding disturbed. “All of them.” “… All of them.” “Every rotten one,” Marasi said. “No pun intended.” She took a deep breath, then slapped the ledger closed. “I guess I could have picked one at random, Mister Eriola. But still, it is good to know.” “To know what?” “That they’re all crooked,” she said, and started fishing in her purse again. “I should have guessed. Most corpses are buried with something valuable, if only the clothing. No use letting that all rot away.” The banker paled. “They’re selling the clothing off the dead people.” “That,” Marasi said, slipping a small bottle of Syles brandy out of her purse and setting it on the table, “and perhaps any jewelry or other personal effects buried with the bodies.” “Hey,” Wayne said. “I’m right dry in the throat, I am. That would sure hit me well, like a morning piss after a nine-pinter the night afore.” “That’s horrible!” the banker said. “Yes,” Marasi said, “but if you think about it, not too horrifying. The only crimes being perpetrated here are against the dead, and their legal rights are questionable.” Wayne fished in his pocket a moment, then brought out a silver letter opener. Where did he get that? He set it on the table and took the drink, downing it in one shot. “Thank you for your time, Mister
Eriola,” Marasi continued, taking the letter opener and sliding it toward the banker. “You’ve been very helpful.” The banker looked at the letter opener with a start, then checked his desk drawer. “Hey, that’s mine,” he said, reaching into the desk and pulling out something that looked like a piece of cord. “Is this … a rat’s tail?” “Longest I ever seen,” Wayne said. “Quite a prize. Lucky man, you are.” “How in the world did you…” The banker looked from Wayne to Marasi, then rubbed his head. “Are we finished here?” “Yes,” Marasi said, standing. “Let’s go, Wayne.” “Off to make an arrest?” the banker said, dropping the tail into the wastebasket, which was a crime in and of itself. The thing was almost two hands long! “Arrest?” Marasi asked. “Nonsense, Mister Eriola. We aren’t here to arrest anyone.” “Then what was the point of all that?” “Why,” Marasi said, “I had to know whom to employ, of course. Come along, Wayne.” 12 So little had changed since Wax’s youth. Oh, the people at this party wore slightly different clothing: formal waistcoats had grown stouter, and hemlines had risen to midcalf while necklines had plunged, with mere bits of gauze draping across the neck and down the shoulders. The people, though, were the same. They weighed him, calculating his worth, hiding daggers behind ready smiles. He met their condescending nods, and didn’t miss his guns as much as he would have thought. Those were not the right weapons for this fight. “I used to be so nervous at these things,” Wax said softly to Steris. “When I was a kid. That was when I still cared about their opinions, I guess. Before I learned how much power over a situation you gain when you decide that you don’t care what others think of you.” Steris eyed a couple of passing ladies in their completely laceless gowns. “I’m not certain I agree. How you are perceived is important. For example, I’m regretting my choice of gown. I was shooting for fashionable, but fashion is different down here. I’m not in style; I’m avant-garde.” “I like it,” Wax said. “It stands out.” “So does a pimple,” Steris said. “Why don’t you get us some drinks, and I’ll take stock of the room and figure out where our targets are?” Wax nodded in agreement. The grand ballroom was carpeted and adorned with golden chandeliers—though their candleholders glowed with electric lights. The ceiling wasn’t terribly high, but the walls were colorfully decorated with false archways that each held a mural. Classical pieces, like the Ascendant Warrior rising above a flock of ravens—the typical depiction of the Lord Ruler’s wraiths, of whom only Death himself remained. Though nobody approached him, they also didn’t avoid him. If anything they remained determinedly in his path, refusing to budge—then acted like they hadn’t noticed him as he wove around them. He was from Elendel, their political enemy, and in not moving they made a statement. Rusts, he hated these games. The bar covered almost the entire length of the
far wall, and was serviced by at least two dozen bartenders, so as to make absolutely certain none of the very important guests had to wait. He ordered wine for Steris and a simple gin and tonic for himself, which got him a raised eyebrow. Apparently that wasn’t fancy enough. Should have ordered straight-up whiskey. He turned and scanned the room as the bartender prepared the drinks. Soft music by a harpist helped cover the many conversations. It made him uncomfortable to admit that some of the casual discussions in a room like this could do more to affect the lives of the Basin’s people than putting any criminal—no matter how vile—in prison. Marasi is always talking about things like that, he thought. How the lawkeeping of the future will be about statistics, not shotguns. He tried to imagine a world where murders were prevented by careful civic planning, and found himself unable to see it. People would always kill. Still, sometimes it was hard not to feel like the one chandelier in the room that still required candles. “Your order, my lord,” the bartender said, setting the drinks down on fancy cloth napkins, each embroidered with the date of the party. Those would be for the attendees to take as keepsakes. Wax fished a coin from his pocket for a tip and slid it to the bartender. He grabbed his drinks to head back to Steris, but the bartender cleared his throat. The man held up the coin, and it was not a fivespin as Wax had meant to give him. In fact, it was unlike any coin Wax had ever seen. “Was this a mistake, my lord?” the man asked. “I don’t mean to be ungrateful, but I’d hate to take something that looks like a memento.” The symbols on that coin … Wax thought, stepping back to the bar. They’re the same ones as on the walls in the pictures ReLuur took. He nearly overturned the wineglass of another guest in his haste to grab the coin back. He absently shoved the bartender another tip and held up the coin. Those were the same symbols, or very similar. And it had a face on the back, that of a man looking straight outward, one eye pierced by a spike. The large coin was made of two different metals, an outside ring and an inner one. The coin certainly didn’t seem old. Was it new, or merely well-preserved? Rust and Ruin … how had this gotten into his pocket? The beggar tossed it to me, Wax thought. But where had he gotten it? Were there more of these in circulation? Troubled, he struck out to find Steris. As he walked, he passed Lady Kelesina, the party’s hostess and the woman who was his eventual target. The older woman stood resplendent in a gown of black and silver, holding miniature court before a group of people asking after one of her civic projects. Wax listened in for a moment, but didn’t want to confront the woman yet. He eventually located Steris
standing beside a tall, thin table near the corner. There weren’t any chairs in the ballroom. No dancing either, though there was a dance floor raised an inch or two in the center of the chamber. Wax set the coin on the table and slid it to Steris. “What’s this?” she asked. “The coin that the beggar threw at me. Those symbols look similar to the ones in the pictures ReLuur took.” Steris pursed her lips, then turned the coin over and looked at the other side. “A face with one eye spiked through. Does it mean something?” “No idea,” Wax said. “I’m more interested in how that beggar got it—and why he threw it at me. It has to be a relic ReLuur found at that temple. Could he have lost it, or traded it to someone, in the city?” He tapped the table with one finger, certain now that beggar had been something more than he pretended. He was equally certain that if he went hunting now, he’d find that the man had vanished. Eventually, Wax pocketed the coin. “We have to hope that the answers are in this room somewhere. Assuming Kelesina really is involved.” “Then it’s time get to work.” “I passed her back there. Shall we?” “Not yet. See that couple over there? The man has on a maroon waistcoat.” Wax followed her nod. The couple she indicated were young, well-dressed, and smug. Great. “That is Lord Gave Entrone,” Steris said. “Your houses have had some minor business dealings—he’s in textiles—which should give you an opening to speak with him.” “I’ve heard of him,” Wax said. “I courted a cousin of his once. It went poorly.” “Well, he’s also on the list your mad kandra made in his notebook, so he might know something. He’s young, dynamic, and well-regarded—but not terribly important, so he’ll work nicely as a first try.” “Right,” Wax said, eyeing Entrone, who had drawn a crowd of several more young women as he told a story that involved lots of gesturing. He took a deep breath. “You want to take the lead?” “It should be you.” “You sure? I can’t help feeling I’d be better put to use with Marasi and Wayne, digging in graves—while you are comfortable here. You’re good at these things, Steris. You really are—and don’t give me any more of your rhetoric about being ‘boring.’” Her expression grew distant. “In this case, it’s not that I’m boring, it’s more that … I’m off. I’ve learned to fake being normal, but lists of prepared comments and jokes can only take me so far. People can sense that I’m not being authentic—that I don’t like the things they like or think the way they do. Sometimes it amazes me that people like Wayne, or even those kandra, can be so startlingly human when I feel so alien.” He wished he could figure out how to keep her from saying things like that. He didn’t know the right words; every time he tried to argue the point, it only seemed to make
her withdraw. Steris held out an arm to him. He took it, and together they crossed the room toward Lord Gave and the small crowd he had drawn. Wax had worried about how to break into the conversation, but as soon as he neared, the people talking to Gave stepped back and made room for him. His reputation and status preceded him, apparently. “Why, Lord Waxillium!” Gave said with a knowing smile. “I was delighted when I heard that you were going to attend our little gathering! I’ve wanted to meet you for years.” Wax nodded to him, then to his date and a couple he’d been chatting with. Those two didn’t retreat. “How are you finding New Seran, my lord?” one of the ladies asked him. “Seems mighty inconvenient to get around,” Wax said. “Nice otherwise, though.” They laughed at that, as if he’d said something humorous. He frowned. What had he missed? “I’m afraid,” Gave said, “you won’t find much to interest you here. New Seran is a quiet city.” “Oh, but what are you saying, Lord Gave!” the other young man said. “Don’t misrepresent our town. The nightlife here is fantastic, Lord Waxillium! And the symphony has been given a citation of excellence by two of your previous governors.” “Yes,” Gave said, “but there aren’t many shoot-outs.” The others gave him blank stares. “I was a lawman,” Wax told them, “in the Roughs.” “A…” one of the ladies said. “You oversaw a city’s constable precinct?” “No, he was a real lawman,” Gave said. “The ‘ride a horse and shoot bandits’ type. You should read the accounts—they’re all the rage in the Elendel broadsheets.” The three others regarded him with bemused expressions. “How … unique,” one of the ladies finally said. “The accounts are exaggerated,” Steris said quickly. “Lord Waxillium has only been directly responsible for the deaths of around a hundred people. Unless you include those who died of infection after he shot them—I’m still not sure how to count those.” “It was a difficult life,” Wax said, looking toward Gave, who smiled behind his cup of wine, eyes twinkling. For a man like him, Wax and Steris were obviously good sport. “But that is behind me now. Lord Gave, I wanted to thank you for our years of mutually profitable trade.” “Oh, don’t bring business into it, Lord Waxillium!” Gave said, with a tip of his wine. “This is a party.” The others laughed. Again, Wax had no idea why. Damn, he thought, looking between them. I am rusty. He’d complained, dragged his feet, but he hadn’t expected to be this clumsy. Focus. Gave knew something about the Bands of Mourning, or at least ReLuur had thought he did. “Do you have any hobbies, Lord Gave?” Wax asked, earning an eager nod from Steris at the comment. “Nothing of real note,” Gave said. “He loves archaeology!” his date said at the same time though. He gave her a dry look. “Archaeology!” Wax said. “That’s hardly unnotable, Lord Gave.” “He loves relics!” the lady said. “Spends hours at the
auction house, snatching up anything he—” “I like history,” Gave interjected. “Artwork from times past inspires me. But you, dear, are making me sound too much like one of those gentlemen adventurers.” He sneered at the term. “I’m sure you saw the type up in the Roughs, Lord Waxillium. Men who’d spent their lives in society, but suddenly decided to go off seeking some kind of thrill or another where they don’t belong.” Steris stiffened. Wax met the man’s gaze levelly. The insult, veiled though it was, was similar to those he’d suffered in Elendel society. “Better they try something new,” Wax said, “as opposed to wasting their lives in the same old activities.” “My Lord Waxillium!” Gave said. “Disappointing one’s family is hardly original! People have been doing it since the days of the Last Emperor.” Wax made a fist at his side. He was accustomed to insults, but this one still got under his skin. Perhaps it was because he was on edge, or perhaps it was because of his worry about his sister. He pushed down his anger, Steris squeezing his arm, and tried another tactic. “Is your cousin well?” “Valette? Most certainly. We are all pleased with her new marriage. I’m sorry your relationship didn’t work out, but the man who courted her after you was dreadful. When titles are part of a union, it’s always unpleasant to see what crawls out from the mists looking for a bone.” He didn’t look at Steris as he said it. He didn’t need to. That sly smile, so self-satisfied as he sipped his wine. “You rat,” Wax growled. “You rusting, spineless rat.” He reached for his gun, which—fortunately—wasn’t there. The other three young nobles looked to him, shocked. Gave grinned in a cocky way before adopting an expression of outrage. “Excuse me,” he said, turning his date by the arm and striding away. The others scuttled after. Wax sighed, lowering his arm, still angry. “He did that deliberately,” he muttered. “Didn’t he? He wanted an excuse to leave the conversation, so he insulted me. When that didn’t work, he flung one at you, knowing I’d overreact.” “Hmmm…” Steris said. “Yes, you have the right of it.” Steris nodded. Other people nearby made conversation, but they left an open space around Wax and Steris. “I’m sorry,” Wax said. “I let him get to me.” “That’s why we tried him first,” Steris said. “Good practice. And we did learn something. The archaeology comment prodded too close to something he didn’t want to discuss. He turned to veiled insults to distract us.” Wax took a deep breath, shoving away his annoyance at this entire situation. “What now? Do we try another one?” “No,” Steris said, thoughtful. “We don’t want our targets to know that we’re approaching them specifically. If you interact with unaffiliated people in between, our pattern will be more difficult to spot.” “Right,” Wax said, looking through the busy hall as the harpist retreated and a full band, with brass—something you’d never see at a party in Elendel—began setting up instruments
in her place. He and Steris sipped drinks as the music started. Though it was slow enough to encourage dancing with a partner, there was a pep to it Wax hadn’t expected. He found he quite liked it. It seemed to be able to beat out his frustration, turn it to something more excited instead. “Why don’t you go there next?” Steris said, nodding toward a distinguished older woman with her grey hair in a bun. “That’s Lady Felise Demoux, accompanied by her nephew. You’ve had business dealings with her; she’s exactly the sort of person you’d be expected to seek out. I’ll refill our drinks.” “Get me a seltzer,” Wax said. “I’ll need my mind clear for this.” Steris nodded, moving off through the crowd as people made way for dancing in the center of the room. Wax approached Lady Demoux and introduced himself with a card given to her nephew, then requested a dance, which was accepted. Small talk. He could do small talk. What is wrong with you, Wax? he thought at himself as he accompanied Lady Demoux to the dance floor. You can interrogate a criminal without trouble. Why do you dread simple conversation? Part of him wanted to dismiss it as mere laziness. But that was his response to everything he didn’t want to do—an excuse. What was it really? Why was he so reluctant? It’s because these are their rules. If I play by them, I accept their games. It felt like he was accepting their collar. He turned to raise his hand to the side for Lady Demoux to take. However, as he did, a different woman slid into place and grasped his hand, towing him into the dancing and away from the perimeter. He was so surprised that he let it happen. “Excuse me?” Wax said. “No excuses necessary,” the woman said, “I won’t take but a moment of your time.” She looked to be Terris, judging by her dark skin—though hers was darker than most he’d seen. Her hair was in tight braids, streaked with grey, and her face bore full, luscious lips. She took the lead in the dance, causing him to stumble. “You realize,” she said, “that you are a very rare specimen. Crasher: a Coinshot and a Skimmer.” “Neither are that rare,” Wax said, “in terms of Metalborn.” “Ah, but any Twinborn combination is rare indeed. Mistings are one in a thousand; most Ferrings even more unusual, and their bloodlines constrained. To arrive at any specific combination of two is highly improbable. You are one of only three Crashers ever born, Lord Waxillium.” “What, really?” “I cannot, of course, be one hundred percent certain of that figure. Infant mortality on Scadrial is not as bad as some regions, but still shockingly high. Tell me, have you ever tried increasing your weight while in midair?” “Who are you?” Wax said, stepping into the dance and seizing back control, twisting her to his right. “Nobody important,” she said. “Did my uncle send you?” “I have little interest in your local politics, Lord
Waxillium,” she replied. “If you would kindly answer my questions, I will let you be.” He turned with her to the music. They danced more quickly than he was accustomed to, though the steps were familiar. The constant intrusion of those brass instruments drove the song, made his steps seem to spring. Why had he mentioned his uncle? Sloppy. “I’ve increased my weight while moving,” he said slowly. “It doesn’t do anything—all things fall at the same speed, regardless of how heavy they are.” “Yes, the uniformity of gravitation,” the woman said. “That’s not what I’m curious about. What if you’re soaring through the air on a Steelpush and you suddenly make yourself heavier. What happens?” “I slow down—I’m so much heavier that it’s harder to Push myself forward.” “Ahh…” the woman said softly. “So it is true.” “What?” “Conservation of momentum,” she said. “Lord Waxillium, when you store weight, are you storing mass, or are you changing the planet’s ability to recognize you as something to attract? Is there a difference? Your answer gives me a clue. If you slow when you become heavier midflight, then that is not likely due to you having trouble Pushing, but due to the laws of physics.” She stepped back from him in the middle of the dance, releasing his hands and sidestepping another couple, who gave them a glare for interfering with the flow of the dance. She produced a card and handed it toward him. “Please experiment with this further and send me word. Thank you. Now, if I can just figure out why there’s no redshift involved in speed bubbles…” With that she wandered off the floor, leaving him befuddled in the middle of the dancing. Suddenly conscious of how many stares he was drawing, he lifted his chin and sauntered off the dance floor, where he found Lady Demoux and apologized to her profusely for the interruption. She allowed him to have the next dance, which passed without incident, save for Wax having to hear a protracted description of Lady Demoux’s prize-winning hounds. Once done, he tried to find the strange woman with the braids, even going so far as to approach the doorkeeper and ask after her. The card had an address in Elendel, but no name. The doorman claimed he hadn’t admitted anyone by that description, which left Wax even more troubled. His uncle was trying to breed Allomancers. A woman asking after the specifics of Allomantic powers couldn’t be a coincidence, could it? He did pass MeLaan. Square-chinned, standing over six feet tall, her masculine body bulged with muscles beneath her tuxedo, and she’d drawn a gaggle of interested young ladies. She winked at Wax as he passed, but he gave her no response. Steris had a drink waiting for him at the table, where she was flipping through pages of her notebook and mumbling. As Wax neared, he noticed a young man approach and try to engage her in conversation, but she dismissed him with a wiggle of her fingers, not even looking up. The man, deflated,
drifted away. Wax stepped up to the table. “Not interested in dancing?” “What would be the point?” she said. “Well, I’m going out and dancing, so maybe you could too.” “You are lord of your house,” Steris said absently, still reading. “You have political and economic obligations. Anyone who would want to do the same with me is simply trying to get to you, something for which I have no time.” “Either that,” Wax said, “or he thought you were pretty.” Steris looked up from her notes and cocked her head, as if the thought hadn’t even occurred to her. “I’m engaged.” “We’re new here,” Wax said, “largely unknown save to those who pay attention to Elendel politics. The lad probably didn’t know who you were.” Steris blinked very pointedly. She actually seemed troubled by the idea that someone unknown might find her attractive. Wax smiled, reaching for the cup she’d set out for him. “What is this?” “Soda water,” she said. He held it up to the light. “It’s yellow.” “All the rage here, apparently,” Steris said. “With lemon flavoring.” Wax took a drink, then nearly choked. “What?” Steris asked, alarmed. “Poison?” “Sugar,” Wax said. “About seven cups of it.” Steris took a sip, then pulled back. “How odd. It’s like champagne, only … not.” Wax shook his head. What was wrong with people in this city? “I’ve decided upon our next target,” Steris said, pointing toward a man across the room leaning against the archway near some tanks of exotic fish. In his thirties, he wore his jacket unbuttoned with a kind of purposeful sloppiness. Occasionally, someone else would approach and talk to him for a short time, then move back out into the crowd. “They’re reporting to him?” Wax asked. “Devlin Airs,” Steris said with a nod. “Informant. You’ll find his sort at any party. He’s either one of the least important people in the room or one of the most important, depending upon the secrets you’re interested in discovering. He was also on ReLuur’s list.” Wax studied the man for a time, and when he looked back toward Steris, half of his fizzy yellow drink was gone. She looked innocently in the other direction. “Probably best,” she said, “if you approach him alone. His type doesn’t like an audience.” “All right,” Wax said, taking a deep breath. “You can do this, Lord Waxillium.” He nodded. “I mean it,” Steris said, resting her hand on his. “Lord Waxillium, this is exactly what you’ve been doing for the last twenty years, in the Roughs.” “I could shoot people there, Steris.” “Could you really? Is that how you solved things? You couldn’t get answers, so you shot somebody?” “Well, I’d usually just punch them.” She gave him a raised eyebrow. “To be honest, no, I didn’t have to shoot—or punch—all that often. But the rules were different. Hell, I could make the rules, if I needed to.” “Same goes here,” Steris said. “These people know things that you need to know. You need to either trick them or trade with them.
As you’ve always done.” “Perhaps you’re right.” “Thank you. Besides, who knows? Maybe he’ll pull a knife on you, and you’ll get an excuse to punch him anyway.” “Don’t get my hopes up,” he said, then gave her a nod, and walked across the room. * * * The gates to the Seran New District Cemetery were topped with a crouching statue of the Survivor, scarred arms spread wide and gripping the metalwork arch on either side. Marasi felt dwarfed by the statue’s looming intensity—brass cloak tassels spreading out in a radial flare behind him, his metallic face glaring down at those who entered. A spear through his back pierced the front of his chest, the polished tip emerging to hang a foot below the center of the arch. When she and Wayne passed beneath it, Marasi felt as if it should drip blood upon her. She shivered, but didn’t slow her step. She refused to be intimidated by the Survivor’s glare. She’d been raised Survivorist, so the gruesome imagery associated with the religion was familiar to her. It was just that every time she saw a depiction of the Survivor, his posture seemed so demanding. It was like he wanted people to recognize the contradiction in his religion. He commanded that people survive, yet the death imagery associated with him was a cruel reminder that they’d eventually fail in that task. Survivorism therefore was not about winning, but about lasting as long as you could before you lost. The Survivor himself, of course, broke the rules. He always had. Doctrine explained he was not dead, but surviving—and planning to return in their time of greatest need. But if the end of the world hadn’t been enough to get him to return in his glory, then what could possibly do so? They wound through the graveyard, seeking the caretaker’s building. Evening had fallen, and the mists had decided to come out tonight. She tried not to take that as any kind of sign, but it did make the place look extra creepy. Gravestones and statues were shadowed in the churning mists. Some nights, she saw the mists as playful. Tonight their unpredictable motions seemed more a crowd of shifting spirits, watching her and Wayne, angered at their intrusion. Wayne started whistling. That sent another shiver up Marasi’s spine. Fortunately, the gravekeeper’s building was now only a short distance up the path—she could see its lights creating a bubble of yellow in the mists. She stuck close to Wayne, not because she felt more comfortable having him beside her. “Our target is a man named Dechamp,” she said. “Should be the night gravekeeper, and one of those whose ledger entries show regular upticks in income. He’s grave robbing for sure. In fact, this cemetery showed the highest frequency of that, and the ledgers listed it as the place the city pays to take care of unidentified bodies. I’m reasonably certain the kandra’s remains ended up here; we just need to find this man and get him to dig for us.” Wayne nodded. “This
won’t be like with the banker,” Marasi said. “Who was reluctant, but ultimately helpful.” “Really?” Wayne said. “Because I thought he was kind of a tit.…” “Focus, Wayne. We’ll have to use the full weight of the law here, to push this man. I suspect we’ll have to offer clemency to get him to help us.” “Wait, wait,” Wayne said, stopping on the path, tendrils of mist curling around his brow, “you’re gonna flash your goods at him too?” “I really wish you wouldn’t phrase it that way.” “Now, listen,” Wayne said softly, “you were right ’bout the banker. You did damn good work in there, Marasi, and I’m not too proud to admit it. But authority works different out here in the world of regular men. You bring out your credentials with this fellow, and I guarantee he’s gonna react like a rabbit. Find the nearest hole, hunker down, not say a word.” “Good interrogation techniques—” “Ain’t worth beans if you’re in a hurry,” Wayne said, “which we are. I’m puttin’ my foot down.” He hesitated. “’Sides, I already lifted your credentials.” “You…” Marasi started, then rummaged through her purse and discovered that the small, engraved plate that held her constable’s credentials was gone, replaced with an empty bottle of Syles brandy. “Oh please. This isn’t worth nearly the same as those credentials.” “I know I gave you a good deal,” Wayne said. “’Cuz yours is only a bit of useless metal—which is about what it’d be worth here, in this cemetery.” “You will give the credentials back after we’re done.” “Sure. If you fill that bottle in trade.” “But you said—” “Convenience fee,” Wayne said, then looked up the path toward the gravekeeper’s building. He took his top hat off and stomped on it. Marasi stepped back, hand to her breast, as Wayne ground the hat beneath his heel, then brought it up and twisted it the other way. Finally, after inspecting it critically, he pulled a knife off his metalbelt and cut a hole in the hat’s side. He tossed aside his duster and cut off one of the straps of his suspenders. When the top hat went back on his head, he looked shockingly like a vagrant. Of course, he was always one step from that, but it was still surprising how much of a difference two little changes could make. He spun the knife in his hand and inspected Marasi with a critical eye. The sun had set completely, but with the light of the city diffusing through the mists, it could actually be brighter on a night like this than on one without any mist. “What?” Marasi said, uncomfortable. “You look too fancy,” Wayne said. Marasi glanced down at herself. She wore a simple, sky-blue day dress, hem at midcalf, laced up the sleeves and neck. “This is pretty ordinary, Wayne.” “Not for what we’ll be doin’.” “I can be your employer or something.” “Men like this don’t open up none if there’s someone respectable about.” He spun the knife in his hand, then reached for
her chest. “Wayne!” she said. “Don’t be so stiff. You want this done right, right?” She sighed. “Don’t get too frisky.” “Sooner get frisky with a lion, Mara. That I would.” He cut the opaque lace window out of her bodice, leaving her with a plunging neckline. Her sleeves went next, shortened by a good foot to above the elbow. He took the lace there and tied it like a ribbon around her dress right beneath her breasts, then pulled the laces on the back of the dress more tightly. That lifted and thrust her upper chest outward in a decidedly scandalous way. From there, he made a few choice slits on the skirt before rubbing dirt on the bottom parts. He stepped back, tapping his cheek thoughtfully, and nodded. Marasi looked down, inspecting his handiwork, and was actually impressed. Beyond enhancing the bust, he’d cut along seams, pulling out threads, and the effect wasn’t so much ruined as used. “Everyone looks at the chest first,” Wayne said, “even women, which is kinda strange, but that’s the way it is. Like this, nobody will care that the dirt looks too fresh and the rest of the dress ain’t aged properly.” “Wayne, I’m shocked,” she said. “You’re an excellent seamstress.” “Clothes is fun to play with. Ain’t no reason that can’t be manly.” His eyes lingered on her chest. “Wayne.” “Sorry, sorry. Just gettin’ into character, you know.” He waved for her to follow, and they headed up the path. As they did, Marasi realized something. She wasn’t blushing. Well, that’s a first, she thought, growing strangely confident. “Try not to open your mouth much,” Wayne advised as they approached the hut. “On account of you normally soundin’ way too smart.” “I’ll see what I can do.” He snapped a branch off a tree they passed, spun it around his finger, then held it down before himself like a gnarled cane. Together they approached the glowing building: a small, thatched structure that had a few weathered mistwraith statues sticking up from its mossy yard. The statues—made in the form of skeletons with skin pulled tight across the skulls—were traditionally thought to ward away the real things, as mistwraiths could be very territorial. Marasi suspected the creatures could tell the difference between real and stone members of their species—but of course, scientists claimed that the mistwraiths hadn’t even survived the Catacendre in the first place. So the question was probably moot. A greasy little man with a blond ponytail whistled to himself beside the hut, sharpening his shovel with a whetstone. Who sharpens a shovel? Marasi thought as Wayne presented himself, chest thrust out, improvised cane before him as if he were some grand attendee at a ball. “And are you,” Wayne said, “bein’ the one called Dezchamp?” “Dechamp,” the man said, looking up lazily. “Now, now. Did I leave that gate open again? I am supposed to be closin’ the thing each night. I’ll have to be askin’ you to leave this premises, sir.” “I’ll make my way out, then,” Wayne said, pointing
with his cane-stick, yet not moving. “But afore I go, I would like to make you aware of a special business proposition regardin’ you and me.” Wayne had exaggerated his accent to the point that Marasi had to pay strict attention to make out what he was saying. Beyond that, there was a more staccato sense to it. More stressed syllables, more of a rhythm to the sentences. It was, she realized, very similar to the accent the gravekeeper was using. “I’m a honest man, I am,” Dechamp said, drawing his whetstone along his shovel. “I don’t have no business I needs to discuss, particularly not at a time of night like this one here.” “Oh, I’ve heard of your honesty,” Wayne said, rolling back on his heels, hands on his cane before him. “Heard it spoken of from one street to the next. Everyone’s talkin’ ’bout your honesty, Dechamp. It’s a right keen topic of interest.” “If everyone’s sayin’ so much,” Dechamp replied, “then you’ll know I already got plenty of people with whom to share my honesty. I’m … gainfully contracted.” “That don’t matter none for our business.” “I do think it might.” “See, it won’t,” Wayne said, “on account of my needin’ only one special little item, that nobody else would find of interest.” Dechamp looked Wayne up and down. Then he eyed Marasi, and his eyes lingered as Wayne had said they would. Finally Dechamp smiled and stood, calling into the hut. “Boy? Boy!” A child scrambled out into the mists, bleary-eyed and wearing a dirty smock and trousers. “Sir?” “Go and kindly do a round of the yard,” Dechamp said. “Make sure we ain’t disturbed.” The boy grew wide-eyed, then nodded and scampered off into the mists. Dechamp rested his shovel on his shoulder, pocketing the whetstone. “Now, what can I be callin’ you, good sir?” “Mister Coins will do,” Wayne said. “And I’ll be callin’ you Mister Smart Man, for the decision you just made right here and now.” He was changing his accent. It was subtle, but Marasi could tell he’d shifted it faintly. “Nothing is set as of yet,” Dechamp said. “I just like to give that boy some exercise now and then. Keeps his health.” “Of course,” Wayne said. “And I understand completely that nothing has been promised. But I tell you, this thing I want, ain’t nobody else goin’ to give you a clip for it.” “If that’s so, then why are you so keen for it?” “Sentimental value,” Wayne said. “It belonged to a friend, and it was really hard for him to part with it.” Marasi snorted in surprise at that one, drawing Dechamp’s attention. “Are you the friend?” “I don’t speak skaa,” she said in the ancient Terris language. “Could you perhaps talk in Terris, please?” Wayne winked at her. “No use, Dechamp. I can’t get her to speak proper, no matter how much I try. But she’s fine to look at, ain’t she?” He nodded slowly. “Iffen this item be under my watchful care, where might it be
found?” “There was a right tragic incident in town a few weeks back,” Wayne said. “Explosives. People dead. I hear they brought the pieces to you.” “Bilmy runs the day shift,” Dechamp said. “He brought ’em in. The ones what weren’t claimed, the city put in a nice little grave. They was mostly beggars and whores.” “And right undeservin’ of death,” Wayne said, taking off his hat and putting it over his breast. “Let’s go see them.” “You want to go tonight?” “Iffen it ain’t too much a sweat.” “Not much sweat, Mister Coins,” Dechamp said, “but your name had better match your intentions.” Wayne promptly got out a few banknotes and waved them. Dechamp snatched them, sniffed them for some reason, then shoved them in his pocket. “Well, those ain’t coins, but they’ll do. Come on, then.” He took out an oil lantern, then led them into the mists. “You changed your accent,” Marasi whispered to Wayne as they followed a short distance behind. “Aged it back a tad,” Wayne explained softly. “Used the accent of a generation past.” “There’s a difference?” He looked shocked. “Of course there is, woman. Made me sound older, like his parents. More authority.” He shook his head, as if he couldn’t believe she’d even asked. Dechamp’s lantern reflected off the mists as they walked, and that actually made it harder to see in the night, but he’d probably need it when digging. It did little to dispel the eeriness of gravestones broken by the occasional twisted mistwraith image. She understood, logically, why the tradition would have grown up. If there was one place you wanted to keep scavengers away from, it would be the graveyard. Except that the place had its own set of human scavengers, so the statues weren’t working. “Now,” Dechamp said, and Wayne caught up to listen, “I’ll have you know that I am an honest man.” “Of course,” Wayne said. “But I’m also a thrifty man.” “Ain’t we all,” Wayne said. “I never buys the fancy beer, even when it’s last call and the bartender halves it to empty the barrel.” “You’re a man after my own heart, then,” Dechamp said. “Thrifty. What’s the good of lettin’ things rot and waste away, I says. The Survivor, he didn’t waste nothing useful.” “Except noblemen,” Wayne said. “Wasted a fair number o’ them.” “Wasn’t a waste,” Dechamp said, chuckling. “That there was weapons testing. Gotta make sure your knives is workin’.” “Indeed,” Wayne said. “Why, sometimes the sharp ends on mine need lotsa testin’. To make sure they don’t break down in the middle of a good killin’.” They shared a laugh, and Marasi shook her head. Wayne was in his element—he could talk about stabbing rich people all day long. Never mind that he himself was wealthier, now, than most of Elendel. She didn’t much care to listen to them as they continued to laugh and joke, but unfortunately she also didn’t want to get too far away in this darkness. Yes, the mists were supposed to belong to the Survivor, but
rusts, every second tombstone looked like a figure stumbling toward her in the night. Eventually the gravekeeper led them to a freshly filled grave tucked away behind a few larger mausoleums. It was unmarked save for the sign of the spear, carved in stone and set into the dirt. Nearby, a few other new graves—these open—awaited corpses. “You might want to grab a seat,” Dechamp said, hefting his shovel. “This’ll go fast, since the grave is upturned, but not that fast. And you might tell the lady to watch the other way. There’s no tellin’ what bits I might toss up.” “Grab a seat…” Wayne said, looking around at the field of tombstones. “Where, my good man?” “Anywhere,” Dechamp said, starting to dig. “They don’t care none. That’s the motto of the gravekeeper, you know. Just remember, they don’t care none.…” And he set to it. 13 I have to accept their rules, Wax thought, crossing the room to the informant. They’re different, no matter what Steris says. But I do know them. He’d decided to stay in the Basin and do what he could here. He’d seen the dangers on the streets of Elendel, and had worked to fight them. But those were a lesser wound—it was like patching the cut while the rot festered up the arm. Chasing down the Set’s lesser minions … they probably wanted him doing those things. If he was going to protect the people, he was going to have to gun for more important targets. That meant keeping his temper, and it meant dancing and playing nice. It meant doing all the things his parents, and even his uncle, had tried to teach him. Wax stopped near the alcove the informant, Devlin, occupied. The man was watching the nearby fish tank, which stood beneath a depiction of Tindwyl, Mother of Terris, perched on the walls during her last stand against the darkness. In the tank, tiny octopuses moved across the glass. After a moment’s waiting, the informant nodded toward him. Wax approached and rested his arm against the glass of the tank beside Devlin, a short, handsome man with a hint of hair on his upper lip and chin. “I expected you to be arrogant,” Devlin noted. “What makes you think that I’m not?” “You waited,” Devlin said. “An arrogant man can still be polite,” Wax said. Devlin smiled. “I suppose he can be, Lord Waxillium.” One of the little octopuses seized a passing fish in its tentacles and dropped from the side of the tank, holding the squirming fish and pulling it up toward its beak. “They don’t feed them,” Devlin noted, “for a week or so before a party. They like the show they provide.” “Brutal,” Wax said. “Lady Kelesina imagines herself the predator,” he said, “and we all her fish, invited in to swim and perhaps be consumed.” Devlin smiled. “Of course, she doesn’t see that she’s in a cage as well.” “You know something about that cage?” Wax asked. “It’s the cage we’re all in, Lord Waxillium! This Basin that Harmony
created for us. So perfect, so lush. Nobody leaves.” “I did.” “To the Roughs,” Devlin said, dismissive. “What’s beyond them, Waxillium? Beyond the deserts? Across the seas? Nobody cares.” “I’ve heard it asked before.” “And has anyone put up the money to find the answers?” Wax shook his head. “People can ask questions,” Devlin said, “but where there is no money, there are no answers.” Wax found himself chuckling, to which Devlin responded with a modest nod. He had developed a subtle way of explaining that he needed to be paid to give information. Oddly, despite the immediate—and somewhat crass—demand, Wax found himself more comfortable here than he’d been with Lord Gave. Wax fished in his pocket and held out the strange coin. “Money,” he said. “I have an interest in money.” Devlin took it, then cocked an eyebrow. “If someone could tell me how this could be spent,” Wax noted, “I would be enriched. Really, we all would be.” Devlin turned it over in his fingers. “Though I’ve never seen the exact image on this one, coins like these have been moving with some regularity through black-market antiquities auctions. I’ve been baffled as to why. There is no reason to keep them secret, and it would not be illegal to sell them in the open.” He flipped the coin back to Wax. He caught it with surprise. “You didn’t expect me to answer so frankly,” Devlin said. “Why do people so often ask questions when they’re not expecting answers?” “Do you know anything else?” Wax asked. “Gave bought a few,” Devlin said, “then immediately stopped, and the pieces he purchased are no longer on display in his home.” Wax nodded thoughtfully and dug into his pocket for some money to offer the informant. “Not here,” Devlin said, rolling his eyes. “One hundred. Send a note of transfer to your bank and have them move it to my account.” “You’d trust me?” Wax asked. “Lord Waxillium, it’s my job to know whom to trust.” “It will be done, then. Assuming you have a little more for me.” “Whatever is being covered up,” Devlin said, looking back toward the fish tank, “a good quarter of the nobility in the city is embroiled in it. First I was curious; now I’m terrified. It involves a massive building project to the northeast of here.” “What kind of building project?” Wax asked. “No way of knowing,” Devlin said. “Some farmers have seen it. Claimed Allomancers were involved. News died before it got here. Quashed. Smothered. Everything’s been strange in New Seran lately. A murderer from the Roughs showing up, attacking the homes of rich Metalborn, then you come to a party…” “This project to the northeast,” Wax said. “Allomancers?” “I don’t have anything more on it,” Devlin said, then tapped the fish tank, trying to frighten one of the little octopuses. “What about the explosion a few weeks back?” Wax asked. “The one in the city?” “An attack by this murderer from the Roughs, they say.” “Do you believe them?” “It didn’t kill any Metalborn,” Devlin
said. None that you know of, Wax thought. Where did Hemalurgy fit into all of this? Devlin stood and nodded to Wax, extending a hand as if in farewell. “That’s it?” Wax asked. “Yes.” “Steep price for so little,” Wax said, taking the hand. Devlin leaned in, speaking softly, “Then let me give you a bit more. What you’re involved in is dangerous, more than you can imagine. Get out. That’s what I’m doing.” “I can’t,” Wax said as Devlin pulled back. “I know you, lawman,” Devlin said. “And I can tell you, the group you chase, you don’t need to worry about them. They won’t be a danger for decades, perhaps centuries. You’re ignoring the bigger threat.” “Which is?” Wax asked. “The rest of the people in this room,” Devlin said, “the ones not involved in your little conspiracy—the ones who care only about how their cities are being treated.” “Pardon,” Wax said, “but they don’t seem like nearly the same level of danger to me.” “Then you aren’t paying attention,” Devlin said. “Personally, I’m curious to find out how many lives the Basin’s first civil war claims. Good day, Lord Ladrian.” He walked away, snapping his fingers as he passed a few people. One of them scuttled off to follow him. Wax found himself growling softly. First that woman during the dancing, now this fellow. Wax felt like he was being jerked around on the end of someone’s string. What had he even found out? Confirmation that artifacts were being sold? So someone else had found the place that ReLuur had evanotyped? A building project, Wax thought. Allomancers. Civil war. Feeling cold, Wax moved back through the crowd. He rounded a group of people, noting that Steris was gone from their table—though she’d finished his cup of sweetened soda water before leaving. He turned and started through the crowd, looking for her. That, by chance, brought him unexpectedly face-to-face with a statuesque woman with her hair in a bun and a ring on each finger. “Why, Lord Waxillium,” Kelesina said, waving for her companions to withdraw, leaving her alone with Wax. “I was hoping to get a chance to speak with you.” He felt an immediate spike of panic—which he shot in the head and dumped in a lake. He would not be intimidated by one of Suit’s lackies, no matter how wealthy or influential. “Lady Shores,” he said, taking her hand and shaking it rather than kissing it. He might not be in the Roughs, but he didn’t intend to take his eyes off his enemy. “I hope you’ve been enjoying the party,” she said. “The main address is about a half hour away; you might find it of note. We’ve invited the mayor of Bilming himself to speak. I’ll be certain to get you a transcript to bring back to your peasant governor, so that you needn’t worry about memorizing the details.” “That’s very courteous of you.” “I—” she began. Rusts, he was tired of letting someone else steer his conversation tonight. “Have you seen Lord Gave?” Wax
interrupted. “I insulted him by accident earlier. I wish to make amends.” “Gave?” Kelesina said. “Don’t mind him, Waxillium. He’s hardly worth the bother.” “Still,” Wax said. “I feel like I’m wearing blocks of concrete on my feet and trying to dance! Every step I take, I smash somebody’s toes. Rusts, I’d hoped that people down here wouldn’t be as touchy as they are in Elendel.” She smiled. The words seemed to put her at ease, as if she were getting from him exactly what she expected. Use that, Wax told himself. But how? This woman had decades’ worth of experience moving in social circles. Steris could opine all she wanted about his virtues, but he’d spent years doing target practice instead of attending parties. How could he expect to match these people at their own game? “I’m sorry to see you didn’t bring your associate,” Kelesina said. “Wayne?” Wax asked, genuinely incredulous. “Yes. I’ve had letters regarding him from friends in Elendel. He seems so colorful!” “That’s one way to put it,” Wax said. “Pardon, Lady Kelesina, but I’d sooner bring my horse to a party. It’s better behaved.” She laughed. “You are a charmer, Lord Waxillium.” This woman was guilty as sin, and he knew it. He could feel it. He did the next part by instinct. He pulled the coin from his pocket and held it up. “Maybe you can answer something for me,” he said, and realized he’d started to let a Roughs accent slip into his voice. Thanks for that, Wayne. “I was given this outside, by mistake I think. I asked some folks in here about it, and some of them got so pale in the face, I’d have thought they’d been shot.” Kelesina froze. “Now personally,” Wax said, flipping it over, “I think it has to do with those rumors of what’s happenin’ out northeast. Big dig in the ground, I’ll bet? Well, I figure this must be from that. Relic from the old days. Mighty interesting, eh?” “Don’t be taken in by those rumors, Lord Waxillium,” she said. “After stories circulated, people began coining things like those in the city to sell to the gullible.” “Is that so?” Wax said, trying to sound disappointed. “That’s a shame. It sounded really interesting to me.” He pocketed the coin as the band started another song. “Care for a dance?” “Actually,” she said, “I promised the next one already. Can I find you later, Lord Waxillium?” “Sure, sure,” he said, then gave her a nod as she withdrew. He stepped back to his table, watching her move pointedly through the crowd with frightened motions. “Was that Lady Kelesina?” Steris said, joining him, holding another cup of the sweetened yellow drink. “Yup,” Wax said. “I wasn’t planning to talk to her until after the speech,” Steris said, huffing. “You’ve thrown off my entire timeline.” “Sorry.” “It will have to do. What did you discover from her?” “Nothing,” Wax said, still watching Lady Kelesina as she met with some men in suits nearby. She kept her face calm, but
the curt way she motioned … yes, she sure was agitated. “I told her what I’d discovered.” “You what?” “I tipped her off that I was on to them,” Wax said, “though I tried to act stupid. I don’t know if she bought that part. Wayne’s far better than I am at it. He’s a natural, you see.” “You’ve ruined it then?” “Maybe,” Wax said. “But then, if this were the Roughs and I were confronting a criminal—but had no evidence—this is what I’d do. Let it slip that I was suspicious of them, then watch where they go.” Lady Kelesina stalked from the hall, leaving one of the other men to give apologies. Wax could almost hear them. The lady has a matter of some urgency to take care of at the moment. She will return shortly. Steris followed his gaze. “Ten notes says she’s gone to contact Suit,” Wax said, “and let him know that I’m on to them.” “Ah,” Steris said. He nodded. “I figured I couldn’t outtalk her, no matter how hard I tried. But she’s not used to being chased by the law. She will make simple mistakes, ones that even a rookie stagecoach robber would never make.” “We’ll need to follow her somehow.” “That would be the plan,” Wax said, drumming his fingers on the table. “I may have to start a fight and get thrown out.” “Lord Waxillium!” Steris said, then started fishing in her purse. “I’m sorry. I’m having trouble thinking of something else.” It was a weak plan though. Getting thrown out would likely alert Kelesina. “We need a distraction, an excuse to leave. Something believable, but not too disconcerting … What is that?” Steris had removed a small vial of something from her purse. “Syrup of ipecac and saltroot,” she said. “To induce vomiting.” He blinked in shock. “But why…” “I had assumed they might try to poison us,” Steris said. “Though I considered it only a small possibility, it’s best to be prepared.” She laughed uncomfortably. Then she downed the whole thing. Wax reached for her arm, but too late. He watched in horror as she stoppered the empty vial and tucked it into her purse. “You might want to get out of the splash radius, so to speak.” “But … Steris!” he said. “You’ll end up humiliating yourself.” She closed her eyes. “Dear Lord Waxillium. Earlier, you spoke of the power of not caring about what others thought of you. Do you remember?” “Yes.” “Well, you see,” she said, opening her eyes and smiling, “I’m trying to practice that skill.” She proceeded to vomit all over the table. * * * The digging continued, and Marasi passed the time reading inscriptions on gravestones. Wayne, for his part, had settled down on a grave with his back to the stone, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. As she passed to check on the progress, she found him rummaging in his pocket. A moment later, he pulled a sandwich out and started eating. When he saw Marasi
staring at him, he held it toward her, wagging it to see if she wanted a bite. Feeling sick, she turned away from him and sought out more grave inscriptions. This was obviously the poorer section of the yard; plots were close together, and the markers were small and simple. The mist wove between them, curling around her as she knelt beside a stone, wiped off the moss, and read the memorial left for the child buried here. Eliza Marin. 308–310. Ascend and be free. The steady sound of the gravedigger’s shovel accompanied her as she moved between the graves. Soon she was too far from the light to make out the inscriptions. She sighed, turning, and found someone standing in the mists nearby. She practically jumped out of her shoes, but the shifting mists—and the figure’s too-steady posture—soon revealed this to be a statue. Marasi approached, frowning. Who had paid for a statue to be placed in the paupers’ section of the graveyard? It was old, having sunken a foot or so on the right side as the ground shifted, tipping the statue askew. It was also masterly, an extraordinary figure cut of gorgeous black marble standing some eight feet tall and resplendent in a sweeping mistcloak. Marasi rounded it, and was not surprised to find a feminine figure with short hair and a petite, heart-shaped face. The Ascendant Warrior was here, settled among the graves of the impoverished and the forgotten. Unlike Kelsier’s statue, which had loomed over those who passed beneath his gaze, this one seemed about to take flight, one leg raised, eyes toward the sky. “For years, I wanted to be you,” Marasi whispered. “Every girl does, I suppose. Who wouldn’t, after hearing the stories?” She’d even gone so far as to join the ladies’ target club because she figured if she couldn’t Push bits of metal around, a gun was the closest she could get. “Were you ever insecure?” Marasi asked. “Or did you always know what to do? Did you get jealous? Frightened? Angry?” If Vin had been an ordinary person at any point, the stories and songs had forgotten. They proclaimed her the Ascendant Warrior, the woman who had slain the Lord Ruler. A Mistborn and a legend who had carried the world itself upon her arms while Harmony prepared for divinity. She’d been able to kill with a glare, tease out secrets nobody else knew, and fight off armies of enraged koloss all on her own. Extraordinary in every way. It was probably a good thing, or the world wouldn’t have survived the War of Ash. But rusts … she left a hell of a reputation for the rest of them to try to live up to. Marasi turned from the statue and crossed the springy ground back to Wayne and Dechamp. As she approached, the gravedigger climbed out and stuck his shovel into the earth, digging a flask from his pack and taking a protracted swig. Marasi peeked into the grave. He had made good time—the earth had been dug out of
the hole four feet deep. “Wanna share that with a fellow?” Wayne asked Dechamp, standing. Dechamp shook his head, screwing the lid back on his flask. “My gramps always said, never share your booze with a man who ain’t shared his with you.” “But that way, nobody’d share their booze with anybody!” “No,” Dechamp said. “It just means I get twice as much.” He rested his hand on his shovel, looking into the grave. Without the steady rhythm of his work, the graveyard was silent. They had to be close to the bodies now. The next part would be unpleasant—sorting through the corpses for one that was in pieces, then checking that to see if it contained a spike. Her stomach churned at the thought. Wayne took another bite of his sandwich, hesitated, and cocked his head. Then he grabbed Marasi under the arm and heaved, flipping her into the grave. The impact knocked the breath out of her. Gunfire sounded above a moment later. 14 Marasi gasped as Wayne slid into the shallow grave, flopping down square on top of her. It knocked the wind out of her again. Wayne grunted, and the gunshots stopped a moment later. Still trying to recover, Marasi stared up at the black sky and swirling mist. It took her a moment to realize that the mist was frozen in place. “Speed bubble?” she asked. “Yeah,” Wayne said, then groaned, twisting to the side and putting his back to the earthen wall so he wasn’t lying directly on her. His shoulder glistened with something wet. “You’ve been hit.” “Three times,” Wayne said, then winced as he turned his leg. “No, four.” He sighed, then took a bite of his sandwich. “So…” “Give me a sec,” he said. She twisted in the grave and peeked up over the earthen lip. Nearby, Dechamp fell slowly—as if through molasses—toward the ground, blood spraying from several gunshot wounds, droplets hanging in the air. A vanishing muzzle flash from the darkness revealed the origin of the gunfire: a group of figures on the path, shadowed and nearly invisible. Bullets zipped through the mist, leaving trails. “How’d you know?” she asked. “They made the crickets stop,” Wayne said. “Dechamp musta sold us out. I’d bet Wax’s hat that he sent that boy to fetch these fellows.” “The Set was here first,” Marasi said, her stomach sinking. “Yeah.” Wayne poked at one of the holes in his shirt, wiggling it around to check that the wound had healed. With his other hand, he stuffed the last bite of sandwich into his mouth, then joined her in peeking up over the lip of the grave. Above, a lethargically moving bullet hit the invisible edge of Wayne’s speed bubble. In an eyeblink, it zipped across the air—barely a foot over Marasi’s head—before hitting the other side, where it slowed down again. She cringed belatedly. Anytime something entered a speed bubble, it was refracted, changing trajectory. While it was unlikely one would get bounced so radically that it would point downward toward them, it was possible.
Beyond that, Wayne’s bendalloy burned extremely quickly. He’d have to drop the bubble before too long. “Plan?” Marasi asked. “Not dyin’.” “Anything more detailed than that?” “Not dyin’ … today?” She gave him a pointed look. Another pair of bullets zipped overhead while, outside the speed bubble, Dechamp’s body hit the ground. “We’ve gotta get close to them,” Wayne said, slipping one of his dueling canes out from the loop on his belt. “That’s going to be hard,” Marasi said. “I think they’re scared of you.” “Yeah?” Wayne asked, sounding encouraged. “You really think?” “They’re unloading enough ammunition to take down a small army,” Marasi said, ducking as a bullet entered the speed bubble, “and they opened fire even though Dechamp was caught in the barrage. While I doubt he meant much to them, it indicates they were scared enough that they didn’t dare waste a moment to wait for him to climb back into the grave.” Wayne nodded slowly, grinning. “How ’bout that. I gots me a reputation. I wonder…” Marasi glanced behind them. This grave was near several others that had been left open earlier, waiting for occupants. “Can you get your speed bubble big enough to include one of those other graves from in here?” He followed her gaze, then rubbed his chin. “The closest one maybe, if I drop this bubble and move to the back of this grave before makin’ another.” He couldn’t move a bubble once it was in place, and couldn’t leave its confines without it dissipating. “So we have to get them to come check on our corpses,” Marasi said. “Which might be hard, if they’re really that scared of you.” “Nah,” Wayne said, “might actually be easy.” “How—” “Runnin’ outta time,” Wayne said. “You still got that little popgun in your purse?” She pulled out the small pistol. “It has terrible range,” she said, “and only two shots.” “Don’t matter none,” Wayne said. “Once I drop this, fire it at the fellows. Then be ready to move.” She nodded. “Here we go,” Wayne said. The bubble dropped. Mists leaped back into motion, swirling above, and the sudden sound of gunfire pervaded the graveyard. Dechamp twitched, and he gasped, eyes going glassy in the lanternlight. Marasi waited until the assailants stopped shooting, the cracks of their guns echoing in the night. Then she leveled her little gun and squeezed off two shots toward the shadows. She ducked back down, uncertain what that was supposed to have accomplished. “You realize we’re now trapped and unarmed, Wayne.” “Yup,” he said. “But if those fellows are really bothered by my fearsome reputation…” “What?” Marasi asked, glancing toward him as he peeked over the edge. A few cracks sounded as the dark figures fired back, but it wasn’t as frantic as before. What was … “There!” Wayne said, leaping toward the back of the grave and then popping up a speed bubble. “Ha! They came prepared, they did. Good men.” Marasi risked peeking up again. She came almost face-to-face with a spinning piece of dynamite frozen in the
air, the wick spraying sparks and smoke that mixed with the mists. She yelped, scrambling back. It was almost to the speed bubble. “Across we go,” Wayne said, taking off his top hat and tossing it out of their grave toward the next one. He scrambled after it. Marasi joined him, staying low and hoping that the attackers wouldn’t notice. Wayne’s speed bubble would make them blurs to the eyes of the men, but it was dark and the mists would help obscure things. She slid across and down into the other grave, which was deeper than the first. Wayne nodded to her, then dropped the bubble. Marasi pressed her back to the side of the grave, squeezed her eyes shut, plugged her ears, and counted in her head. She only reached two before an explosion shook the ground and dropped a wave of dirt into their grave. Rusts! People must have heard that halfway across the city. She glanced at Wayne, who took out his other dueling cane and twirled one in each hand. She heard footsteps scraping outside, and imagined the shadowy attackers cautiously creeping up to check on people they’d supposedly killed. Can you beat them on your own? Marasi half whispered, half mouthed at Wayne. He grinned and mouthed back, Does a guy wif no hands got itchy balls? He grabbed the side of the grave and hauled himself out. The mists above froze a moment later as Marasi was caught in a speed bubble—Wayne, putting one up and trapping half the men nearby in it with him. She was accustomed, by now, to the sound of wood on a man’s skull, but it still made her wince. The speed bubble dropped as someone managed to get a shot off, but more groaning and cursing followed. A short time later Wayne appeared at the top of the grave, backlit by the flickering lantern in the mists. He shoved his dueling canes into their loops, then knelt and held out his hand. Marasi reached up to accept his help from the grave. “Actually,” Wayne said, not taking her hand, “I was hopin’ you’d hand me my hat.” * * * “We’ll send for your carriage, Lord Waxillium,” said the assistant house steward. “We’re terribly sorry about the unfortunate occasion of your lady’s distress. You’re certain she ate nothing here that might disagree with her?” “She had only drinks,” Wax said, “and few of those at that.” The cook relaxed visibly. She towed one of the maids away by the arm as soon as she saw that Wax had noticed her. He stood in the doorway of a guest chamber, and behind him Steris lay on the bed, eyes closed. The assistant steward—an aged Terriswoman in the proper robes—clicked her tongue softly, looking over her shoulder toward the vanishing cook and maid. Despite her displeasure, Wax could tell that she too was relieved to hear that the food at the party couldn’t be blamed. No need for the other guests to worry. A piercing voice echoed down the hallway. Someone—a
man with a high-pitched tone—was announcing the reception’s speaker. Wax could hear easily; the introducer was assisted by electric amplifiers. It seemed the Tarcsel girl’s devices had spread even to New Seran. The assistant steward took an unconscious step back toward the ballroom. “Feel free to go,” Wax told her. “We’ll wait here for a half hour or so to be certain my lady is well rested, and by then our carriage will certainly be waiting.” “If you’re certain.…” “I am,” Wax said. “Just see to it that we’re not disturbed. Miss Harms grows most discomforted by noises when she’s ill.” The steward bowed and retreated down the hallway toward the ballroom. Wax clicked the door closed, then approached the bed where Steris lay. She cracked an eye open, then glanced at the door to be sure it was closed. “How do you feel?” Wax asked. “Nauseated,” Steris said, half propping herself on one elbow. “That was a tad hasty on my part, wasn’t it?” “Haste was appreciated,” Wax said, checking the wall clock. “I’ll give it a few minutes to make sure the hall is clear, then duck out. I’m not certain how long Kelesina will be away, but I’ll need to move quickly to learn anything.” Steris nodded. “Do you think they might have her here? Your sister, I mean.” “Unlikely,” Wax said. “But anything is possible. I’ll settle for a lead of any sort.” “What’s she like?” “She seemed like your average full-of-herself noblewoman. Certain that—” “Not Lady Kelesina, Waxillium. Your sister.” “I…” Wax swallowed, checking the clock. “I haven’t seen her in decades, Steris.” “But you work so eagerly to rescue her.” He sighed, settling down beside Steris. “She was always the bold one, when we were kids. I was careful, earnest, trying so hard to figure out what to do. And Telsin … she seemed to have it all in hand. Until I left the Village and she stayed.” “More Terris than you, then.” “Maybe. I always thought she hated the place, considering how often she found excuses to escape. Then she stayed.” He shook his head. “I never knew her, Steris. Not as I should have. I was too focused on myself. I can’t help feeling that I failed everyone—Mother, Father, Telsin herself—by not remaining close to her when I was out in the Roughs. And I’m failing them again by leaving her under my uncle’s control.” Steris, still lying on the bed, squeezed his hand. “I’ll find her,” Wax said. “I’ll make it right. I ran to the Roughs, thinking I didn’t need any of them. But as the years pass, Steris, I find I want less and less to be alone. I can’t explain it, I guess. She’s my family. My only family.” Outside, a new voice started talking. Introduction done, Lord Severington had begun his speech. Wax glanced at the clock, then stood. “All right. I need to go and explore while everyone else is distracted by the speech.” Steris nodded, then swung her feet over the side of the bed and took
a deep breath. “You should wait here,” Wax said. “This could be dangerous.” “Have you forgotten what I said last night?” she asked. “The safest place to be is most certainly not near me, Steris,” Wax said. “Regardless, you may need to escape quickly. There won’t be time to come back for me. And if you’re spotted, someone will wonder why you are alone—but if we’re together, we can say we were just leaving, and were looking for the way to our carriage.” Those were good arguments. He reluctantly nodded, motioning for her to follow. She did so with alacrity, waiting beside the door as he opened it and peeked out. He could hear Lord Severington’s voice even better. “… time to show those in Elendel that their tyranny is not only unjust, it is against the will of the Survivor, who died in the name of freedom.…” The hallway was empty. Wax stepped out, Steris at his side. “Try not to look like you’re sneaking,” he suggested softly. She nodded, and together they moved down a long hallway set with brass gas lamps that had been converted to electricity. According to the mansion layout he had memorized, the ballroom and these small guest quarters were in their own wing to the east. If they moved west along this hallway, took this corner … They passed under an archway into the mansion’s central atrium, where a stream ran through the center of the mansion—diverted from one of the waterfalls, then cascading down a set of arranged rocks covered in chimes. Only a few lights glowed on the walls, giving the atrium a dusklike feeling. “That humidity must be awful for the mansion’s woodwork,” Steris noted. “What practical reason could they have to run a river through the middle of their house?” “I’m sure the reasons aren’t practical at all,” Wax said. Nearby, a maid passed in from another doorway. She saw him and froze. Wax glared at her, standing up straight, putting as much nobleman sneer into his expression as he could muster. The young woman didn’t challenge them, but ducked her head and scuttled away, carrying her stack of linens. They picked their way through the dim atrium. Above, broad glass windows would have given a view of the sky—but instead mist spun and swirled. Wax raised his fingers in greeting toward the distant mists, but stopped himself. Harmony watched through those mists. Harmony the impotent, Harmony the meaningless. He set his jaw and turned away from the windows, leading Steris along a path in the indoor garden, which was set with small rocks and plants. From his maps, he guessed that Kelesina would be up on the second floor somewhere. As they followed the path northward, walking along the stream, he spotted a second-floor balcony. “Honestly,” Steris muttered, “how can they even know if the water is sanitary? A river running through their gardens wasn’t enough? It has to go through the house itself?” Wax smiled, studying that balcony. “I’m going to scout ahead up there. Speak loudly if someone
confronts you. That will warn me, and I’ll sneak back.” “Very well,” Steris said. He dug in his pocket for a few coins, feeling old-fashioned as he burned steel and prepared to jump. “Do you want something more substantial?” Steris asked. He glanced at her, then down at her purse. “They searched your purse.” “That they did,” she said, then took the hem of her skirt, lifting it up to the side and revealing a small handgun strapped to her thigh. “I worried they’d do something like that. So I made other plans.” Wax grinned. “I could get used to having you around, Steris.” She blushed in the dim light. “I might, uh, need your help getting the thing off.” He knelt down, realizing that she’d used approximately seven rolls of tape to strap the gun in place. Also, being Steris, she’d worn shorts under the dress—in case she had to do what she was doing. Two pairs, judging by the bit of cloth he saw peeking out from under the top one. Wax set to work extricating the gun. “I see you didn’t want this coming off accidentally.” “I kept imagining it falling out and firing,” Steris said, “mid-dance.” Wax grunted, working at her thigh beneath her dress. “You realize that if this were a play, this is exactly the point where someone would walk in on us.” “Lord Waxillium!” Steris said. “What kind of theater have you been attending?” “The kind you find in the Roughs,” Wax said, yanking the gun free. It proved to be one of his Riotings, a .22 six-shot he kept in his gun case but rarely used. It would do. He stood up, letting Steris settle her skirt back down. “Nice work.” “I tried a shotgun first,” she said, blushing. “You should have seen me try to walk with one of those on my leg!” “Stay out of sight, if you can,” he told her, then dropped a coin and launched himself toward the upper balcony. * * * Marasi stepped into the gravekeeper’s shack, clicking the door closed behind her. Wayne looked up from breaking the legs off a chair. “Is that necessary?” Marasi asked. “Dunno,” he said, snapping off another one. “It’s fun, though. How are our toughs?” Marasi glanced out the window toward where a group of the local constables were carting away the last of the thugs. It turned out that setting off dynamite in the middle of the city was a fine way to get the attention of the authorities. “They don’t know anything,” she said. “Hired muscle, paid and sent to do the hit. The ones who hired them mentioned your name, which turns out to have been a mistake.” “I’m famous,” Wayne said happily, snapping another leg off. The hut had been thoroughly ransacked, drawers ripped out, cushions slit, furniture in shambles. Wayne looked at the chair leg he’d broken, apparently checking to see if it was hollow, then tossed it over his shoulder. “We can try to follow the payments to those men,” Marasi continued, “but I
suspect that Suit was too careful for this to be traced. And there’s no sign of the runner boy.” Wayne grunted, stomping on the floor in one section, then taking a few steps and stomping again. “The police brought an Allomancer,” Marasi continued. “And there’s no metal in that grave, so if the spike was ever there, it isn’t now.” She sighed, leaning back against the wall. “Rust and Ruin … I hope Waxillium is having more luck than we are.” Wayne kicked a hole in the floor with the heel of his boot. Marasi perked up, then walked over as he fished around in a compartment he’d found. “Aha!” he exclaimed. “What is it?” Marasi asked. Wayne brought out a bottle. “Dechamp’s hidden booze stash.” “That’s all?” “All? It’s great! A fellow like that hides his booze well. Too many other workers around to swipe the stuff.” “So we’re at a dead end.” “Well, there’s an account book on the desk there that I found under a false bottom in the drawer,” Wayne noted, taking a swig of the dark liquid he’d found. “Lists everybody what paid the people here for a grave robbin’ in the last few years.” Marasi started. “When did you find that?” “First,” Wayne said. “Hardly had to search for it. The booze though, that they hid well. Good priorities, these folks.” Marasi stepped over some stuffing from one of the sofas and picked up the ledger. It didn’t belong to Dechamp, but to the graveyard as a whole. It listed plots, what had been found in them, and to whom it had been sold. It’s so the boss of the place can keep track of what they’ve sold and what they haven’t, Marasi thought. And to keep track of his minions, to be certain they didn’t get any ideas about making their own side business of grave robbing. Next to an entry from a few days back was a note from the manager. If anyone comes looking to investigate this plot, send to me immediately. Marasi closed the book, then fished from her pocket the paper that listed workers at the graveyard. “Come on,” she said to Wayne. “We have one more stop to make tonight.” 15 Templeton Fig smoothed the feathers of his dead white crow. He knew for a fact that this animal was an authentic albino, not some knockoff crafted by an opportunist who had heard of his collection. By now, he had seen enough dead animals bleached white to spot a fake. He had stuffed this bird himself, prize of his collection, and set it looking over its shoulder with a small strip of rabbit skin in its beak. Such a magnificent creature. People always found it striking, as its coloring was the opposite of what they expected. Things like cats and dogs sometimes had white coloring naturally, and so his albino specimens of those weren’t as spectacular. He replaced the glass dome over the crow, then stepped back and clasped his hands, looking at the white animals in a row. Frozen
in death. Perfection. Only … the suckling boar. Had it been moved to the side? The housekeeper had better not have decided to dust his collection again. He stepped up, twisting the glass jar that held the boar. Behind him, fire crackled in his hearth, though it wasn’t particularly cold outside. He even had the window open. He liked the contrast—warmth from the fire, a cool breeze from outside. As he was trying to get the boar just right, the door to his study creaked. “Templeton?” a quiet voice asked, peeking in. Destra had bags under her eyes, hair frazzled. Her nightgown seemed to have swallowed her. The woman had lost more weight. Soon she would be positively skeletal. “Are you coming to bed?” “Later,” he said, looking back to his boar. There. “When later?” “Later.” She winced at his tone and pulled the door closed behind her. The woman should know better than to disturb him. Sleep. How could he sleep until he knew what had happened at the graveyard? One did not disappoint the men with whom he had been dealing. They asked for something to be done, and you saw it done. He would know soon. He stepped forward, moving his albino squirrel to the end of the line. Did it look better that way? He reached up and wiped the sweat from his brow, then moved the squirrel back. No, that wasn’t right either. Then how was he to— His fire stopped crackling. Templeton’s breath caught. He turned slowly in place, fishing in his vest pocket for his handkerchief. The fire was still there, but it was motionless. Trell’s soul! What could have frozen the flames? Something thumped on his door. Templeton backed away, fingers clawing at his pocket, still seeking that handkerchief. The door thumped again, and his back hit the shelf where he kept his collection. He tried to whisper an inquiry, but he was having trouble breathing. The door burst open and the gravedigger Dechamp—eyes staring sightlessly, blood covering his shirt—fell into the room. Templeton screamed then, scuttling away from the door, and put his back to the far wall of his small den. His fingers found the windowsill, gripping it for strength as he stared at the corpse lying in the doorway. Something tapped on his window. Templeton squeezed his eyes shut, not wanting to look. Frozen fire. A body on his floor. He was dreaming. It was a nightmare. It wasn’t possible.… Tap. Tap. Tap. He found his handkerchief finally and clutched it, his eyes squeezed shut. “Templeton.” The rasping voice drifted in through the window. Templeton turned slowly and faced the window. He opened his eyes. Death stood outside. Cloaked in black, Death’s face was hidden beneath the hood—but two metal spikes protruded from the cowl, catching the firelight on their heads. “I’m dead,” Templeton whispered. “No,” Death whispered. “You can die when I say. Not before.” “Oh, Harmony.” “You are not His,” Death whispered, standing in the darkness outside. “You are mine.” “What do you want from me? Please!” Templeton slumped
to his knees. He forced himself to glance back toward Dechamp. Would that body rise? Would it come for him? “You have something of mine, Templeton,” Death whispered. “A spike.” He raised his arms, letting the cloak shift back and expose white skin. A spike was stuck through one arm. The other arm was bare, save for a bloody hole. “It wasn’t my fault!” Templeton screamed. “They insisted! I don’t have it!” “Where.” “Sent by courier!” Templeton said. “To Dulsing! I don’t know more. Oh, please. Please! They demanded I recover the spike for them. I didn’t know it was yours! It was just a rusting piece of metal. I’m innocent! I’m…” He trailed off, realizing that the fire had started crackling again. He blinked, focusing again on the window. It was empty. A … a dream after all? He turned and found Dechamp’s corpse still leaking blood on the floor. Templeton whimpered and huddled down. He was honestly relieved when the constables burst into the room a short time later. * * * Wayne shucked the awful, heavy cloak and held up his arm, healing his wounds. Not much left in his metalmind. He was going to have to be sparing after this. Those bullet wounds earlier had taken a lot out of him. “You didn’t need to actually cut holes in your arm, Wayne,” Marasi said, joining him in the garden—he’d trampled some very nice petunias to get to the window. “Course I did,” Wayne replied, wiping away the blood. “You’ve gotta be authentic.” He scratched at his head, and shifted the wires that held two half spikes hovering in front of his eyes. “Take that thing off,” Marasi said. “It looks ridiculous.” “He didn’t think so,” Wayne said. Inside the house, the constables dragged Templeton Fig away. The information in the ledger Wayne had found should be enough to see him well and truly incarcerated. Poor chap. He didn’t really do anything wrong. You can’t steal from a person that’s already dead. But then, people were strange about their stuff. Wayne had given up on trying to figure out all their little rules. He’d send the fellow some fruit in prison. Might make him feel better. “How was the accent?” he asked. “Worked well enough.” “I wasn’t sure how Death ’imself would sound, you know? I figured all important-like, like Wax when he’s tellin’ me to take my feet off the furniture. Mixed with some real old-soundin’ tones, like a grandfather’s grandfather. And grindy, like a man what is choking to death.” “In fact,” Marasi said, “he’s quite articulate, and not at all ‘grindy.’ And the accent is strange—not like anything I’ve heard before.” Wayne grunted, taking off his head spikes. “Can you do it for me?” “What? The accent?” Wayne nodded eagerly. “No. Not a chance.” “Well, next time you meet that guy, tell ’im he’s gotta come talk to me. I need to hear what he sounds like.” “What does it matter?” “I gotta hear,” Wayne said. “For next time.” “Next time? How often do you expect
you’ll be imitating Death?” Wayne shrugged. “This is the fourth so far. So you never can tell.” He took the last swig of Dechamp’s brandy, then slung his cloak over his shoulder and started through the mists back toward the road. “Dulsing,” Marasi said. “You know it?” “It’s a little farming settlement,” Marasi said. “Maybe fifty miles northeast of New Seran. I read about it in my textbooks—there was a landmark water rights case there—but it’s isolated and tiny, barely worth anyone’s time. What in the world does the Set want with it?” “Maybe they like their tomatoes real fresh,” Wayne said. “I know I do.” Marasi grew silent, obviously deep in thought, worried for some reason. Wayne left her to it, digging out his tin of gum, tapping it, then flipping it open and selecting one of the soft, powder-covered balls to chew. So far as he was concerned, this had been a bang-up night. Dynamite, a nice brawl, free brandy, and getting to scare the piss out of someone. It was the simple things that made his life worth living. * * * Wax had little luck with the first set of rooms he scouted. Though they supposedly belonged to Kelesina, they proved to be empty. He was tempted to ransack them for information, but decided that would take too long—and would be too incriminating at the moment. Being discovered lost in a hallway was excusable; being discovered going through a lady’s desk drawers was another thing entirely. He prowled back to the atrium and checked on Steris, gave her a wave, then continued down another hallway. This one bordered the outer wall and had windows open to the mists, which streamed in with their own miniature waterfalls. Likely some servant had the duty to close those windows on a misty night, but had gotten distracted by the party. He listened at a set of doors, and heard nothing other than a voice drifting in from the window—the voice of Lord Severington, still plowing through his speech in the ballroom. With the amplification devices, Wax could make out a word here and there. “… suffer the rule … new Lord Ruler?… improper taxation … era must end…” I will have to give that more attention, Wax thought, prowling through the hallway toward the next set of rooms. Severington was mayor of Bilming, the port city west of Elendel. It was the only major one in the Basin besides Elendel itself—and was an industrial powerhouse. If conflict did come, they’d be spearheading it. They’re spearheading it now, Wax realized as more words drifted up to him. He continued down the hallway, listening at the next set of doors. He was about to turn away, when he heard a voice. There was someone inside. Wax crouched down, ear to the door, wishing he had a Tineye along to listen for him. That voice … That was his uncle. Wax pressed his ear up against the door, heedless of how he’d look to someone entering the hallway. Rusts … he couldn’t make out
much. A half word here and there. But it was Edwarn. Another voice spoke, and that was almost certainly Kelesina. The gap under the door was dark. Wax put his hand to his pocket and the handgun secreted there, then turned the door’s knob and eased it open. Beyond was some kind of study, completely dark but for the thin strip of light under the door on the far side. Wax slipped inside, closed the door behind him, and scuttled through the room—stifling a curse as he smacked his arm on an end table. Heart thumping, he put his back to the wall beside the other door. “Never mind that,” his uncle was saying. His voice was muffled, as if he were speaking through a cloth or a mask or something. “Why have you interrupted me? You know the importance of my work.” “Waxillium knows about the project,” Kelesina said. “And he’s found one of the coins. He’s acting stupid, but he knows.” “The diversions?” “He’s not biting.” “You’re not trying hard enough then,” Suit said. “Kidnap one of his friends and leave a letter, purportedly from one of his old enemies. Challenge his wits, draw him into an investigation. Waxillium cannot resist a personal grudge. It will work.” “The train robbery didn’t,” Kelesina said. “What of that, Suit? We wasted vital resources, important connections I had spent years cultivating, on that attack. You promised that if we attacked while he was on board, he wouldn’t be able to resist investigating. Yet he ignored it. Left Ironstand that same night.” Wax felt a chill as a whole set of assumptions shifted within him. The train robbery … had it been a distraction, intended to draw his attention away from pursuing the Set? “Recovering the device,” Suit said, “was worth the risk.” “You mean the device Irich immediately lost?” Kelesina demanded. “That one shouldn’t be trusted with important missions. He’s too eager. You should have let me recover the item once Waxillium was off the train.” “There was a good chance he’d take the bait,” Edwarn said. “I know my nephew; he’s probably still itching to go after those bandits. If he’s at your party instead, then you aren’t doing your duty properly. I haven’t time to hold your hand on this, Kelesina. I need to be off to the second site.” Wax frowned. The train hadn’t been just a distraction, it seemed. But the words left him with a deeper sense of worry. He’d chased half a dozen leads during the last year, anticipating that he was close on the heels of his uncle. How many of those had been plants? And how many of his other cases had been intentional distractions? And Ape Manton? Was he really even in New Seran? Likely not. Edwarn spoke a truth. He knew Wax well. Too well, for a man he’d barely seen in the last twenty years. “Well,” Suit said, “you have your chance now to recover the device, as you promised you could. How is that going?” “It wasn’t in the things he
checked at the party,” Kelesina said. “We snuck a spy among the hotel staff, and she will search for it in his rooms. I’m telling you, Irich—” “Irich was punished,” Suit said. Why did his voice sound so much smaller than Kelesina’s? “That is all you need know. Recover it for me, and other mistakes might be forgiven. It is only a matter of time before they accidentally use Allomancy near it.” “And then will we see this ‘miracle’ you keep promising, Suit?” she demanded. “A few more speeches like this one, and Severington will have the entirety of the Basin whipped into a frenzy. Completely ignoring that Elendel has us outmanned and outgunned.” “Patience!” Suit said, sounding amused. “You try to be patient. They’re bleeding us dry. You promised to crush that city, provide an army, and—” “Patience,” Suit repeated softly. “Stop Waxillium. That is your part of the bargain now. Keep him in the city; keep him distracted.” “That’s not going to work, Suit,” Kelesina said. “He knows too much already. That damn shapeshifter must have told him—” “You let it escape?” Kelesina was silent. “I thought,” Suit said, voice growing cold, “that you had disposed of the creature. You presented its spike to me, claiming the other had been destroyed.” “We … may have assumed too quickly.” “I see,” Suit said. The two did not speak for a protracted moment. Wax raised his gun beside his head, sweat trickling down his brow in the dark room. He toyed with breaking in right then. He had evidence on Kelesina in the form of the wounded kandra and his own testimony. Several people died in that blast. Murder. But did he have enough against Edwarn? Would his uncle just slip away again? Rusts, an army? They spoke of destroying Elendel. Dared he wait? If he took her and Suit right now, she might break, testify against him— Footsteps. They came from the hallway outside. As they approached the door, he made a snap decision, dropping a coin—it wasn’t the special one, he had that in a different pocket—and Pushing. Light from the hallway poured into the room as the door opened, revealing the steward from before. She crossed the room in a rush, and blessedly didn’t turn on the room’s lights—instead walking straight to the doorway that Wax had been listening at. She didn’t look up and see Wax pressed to the ceiling above her, Pushing against a coin she walked right over in her haste to knock on the door. Kelesina called for her to enter. “My lady,” the steward said in an urgent tone. “Burl sent me word while watching the party for Allomancers. He sensed someone using metals in this direction.” “Where is Waxillium?” “His fiancée was sick,” the steward said. “We brought her to a guest room to recover.” “Curious,” Uncle Edwarn said. “And where is he now?” Wax dropped to the floor with a thump, leveling his gun at the people inside the room. “He’s right here.” The steward spun, gasping. Kelesina rose from her seat,
eyes wide. And Uncle Edwarn … Uncle Edwarn wasn’t in the room. The only thing there was a boxy device on the table in front of Kelesina. 16 “Why, Waxillium!” the box said, projecting his uncle’s voice. “So good to hear your dulcet tones. I presume your entrance was properly dramatic?” “It’s a telegraph for voices,” Wax said, stepping forward. He kept his gun on Kelesina, who backed up to the wall of the small room. She’d gone completely pale. “Something like that,” Edwarn said, his voice sounding small. The electric mechanism didn’t reproduce it exactly. “How is Lady Harms? I hope her ailment was nothing too distressing.” “She’s fine,” Wax snapped, “no thanks to the fact that you tried to have us all killed on that train.” “Now, now,” Edwarn said. “That wasn’t the point. Why, killing you was an afterthought. Tell me, did you look into the casualties on the train? One passenger killed, I believe. Who was he?” “You’re trying to distract me,” Wax said. “Yes, I am. But that doesn’t mean I’m lying. In fact, I’ve found that telling you the truth is a far better method in general. You should look into the dead man. You’ll be impressed by what you find.” No. Stay focused. “Where are you?” Wax demanded. “Away,” Suit said, “on matters of great import. I do apologize for not being able to meet you in person. I offer up Lady Kelesina as a measure of my condolences.” “Kelesina can go to hell,” Wax said, grabbing the box and lifting it, nearly yanking the wires in the back from the wall. “Where is my sister!” “So many impatient people in the world,” Edwarn’s voice said. “You really should have focused on your own city, Nephew, and kept your attention on the little crimes fed to you. I’ve tried being reasonable. I fear I’m going to have to do something drastic. Something that will be certain to divert you.” Wax felt cold. “What are you going to do, Suit?” “It’s not about what I’m going to do, Nephew. It’s about what I’m doing.” Wax glanced toward Kelesina, who had been reaching for the pocket of her dress. She raised her hands, frightened, right as something enormous smashed into Wax. He stumbled against the table, overturning it. Wax blinked in shock. The steward! She’d grown to incredible strength, arms bulging beneath her robes, neck thick as a man’s thigh. Wax cursed, raising his gun, which the steward immediately slapped from his hand. His wrist screamed in pain and he winced, Pushing on the nails in the wall to throw himself in a roll across the floor away from the steward. He came up fishing in his pocket for coins, but the steward wasn’t focused on him. She grabbed Wax’s gun off the floor, then turned toward Kelesina, who screamed. Oh no … The shot left his ears ringing. Kelesina fell limp to the floor, blood dribbling from the hole in her forehead. “He killed her!” a voice screamed from the doorway outside. Wax spun to find
the maid he’d seen earlier standing there, hands to her face. “Lord Ladrian killed our lady!” The woman ran away screaming the words over and over, although she’d obviously had a clear view of the room. “You bastard!” Wax shouted toward the box. “Now, now,” the box said. “That’s patently false, Waxillium. You have a very clear understanding of my parentage.” The steward walked over to Kelesina, fishing at something on Kelesina’s body. Then, for some reason, the steward shot the dead woman again. Either way, this gave Wax a chance to seize the box, which had fallen from the table near him. “You’d better be careful, Nephew,” the box said. “I’ve told them to kill you if they can. In this case, a dead scapegoat will work as well as a living one.” Wax roared, ripping the box free of the wall and Pushing it out the doorway, into the next room. He brought his hand up and Pushed back on the gun in the steward’s hand as she tried to aim it at him. She cursed in Terris. Wax turned and scrambled from the smaller room into the one beyond, where he’d first hidden from the steward. He kicked the door shut to give himself some cover, then Pushed on his coin from before and leaped over a couch, soaring through the room. He scooped up the box communication device and skidded out into the hallway. Half a dozen men in black coats and white gloves were advancing down the hallway toward him. They froze in place, then leveled their weapons. Rusts! Wax Pushed on the frames of the windows and reentered the room as the men opened fire. The inner door into the room that had held the telegraph opened, and Wax Allomantically shoved it back, cracking it into the steward’s face. Another way out. Servants’ corridors? Blue lines pointed all around him and he looked for one out of place … there! He Pushed on it, opening a hidden door in the wall which led into a small passage, lit with dangling lightbulbs, that servants used. Still carting the telegraph box, he leaped through it as men piled into the sitting room behind him. The weaving maze of passages let him keep ahead of them, though he did have to spend a coin taking one of them out as they got too close. That drove the others back, but notably, he couldn’t sense any metal on their bodies. Aluminum weapons. This was one of Suit’s kill squads, likely contacted and sent into action the moment Kelesina had telegraphed him. Wax burst out of the passageways into a room that he hoped would let him circle back toward the atrium. If they’d found Steris … He dashed through a conservatory, lit by several dim electric lights and lined with maps on the walls, and entered one of the hallways he’d explored earlier. Excellent. He charged toward the central atrium, but as soon as he reached the balcony’s stairway down, something leaped from the shadows and blindsided him. The Terriswoman,
face bleeding from where the slammed door had broken her nose, growled and grabbed him around the neck. He Pushed a coin up at her, but it didn’t have time to gain momentum. It hit her in the chest, then stayed there as he Pushed on it, trying to push her off. He strained, his vision growing dark, until a fist punched the Terriswoman across the face. She let go, stumbling back and shaking. Wax gasped for breath, looking up at MeLaan looming over him. “Rusts!” she said with a deep bass voice. “You did start without me.” The Terriswoman came charging in again, and Wax rolled to the side, fishing for coins. He brought up his last three in a handful as the steward punched MeLaan across the face. Something cracked audibly, and Wax hesitated as the steward stumbled back, clutching her mangled hand, the knuckles apparently shattered, the thumb ripped almost free. MeLaan grinned. Her face had split where she’d been struck, revealing a gleaming metal skull underneath. “You really should be careful what you punch.” The Terriswoman lurched to her feet, and MeLaan casually grabbed her own left forearm in her right hand and ripped it off, revealing a long, thin metal blade attached to the arm at the stump. As the Terriswoman came for her, MeLaan thrust the weapon through the woman’s chest. The steward gasped and collapsed to her knees, then deflated like a punctured wineskin. “Harmony, I love this body,” MeLaan said, glancing toward Wax with a goofy grin on her face. “How did I ever consider wearing another?” “Is that whole thing aluminum?” Wax asked. “Yup!” “It must be worth a fortune,” Wax said, standing and putting his back to the wall. The balcony was in front of him, the hallway he’d come down to his left. The kill squad would be following soon. “Conveniently, I’ve had a few hundred years to save up,” MeLaan said. “It—” Wax pulled her to cover beside the wall with him; she was actually lighter than he had anticipated, considering that she had metal bones. “What?” she asked softly. Wax raised a coin, listening for footfalls. On the balcony before him, the Terriswoman twitched. When he heard the footstep he increased his weight a fraction, then spun around the corner and grabbed the first man’s gun in one hand, twisting it toward the floor. It fired ineffectively, and Wax pressed his other hand against the man’s chest and Pushed on the coin there. Man and coin went flying back down the hallway toward his fellows, who leaped to the side. Wax was left with the aluminum gun, which he flipped in the air and caught, squeezing off four shots. The first pulled a little left, hitting the enemy in the arm, but he was able to place the next shots right in their chests. All three dropped. The fourth man groaned from the floor where Wax had Pushed him. “Damn,” MeLaan said. “Says the woman who just ripped half her arm off.” “It goes back on,” MeLaan said, picking
up her forearm, which she slid back over the blade. Blood dribbled from where she’d broken the skin. “See? Good as new.” Wax snorted, tucking the stolen aluminum gun into his waistband. “You can get out on your own?” She nodded. “Want me to recover the guns you checked?” “Can you?” “Probably.” “That would be wonderful.” Wax walked to the Terriswoman and checked to see that she was dead, then fished in her pockets until he came up with the gun she’d used to kill Kelesina. There was something else in her pocket as well. A metal bracelet of pure gold. The Terriswoman took this off Kelesina, Wax thought, turning it over in his fingers as he remembered the moment earlier, when the murderer had knelt beside Kelesina’s body. He burned steel, and his hunch proved correct. While he could sense the bracelet, the line was much thinner than it should have been. This was a metalmind, and one heavily Invested with healing power. “Was Kelesina Terris?” “How should I know?” MeLaan asked. He pocketed the bracelet and grabbed the box telegraph device—which he wanted to send to Elendel for inspection—and tossed it to MeLaan. “Bring that, if you don’t mind, and meet us at the hotel. Be ready to leave the city. I doubt we’re staying the night.” “And you were so certain we’d be out of here without a fight.” “I never said that. I said it wouldn’t get so bad that I needed Wayne. And it didn’t.” “A semantic technicality.” “I’m a nobleman. Might as well learn something from my peers.” He saluted her with the small gun, then dropped off the balcony and used a coin to slow himself. “Steris?” She crawled from a nearby shrub. “How did it go?” “Poorly,” Wax said, looking up toward the ceiling, then removing his dinner jacket. “I may have accidentally let them implicate us in Lady Kelesina’s murder.” “Bother,” Steris said. “Their evidence will depend on whether they can trace the bullets back to me,” Wax said, “and whether they recover any of my prints from the area. Either way, they’ll be producing fake witnesses to try to make it look like I came down here specifically to assassinate Kelesina. Grab on.” Steris grabbed him with, he noted, no small amount of eagerness. She really did enjoy this part. He took the bullets from his .22 and held them in one hand, then launched off the coin below to shoot them toward the ceiling. He flung the bullets toward the skylights and Pushed them in a spray to weaken a window, then raised his arm—wrapped in his jacket—over his head and crashed them through the glass and out into the swirling mists. They landed on the roof as Wax got his bearings. Out in the mists, he felt better almost immediately, and his hand—which had been smarting where the Terriswoman smacked his gun away—stopped throbbing. “Did you learn anything useful?” Steris asked. “Not sure,” Wax said. “Most of what I overheard was about a rebellion against Elendel. I know Edwarn is
heading somewhere important. He called it the second site? And he said something about what I think is that little cube Marasi found.” He pulled her tight again, then sent them in a Push upward through the mists in the direction of their hotel. She held to him tightly, but watched the lights of the city beneath with awe. “He had Kelesina murdered,” Wax said. “I should have seen it. Should have anticipated.” “At least,” Steris said over the sound of the passing wind, “the mists are out. They’ll have trouble tracking us.” “You did well tonight, Steris. Very well. Thank you.” “It was engaging,” she said as he dropped them onto a rooftop. Her smile, which she let out readily, warmed him. She was proof that, despite his dislike of the politics in the Basin, it had good people. Genuine people. Strikingly, he had been forced to realize something almost exactly like that about the Roughs after first moving there. She was gorgeous. Like an uncut emerald sitting in the middle of a pile of fakes cut to sparkle, but really just glass. Her enthusiasm balanced, somewhat, his concern over what had happened. Missing Suit. Being implicated. Lessie would say … No. He didn’t need to think of Lessie right now. He smiled back at Steris, then pulled her tighter and Pushed, launching them straight up. Higher, up away from this district. The city’s taller buildings were visible only as lines of lights in the night, pointing upward through the mists. He launched up off a rooftop, then passed a shaking gondola, moving by electricity and carrying a group of gawking passengers. It rocked as Wax launched them sideways from it toward the skyscrapers. Two were near enough one another, and with a quick series of furious Pushes, he was able to throw himself and Steris up through the swirling mists in a succession of arcs, first one way, then the other. He crested the tops and Pushed off one, sending them up a little farther. He had hoped that with the elevation of this highest terrace of the city— Yes. They burst from the mists into a realm seen by very few. The Ascendant’s Field, Coinshots called it: the top of the mists at night. White stretched in all directions, churning like an ocean’s surface, bathed in starlight. Steris gasped, and Wax managed to hold them in place by Pushing against the tips of the two skyscrapers below. Without a third, he wasn’t certain how long he could balance, but for the moment they remained steady. “So beautiful…” Steris said, clinging to him. “Thank you again,” Wax said to her. “I still can’t believe you snuck a gun into the party.” “It’s only appropriate,” Steris said, “that you would make a smuggler out of me.” “Just as you try to make a gentleman out of me.” “You’re already a gentleman,” Steris said. Wax looked down at her as she held to him while trying to stare in every direction at once. He suddenly found something burning in him, like a
metal. A protectiveness for this woman in his arms, so full of logic and yet so full of wonder at the same time. And a powerful affection. So he let himself kiss her. She was surprised by it, but melted into the embrace. They started to drift sideways and arc downward as he lost his balance on his anchors, but he held on to the kiss, letting them slip back down into the churning mists. * * * Wayne put his feet up on the table in their hotel suite, a new book open in front of him. He’d picked it up earlier, when poking through the city. “You oughtta read this thing, Mara,” he called to Marasi, who paced back and forth behind his couch. “Strangest thing you ever heard. These blokes, they build this ship, right? Only it’s meant to go up. Uses a big explosion or some such to send it to the stars. These other blokes steal it, right, and there’s seven of them, all convicts. They go lookin’ for plunder, but end up on this star what has no—” “How can you read?” Marasi asked, still pacing. “Well, I’m not right sure,” Wayne said. “By all accounts, I should be dumber than a sack full o’ noodles.” “I mean, aren’t you nervous?” Marasi asked. “Why should I be?” “Something could go wrong.” “Nah,” Wayne said. “I’m not along. Wax can only get into so much trouble without me to—” Something hit the window, causing Marasi to jump. Wayne turned to see Wax clinging to one of the windowsills, Steris tucked under one arm like a sack of potatoes—well, a sack of potatoes that had a very nice rack, anyway. Wax pulled open the window, set Steris inside, then swung in himself. Wayne popped a peanut into his mouth. “How’d it go?” “Eh,” Wax said. He had lost his dinner jacket somewhere, and blood—hopefully not his own—covered one arm of his shirt. His cravat drooped, half tied. “We figured out where Suit and his people are likely holed up,” Wayne said as Marasi ran over to check on her sister, who looked flustered, but alive and such. “You’re kidding,” Wax said. “Nope,” Wayne said, then grinned and popped a peanut. “What’d you find?” “Clues about Marasi’s cube,” Wax said, pulling off his cravat. “And something about a building project, and a potential army. Suit’s timetable seems to be more advanced than I’d thought.” “Cheery,” Wayne said. “So…” Wax sighed, then pulled out his billfold and tossed a note at Wayne. “You win.” “You had a bet?” Marasi demanded. “Friendly wager,” Wayne said, making the note disappear. “Can I bring these peanuts when we go?” “Go?” Marasi said, standing up. Wayne thumbed toward Wax, who had pulled out his travel bag. “We’re leaving. Marasi, Steris, I’d suggest packing lightly. You have about fifteen minutes.” “I’m already packed,” Steris said, standing up. “I—” Marasi looked from him to her, seeming baffled. “What did you do at that party?” “Hopefully,” Wax said, “not start a war. But I can’t say for
certain.” Marasi groaned. “You let him do this,” she accused Steris. Steris blushed. Wayne always found that expression odd from her, seeing as how she had the emotions of a rock and all. What followed was an energetic bout of motion as Wax and Marasi both ran to pack things. Wayne sidled up to Steris and popped a peanut in his mouth. “You got that preparin’-your-bags-early thing from me, didn’t you?” “I … Well, yes, actually.” “What will you trade me for it, then?” Wayne said. “Gotta have a good trade when you take stuff.” “I’ll think about it,” Steris said. Fifteen minutes later, the four of them piled into a carriage driven by MeLaan in her male body. A bedraggled Aunt Gin stood on the doorstep of her hotel watching them. She held a wad of cash in her hand—a wad that included the money Wayne had won off Wax. He’d left it as a tip on account of him putting his boots up on the furniture. A furiously loud set of bells sounded in the distance, and it drew closer. “Is that the constables?” Aunt Gin asked, sounding horrified. “Afraid so,” Wax said, pulling the door closed. The carriage lurched into motion, and Steris leaned out the window, waving farewell to the poor innkeeper. “Framed for murder!” Steris called to her. “It’s on page seventeen of the list I gave you! Try not to let them harass our servants too much when they arrive!” * * * A few hours later, Wax stepped up to a cliff in the darkness and let the mists enfold him. He missed darkness. It was never dark in the city, not as it had been in the Roughs. Electric lights were only exacerbating the issue. Everything glowing, casting away the darkness—and with it, stillness. Silence. Solitude. A man found himself when he was alone. You only had one person to chat with, one person to blame. He fished in his mistcoat pocket and was surprised to find a cigar. He thought he was out of these, good stout Tingmars brought down from Weathering. He cut this one with his belt knife, then lit it with a match. He savored it, drawing in the smoke, holding it, then puffing it out to churn in the mists. A little bit of him to mix with Harmony. May He choke on it. At his side, he turned a little metal spike over in his fingers. The earring VenDell had sent. It was nearly identical to the one he’d used to kill Lessie. Eventually, footsteps on pine needles signaled someone approaching. He pulled on his cigar, giving a warm glow to the mists and revealing MeLaan’s face. Her feminine one. She’d finished changing, and was doing up the buttons on her shirt as she joined him. “You going to get some sleep?” she asked softly. “Maybe.” “Last I checked,” she said, “humans still need it. Once in a while.” Wax pulled on his cigar, then blew out into the mists again. “Suit wants you to go back to
Elendel, I figure,” MeLaan said. “He’s trying to set it up so that you’ll have no choice, so far as you see it.” “We’re in a bad spot, MeLaan,” Wax said. “The emissary that Aradel sends to a political rally ends up murdering the host? If the outer cities weren’t tense before, they will be now. At the very best, it will be a huge political embarrassment. At the worst, I’ve started a war.” Wind blew, rustling pine branches he couldn’t see. He couldn’t even see MeLaan; clouds must have rolled in, blocking the starlight. Sweet, enveloping darkness. “If there is war,” she said, “Suit will have started it. Not you.” “I might be able to prevent it,” Wax said. “Governor Aradel needs to know, MeLaan. If the outer cities are going to claim assassination—use it as the brand to start a bonfire—I can’t just vanish. I have to get to Elendel. That way, I can claim I knew the New Seran justice system was corrupt, and so I fled to safety. I can make my case in the broadsheets before news spreads; I can convince Aradel I didn’t kill the woman. If I do anything else, it will look like I’m hiding.” “Like I said,” MeLaan said. “He’s set it up so that you have no choice—so far as you see it.” “You see it differently?” “I’ve been a lot of people, Ladrian. Seen through a lot of eyes. There’s always another perspective, if you look hard enough.” He pulled on his cigar and held the smoke a long moment before letting it out in a slow dribble. MeLaan crept away. Did her kind need sleep? She’d implied they didn’t, but he couldn’t say for certain. Alone with his cigar, he tried to sort through what he wanted to do. Go back to Elendel, as forced upon him by Suit’s minions, or chase after the mystery—as forced upon him by Harmony’s minions. He rolled the earring in his fingers, and confronted the hatred simmering inside of him. He’d never hated God before. After Lessie’s supposed death the first time, he hadn’t blamed Harmony. Rusts, even after Bleeder had raised the question of why Harmony hadn’t helped, Wax hadn’t responded with hatred. But now … yes, that hatred was there. You could take knocks, out in the Roughs. You lost friends. You sometimes had to kill a man you didn’t want to kill. But one thing you never did: You never betrayed a companion. Friends were too rare a privilege out in those wilds, where everything seemed to want you dead. By hiding the truth from him, Harmony had stabbed him square in the back. Wax could forgive a lot of things. He wasn’t sure this was one of them. His cigar eventually ran out. His questions lingered. By the time he hiked back toward their campsite, the mist was retreating for the night. He fed the horses—six of them, purchased at the New Seran bottom terrace shipping yards, along with a full-sized stagecoach used to do runs to the Southern Roughs.
They’d narrowly escaped New Seran. Galloping their carriage, they’d managed to descend the ramps before the police, but only after Wax had been forced to bring down a gondola line. The police hadn’t given chase after that, as if realizing they didn’t have the resources to hunt someone like Waxillium Dawnshot, at least not without a lot of backup. Wax still wanted to be moving. Though he was tired to the bones, he couldn’t let himself—or anyone else—rest long. Just in case. As the others groggily piled into the vehicle, MeLaan took the reins from him and climbed up to the driver’s seat. Wayne hopped into the spotter’s seat beside her, and she gave him a grin. “Where to, boss?” she asked, turning to Wax. “Back home?” “No,” Wax said. “We ride to Dulsing, the place Wayne and Marasi located.” The direction of the building project. “You found another perspective, I see,” MeLaan said. “Not yet,” Wax said softly, climbing into the stagecoach. “But let’s see if Harmony dares try to give me one.” PART THREE 17 Marasi had read a lot about life in the Roughs in her youth, and knew what to expect of a stagecoach trip: boredom, dust, and discomfort. It was wonderful. She had to forcibly keep herself from hanging out the window as Wayne occasionally did, watching the scenery pass. They weren’t in the Roughs, but this was close enough. The smell of the horses, the bumps in the road, the rickety creak of the wood and the springs … She had seen and done some remarkable things during her time with Waxillium, but this really felt as if she were living in an adventure. Waxillium reclined across from her, feet up on the seat next to her, a wide-brimmed hat over his eyes, face bristly from a day without shaving. He’d removed his boots, which sat on the floor beside his shotgun. It seemed surreal to remember she’d even considered a relationship with him, now that so long had passed with them working together. No, she was not interested, no longer. But she did admire the perfect image of him there—the gun, the boots, and the hat. Of course, that image was distorted by the sight of Steris curled up on the seat beside him, snoring softly with her head on his shoulder. In what kind of bizarre world did Marasi’s punctilious half sister end up on the adventure? Steris belonged in a sitting room with a cup of tea and a dry book about horticulture, not riding cross-country in a stagecoach toward a potential army of Allomancers. Yet here she was, snuggled up against Dawnshot himself. Marasi shook her head. She wasn’t envious of Steris, which was—frankly—remarkable, considering their upbringings. It was very hard to hate Steris. You could be bored by her, confused by her, or frustrated with her—but hate her? Impossible. Marasi got out her notebook to continue her report to VenDell and Constable-General Reddi, which she hoped to be able to send before reaching Dulsing. Waxillium shifted, then tipped his hat back,
eyeing her. “You should get some sleep.” “I’ll rest when we stop.” “Stop?” Marasi hesitated. They’d been going for half a day already, avoiding the main roads to evade potential pursuers from New Seran. They’d crossed several fields, and spent a full hour rattling along a stone ridge to bypass some farms below in a way that left little sign of their passage. Their path lay almost directly northeast of New Seran, skirting the mountains to their right, staying to the foothills—which meant some ups and downs, but this was still good farmland. All of the Basin was, even here at the edges, where things were dryer than in the center. “I thought that after stopping last night—” Marasi said. “Dear. You mean to go straight there?” “‘Straight’ is an odd term,” Waxillium said, “considering how much MeLaan has us weaving to avoid getting caught. But yes. Shouldn’t be more than another four hours or so.” A train could have had them there in a fraction of that time, delivered in comfort. Maybe the outer cities did have reason to gripe about the way things were set up. “Waxillium?” Marasi said as he shifted again. “Mmm?” “Do you think they’re real? The Bands of Mourning?” He tipped back his hat all the way. “Did I ever tell you why I went to the Roughs?” “As a youth?” Marasi said. “It was because you hated the politics, the expectations. Polite society that was anything but polite.” “That’s why I left Elendel,” Waxillium said. “But why the Roughs? I could have gone to one of the outer cities, could have found a plantation somewhere to read books and live a quiet life.” “Well…” Marasi frowned. “I guess I thought you always wanted to be a lawman.” Waxillium smiled. “I wish I’d spotted it that easily. Should have. I spent my childhood tattling on other children for every little thing they did.” “Then what?” He settled back, closing his eyes. “I was chasing a legend, Marasi. Tales of the Survivor’s gold, riches to be had, stories to be made.” “You?” Marasi started. “You were a gentleman adventurer?” Waxillium winced visibly at the term. “You make me sound like that fool in the broadsheets. I tell you, Marasi, those first months were hard. Every other town was full of the unemployed from the mines shutting down, and I couldn’t enter a saloon without finding some fool baby-face like myself, up from the Basin with a head full of glory and treasure.” “So you started hunting bounties,” she said. “You told me this part. Something about boots.” “Eventually, yes,” Waxillium said, smiling. “Struggled for a long time up there before turning to bounties. At first, though, I had my eyes full of riches and gold. Took time to shake that out of me, but even then, becoming a lawman was about the cash. Started hunting men for money. And, well, there’d always been this streak in me that didn’t like seeing people get pushed around. Ended up in Weathering. Just another forgotten, dried-out city in the Roughs
with nobody to care about it. It was six years before someone gave me credentials and made it official.” The stagecoach cabin swayed on its straps. Up above, Marasi could hear Wayne and MeLaan chatting. So long as they weren’t making out again while trying to drive. “When VenDell told us about this, I didn’t want the Bands to be real,” Waxillium said, looking out the window. “I hated the thought of some foolish dream pulling me away again, after I’d finally found stability in Elendel. I didn’t want that lure of excitement, the reminder of a world I’d come to love out there in the dust.” “So you think they are real.” “Here’s the thing,” he said, leaning forward, causing Steris to shift in her sleep. “My uncle hasn’t had time to breed his Allomancers, as I suspect he’s been doing. The plans he and the Set have concocted, they’re long-term investments. But he promised something to Kelesina, and he really sounded like he thinks he can deliver. You have the device?” Marasi pulled the small metal cube from her purse. Waxillium fished in his pocket and brought out his coin, the one some beggar had apparently given him. He held up the two next to each other, sunlight through the window gleaming off the cube and highlighting the otherworldly symbols on its sides. “Something strange is going on, Marasi,” Waxillium said. “Something important enough to draw my uncle’s attention. I don’t have the answers. I need to find them.” She found herself smiling at the intensity in his eyes. “It’s not the treasure hunter that made you decide to go to Dulsing. It’s the detective.” He smiled. “You were listening to what MeLaan said to me last night?” Marasi nodded. “You were supposed to be asleep,” Waxillium said. He flipped the coin, caught it, then tossed the cube back to her. “Going to Aradel would have been the mature, prudent move, but I have to find the answers. And who knows? Maybe the Bands are real. If so, then getting them away from Suit is at least as important as informing the governor of what happened in New Seran.” “You think your uncle is trying to make Allomancers with technology, rather than by birth.” “A frightening power in the hands of a man like my uncle,” Waxillium said, leaning back into his seat. “Get some sleep. We’re probably going to infiltrate this building project in Dulsing during the night.” He settled with his hat over his eyes again. Marasi felt she should do as he said, and so tried to doze off. Unfortunately, there were too many thoughts in her head for sleep. After some time, she gave up and returned to her letter. In it, she explained what they’d done and discovered. She needed to send this soon. Perhaps she could find a telegraph station when they changed horses, and send the letter in time for it to make a difference. Once done with the letter, she moved to her notes about the missing kandra spike. Kelesina, acting on
behalf of the Set, had tried to kill ReLuur, and had assumed success. When Suit had demanded proof, she’d ordered the spike dug up and sent to him in Dulsing. But where would it be kept there? Someplace secure, presumably. How in the world was she going to find it? She held up the little cube. Suit had asked after this. Could she use that somehow? Marasi frowned, turning the cube. The sides had little grooves between them. She looked closer, and in the sunlight spotted something she hadn’t seen before. A tiny little knob hidden in one groove. It looked like … well, a switch. Nestled in, where it couldn’t be flipped accidentally. She used a hairpin to reach in and flip the switch. It moved just as she’d expect it to. A switch. It seemed so … mundane. This was either a mystical relic or some kind of secret technology. You didn’t use a switch on things like that; you held them up to starlight, or spoke the special command phrases, or did a dance on the last day of the month while eating a kumquat. The switch didn’t seem to have done anything. So, Marasi swallowed and burned a pinch of cadmium. The cube began to vibrate in her fingers. Then the entire coach lurched, rocking as if it had been struck by something very hard. Marasi hit her head on the roof, then was slammed back down onto her seat. The horses screamed, but MeLaan somehow kept them under control. Within moments, the coach had pulled to a stop. “What the hell was that?” Waxillium said, hauling himself up off the floor, where he had ended up in a jumble with Steris. Marasi groaned, sitting up and holding her head. “I did something stupid.” “How stupid?” Waxillium asked. “I was testing the device,” Marasi said, “and used Allomancy.” Wayne’s head appeared at the door a moment later, hanging down from above. “Was that a speed bubble?” “Yes,” Marasi said. “That jolt damn near killed the horses,” Wayne said. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” Waxillium helped Steris sit up. “What … what went wrong?” she asked, befuddled. “Marasi used a speed bubble while we were moving,” Waxillium said. “We hit the threshold and towed her out of it, popping the thing and lurching us from one time frame to the next.” “But, she used it on the train,” Steris said. “Speed bubbles move with you if you’re on something massive enough,” Waxillium said. “Otherwise, the spinning of the planet would pop you out of every one you made. The train was heavy and fast. The stagecoach is small and just slow enough. So—” “So I should have known better,” Marasi said, blushing. “I haven’t done that since I was a kid. But Waxillium, it buzzed.” “What?” “The cube, it—” Marasi started, realizing she’d dropped the cube in the confusion. She searched around frantically before finally locating it near his foot. She held it up triumphantly. “It had a switch.” “A switch?” She turned it to the side, showing them the
little switch. “You have to slip something small in to move it,” she said. “But it works now.” He looked at it, baffled, then showed it to Steris, who squinted. “What kind of eldritch device,” Steris said, “has an on switch?” “Makes sense, I guess,” Waxillium said. “You don’t want your eldritch devices turning on accidentally.” “Might end up almost killing your stagecoach drivers,” Wayne grumbled. “It didn’t stop your Allomancy?” Waxillium asked Marasi, rubbing his chin. She shook her head. She could still sense her metal reserves. “It didn’t seem to do anything.” “Huh.” Waxillium held it up. “Could be dangerous.” “So we’re testing it, then?” Wayne asked, hanging into the window. “Of course we are,” Waxillium said. “But away from the coach.” * * * Wax held the vibrating cube in his hand. It did respond to his metal burning, but didn’t seem to do anything else. They’d stopped near a stand of towering walnut trees, and Wayne was filling his pockets while Marasi watched Wax experiment from a safe distance. MeLaan watered the horses at a stream down the way. Nearby, a field of carrots grew with green sprouts, completely uncultivated. The air smelled fresh, of life untouched. He held up the buzzing cube and let his metals die off. The cube stopped vibrating. He burned them again, and it responded—starting slowly, but picking up after about a second or two. But what did it do? Why didn’t it blank his Allomancy as it had on the train? Maybe it doesn’t work on the person activating it, he thought. That would make some kind of sense, though he couldn’t fathom how it could tell. “Hey, Wayne,” he said. “Yeah, mate?” “Catch.” Wax tossed the cube to him. Wayne caught it, then jumped as his belt—which held his metal vials and any coins on his person—ripped free from its breakaway straps and sprang away from him. He turned, watching it flop to the ground a good twenty feet down the hill, and when he approached it, it scooted away. Wax ran toward him, and as he did, the shotgun in his leg holster pressed backward, as if being Pushed. The effect wore off a few seconds later, and by the time he reached Wayne, the cube had stopped buzzing. Wayne held it up. “What was that?” Wax plucked the device from his fingers as Marasi rushed over to join them. “It doesn’t steal Allomancy, Wayne. It never did.” “But—” “It takes the metal one is burning,” Wax said, “and somehow … extends it. You saw. It Pushed your metal away, as if a Coinshot were there near you. The cube used Allomancy.” The three of them stood stunned, looking at the little device. “We need to try it again,” Wax said. “Wayne, hold this and burn your bendalloy. Marasi, go stand over there. Wayne, once you’re ready, throw the cube to her.” They did as directed. Wax stood back. When Wayne ignited his metals, he suddenly became a blur inside his speed bubble. The cube zipped out an eyeblink later
and soared through the air toward Marasi, deflected somewhat but still moving in the right direction. It engaged just before reaching her, and she became a blur, zipping over to pick up the cube, then zipping back. It took a count of ten before the cube stopped working, dropping her into ordinary time. “Did you see that?” Marasi said, awed, holding the cube. “It created a speed bubble for me. It fed off Wayne’s Allomancy, and replicated it!” “It’s what we’ve been lookin’ for, then?” Wayne asked, joining them, having dropped his own bubble. “Not quite,” Wax replied, taking the cube and holding it up. “But it’s certainly encouraging. It looks like you have to be an Allomancer to use this—it doesn’t grant new powers, but it does extend the ones you have. It’s like … like an Allomantic grenade.” Marasi nodded eagerly. “Which means that the man on the train, the one who used this on us, is a Leecher. He can remove Allomancy in others, and he gave that power to the cube, which he threw at you.” “It engages a second or so after you throw it,” Wax said with a nod. “Useful.” “And it’s proof that Suit has technology he’s been hiding,” Marasi said. “We knew that from the communication device,” Wax said, “but yes, this is even more curious. I’m half tempted to think all this talk of the Bands of Mourning came from rumors about this technology the Set has been developing.” “And the symbols?” “No idea,” Wax said. “Some kind of cipher they developed?” He tapped the cube, then handed the thing to Marasi. “Why me?” she asked. “It’s yours. You found it; you figured out how to turn it on. Besides, I have a feeling it’s going to be the most effective in your hands.” She held it a moment, then her eyes widened. Being a Pulser wasn’t very useful when you were catching yourself in a bubble where you moved slowly compared to everyone else. However, if you could trap someone else in that bubble … Wayne whistled softly. “I’ll try not to lose it,” Marasi said, tucking the device away. “We’ll need to study it later, find out how it works.” I wonder … Wax thought, remembering something else. He played his hunch, reaching into his pocket and fishing out the golden bracelet that Kelesina had been wearing. He tossed it to Wayne. “What’s this?” Wayne asked, holding it up toward the sky. “Pretty hoop o’ gold, that is. Who’d you trade this off of? I could use this, mate. It would make a nice metalmind.” “I think it’s already one,” Wax said, deflating. It had been a silly idea in the first place. Wayne gasped. “What?” Marasi said. “It’s a metalmind,” Wayne said. “Damn me, but it is. And I can sense it. Wax, you got your knife?” Wax nodded, yanking his knife from his gunbelt, and when Wayne proffered his hand, he sliced a small cut along the back. It resealed immediately. “Maaaate,” Wayne whispered. “It’s someone else’s metalmind, but
I can use it.” “Like VenDell said,” Wax said, taking the bracelet from Wayne’s fingers. “A metalmind with no Identity. Rusts. I have to flare my metal to even get the faintest line pointing to it. This thing must be stuffed full of power.” More than any metalmind he’d ever sensed, in fact. He could usually push on those without too much trouble. He’d barely be able to shift this one. “Why didn’t I notice what it was immediately?” Wayne said. “I had to be told. And, oh, rusts! This is proof of the Bands of Mourning, ain’t it?” “No,” Wax said. “I can’t sense a reserve in the bracelet—I can’t use this, as I’m not a Bloodmaker. It’s not a metalmind anybody can use, just one that anyone with the right powers already can use.” “That’s still remarkable,” Marasi said. “And disturbing,” Wax said, staring at that innocent-looking loop. The only way to have created this would involve using a Feruchemist with two powers. So either the Set had access to full-blooded Feruchemists, or his fears were coming true. They’d figured out how to use Hemalurgy. Or it’s a relic, he thought. There’s that possibility. Perhaps this and the box were artifacts of another time. He tossed the bracelet back to Wayne. “How much is in it?” “A heap,” Wayne said. “But it’s not endless. The reservoir got smaller when I healed that cut.” “Hang on to it, then,” Wax said, turning as he heard his name. MeLaan was at the edge of the glade, waving. Wax left Wayne and Marasi, striding over to the tall, slender kandra woman, still worried about what these discoveries meant. What did the bracelet indicate? Was there more to be discovered? Metalminds that granted anyone who touched them incredible powers? For the first time, he really started to wonder. What if the Bands were real? What would happen to society if Metalborn powers were simply something you could purchase? He trudged up to MeLaan. “I think you’ll want to see this,” she said, waving for him to follow her up the side of a steep hill covered in foliage. At the top, they had a view of the land to the northeast. Some was cultivated in rows and rings, but much was like what they’d just left—wilderness blooming with random patches of fruits or vegetables. A cool breeze blew across him, barely enough to temper the heat of the sunlight above. Seeing it all, feeling that perfect breeze, made Wax realize what annoyed him so much about the problems between Elendel and the outer cities. Did these people comprehend what life was like out in the Roughs, where planting was fraught with uncertainty, and the danger of starvation was real? They think people are foolish for living in the Roughs, Wax thought, taking the old-fashioned spyglass that MeLaan handed him. They don’t understand what it’s like to get trapped out there for generations, too poor—or too stubborn—to return to the Basin. Freedom in the Roughs came at a cost. Either way, the Basin was—literally—paradise, crafted
for men by a God who wanted to compensate the world for a millennium of ashes and ruin. It seemed that even in paradise, men would find reasons to squabble and fight. Wax raised the spyglass. “What am I looking for?” “Check the road about a mile up,” MeLaan said. “By that creek with the bridge over it.” He spotted a couple of men lounging in a field with axes. From the looks of it, they’d been cutting at the trunk of a dead tree. Another fallen tree crossed the roadway. “What do you see?” MeLaan asked. “A roadblock that doesn’t want to look like one,” Wax said. “That tree across the road is arranged to seem as if it just fell there, but the furrows on the ground indicate it was dragged there intentionally, and has been moved a time or two since being placed.” “Good eye,” MeLaan said. “You can’t have it,” he said, turning the spyglass and looking toward the farmsteads in the area. “Soldiers stationed in that farmhouse over there, I’d guess. And none of the other homes have smoke rising from them. Probably abandoned. You’re unlikely to find a farmstead this time of day without dinner in the oven.” “They’re waiting for us?” “No, this is too extensive for that,” Wax said. “This is a perimeter. They’re trying not to have it look like one, to prevent word from spreading, but they’ve cordoned off this entire area. What the hell is happening in there?” MeLaan shook her head, looking baffled. “Well, we can’t take the coach any farther,” Wax said, handing back the spyglass. “How are you at bareback?” “Well, I haven’t thrown any riders off recently, but I don’t get occasion to be a horse very often, so I can’t say how I’ll feel today.” Wax blinked. “Oh, you meant riding,” MeLaan said. “Yeah, I’m fine. I doubt I’m the one you’ll have to worry about.” She nodded back toward Steris walking into the grove, trailed by Wayne, who had filled his hat with walnuts. “Right,” Wax said. Hopefully some of their horses would prove docile. * * * Twilight settled upon the land fitfully, like a tired eye struggling to stay open. It was the variety of the land down here in the south, Wax figured. One moment you could be riding through a wooded hollow, all in shadow, and the next you’d crest a hill into an open field and find that the sun hadn’t quite dropped below the horizon yet. Still, darkness did eventually arrive, but with it came no mists. Wax realized he’d been longing to feel them envelop him again. MeLaan led the sortie, keeping to forested areas when possible. She or Wayne would scout ahead, listening for patrols, but the Set was attempting to hold such a large area that they obviously couldn’t watch the whole wilderness. Marasi, of course, was an accomplished rider—and seemed pleased to have a reason to change into her new constable’s trousers and jacket. Steris surprised him. She did just fine, even riding in a
skirt. She’d packed one full enough that she could tuck it beneath her and ride bareback without exposing too much. She took to it without complaint, as she’d done with practically everything else on this trip. The few farmsteads or hunter’s camps they passed on their ride were empty. Wax felt a mounting disquiet. Yes, this was a small, largely unpopulated region in the Basin’s backwaters—but it was still profoundly disturbing that the Set could dominate it so fully. Once they reached the final patch of trees near the village, MeLaan scouted ahead, then came back and waved for him to follow. He crawled up with her to peer at the village from the tree line. Bright electric floodlights lit the perimeter around an enormous structure in what obviously had once been the center of the village of Dulsing. Wooden, windowless, huge, it was still under construction, judging by the scaffolding at the sides and the unfinished roof at the top. The town’s buildings had mostly been torn down, leaving only a few at the perimeter untouched. The roofless top of the building glowed with a warm light. Where were they getting so much electricity? MeLaan handed him the spyglass and he raised it, inspecting the perimeter. Those were definitely soldiers, wearing red uniforms with some mark on the breast that wasn’t distinguishable at this distance. They carried rifles at their shoulders, and the floodlights created a bright ring around the place. Focused outward, not toward the building, which left plenty of shadowed areas inside that ring. So they’d have cover once they got past the perimeter. “What do you think?” he asked. “Is that some kind of bunker?” “Doesn’t look like any fort I’ve seen,” MeLaan whispered. “With those flimsy walls? Looks more like a big warehouse.” A warehouse as large as a small town. Wax shook his head in bafflement, then spotted something near the far side of the village. A waterfall? It was outside the lights, but he thought he could see mist rising from where it plunged down, and a small stream did run through the village. “High ground that direction,” he said. “Yeah,” she said. “The maps mention the waterfall over there. Small but pretty, supposedly.” “Must have hooked a turbine up to it,” he said. “That’s where the power is coming from. Let’s get back to the others.” They crawled through the underbrush again to where Wayne, Marasi, and Steris waited in the dim woods. “They’re here all right,” Wax whispered. “We have to find a way to get in. Tons of soldiers. Well-guarded perimeter.” “Fly in,” Steris suggested. “Not gonna work,” Wayne said. “They had a Seeker back at the party; you think they won’t have one here? The moment one of us burns a metal, we’ll draw a hundred of Suit’s goons to welcome us with a handshake and a friendly bit of murderin’.” “What then?” Marasi asked. “I need to see,” Wayne said. “There’s a better vantage on the other side, we think,” Wax said. He pointed, and MeLaan led the way in
the darkness, walking her horse between the towering hardwoods. Wax fell in with Steris at the tail of the group, and lagged a little to be able to speak with her privately. “Steris,” he whispered, “I’ve been considering how to proceed once we decide how to infiltrate. I’ve thought about bringing you in with us, and I just don’t see that it’s feasible. I think it would be best if you stayed and watched the horses.” “Very well.” “No, really. Those are armed soldiers. I can’t even fathom how I’d feel if I brought you in there and something happened. You need to stay out here.” “Very well.” “It isn’t subject to—” Wax hesitated. “Wait. You’re all right with this?” “Why wouldn’t I be?” she asked. “I barely have any sense of where to point a gun, and have hardly any capacity for sneaking—that’s really quite a scandalous talent if you think about it, Lord Waxillium. While I do believe that people tend to be safest when near you, riding into an enemy compound is stretching the issue. I’ll stay here.” Wax grinned in the darkness. “Steris, you’re a gem.” “What? Because I have a moderately healthy sense of self-preservation?” “Let’s just say that out in the Roughs, I was accustomed to people always wanting to try things beyond their capacity. And they always seemed determined to do it right when it was the most dangerous.” “Well, I shall endeavor to stay out of sight,” Steris said, “and not get captured.” “I doubt you need to worry about that all the way out here.” “Oh, I agree,” she said. “But that is the sort of statistical anomaly that plagues my life, so I’ll plan for it nonetheless.” With some difficulty, they navigated to the eastern edge of the town, where they left Steris and the horses. Wax dug some supplies off the pack animal. Metal vials, extra bullets, plenty of guns—including the aluminum one he’d stolen back at Kelesina’s place. And the last of Ranette’s ball-and-string devices, which he tucked into the pouch on his gunbelt. After climbing up some switchbacks, they were able to settle onto a darkened ridge above the falls—which were nowhere near as impressive as he’d imagined—and study the town. Well, the remnants of it. “I wish we could see into that building,” Marasi said, handing back the spyglass. Wax grunted in agreement. They were almost high enough to see what was going on inside. Certainly, those flickering lights bespoke considerable activity: people moving down below, passing before the lights in the large chamber. But what were they doing, and why were they still at it well into the night? “Gonna be hard to sneak in there,” Wayne said. “You could kill one of the guards for me,” MeLaan said, settling onto a rock. “I’d eat him, take his shape, and slip us in that way.” Wax blinked, then glanced at Marasi, who seemed sick. “Really,” MeLaan said, “you all need to stop staring at me like that when I offer pragmatic suggestions.” “It’s not pragmatic,” Marasi said.
“It’s cannibalism.” “Technically it’s not, as we’re different species. Honestly, if you look at our physiology, I share less in common with humans than you do with a cow—and nobody gasps when you eat one of those. You didn’t have trouble with it back in the mansion with Innate’s bodyguard.” “She was already dead,” Wax said. “Thank you for the suggestion, MeLaan, but getting you a guard’s body is out of the question.” “We don’t like killin’ folks,” Wayne said. “At least, unless they start shootin’ at us. They’re just chaps what are doing their job.” He looked to Marasi, as if for support. “Don’t look at me,” Marasi said. “I’m reeling from watching you trying to take the moral high ground.” “Focus, Wayne,” Wax said. “How are we going to get in? Shall we try a Fat Belt?” “Nah,” Wayne said, “too loud. I think we should do Spoiled Tomato.” “Dangerous,” Wax said, shaking his head. “I’d have to do the placement just right, between the lit perimeter and the shadowed part near the walls.” “You can do it. You make shots like that all the time. Plus, we got this shiny new metalmind, full o’ health waitin’ to be slurped up.” “A mistake could ruin the whole infiltration, healing power or no,” Wax said. “I think we should do Duck Under Clouds instead.” “You kiddin’?” Wayne said. “Didn’t you get shot last time we tried that?” “Kinda,” Wax admitted. MeLaan stared at them, baffled. “Duck under Clouds?” “They get like this,” Marasi said, patting her on the shoulder. “Best not to listen too closely.” “Tube Run,” Wayne said. “No glue.” “Banefielder?” “Too dark.” “Blackwatch Doublestomp.” Wax hesitated. “… The hell is that?” “Just made it up,” Wayne said, grinning. “It’s a nifty code name though, eh?” “Not bad,” Wax admitted. “And what type of plan is it?” “Same as Spoiled Tomato,” Wayne said. “I said that was too dangerous.” “Nothin’ else will work,” Wayne said, standing. “Look, are we going to sit here arguing, or are we going to do this?” Wax debated for a moment, eyeing the grounds, thinking. Could he get the placement right? But then, did he have a better plan? That perimeter was very well guarded, but it was a dark night. If his life in the Roughs had taught him one thing, it was to trust his instincts. Unfortunately, at that moment they agreed with Wayne. So, before he could talk himself out of it, he pulled his shotgun from its holster and tossed it to Wayne. The shorter man caught it with distaste—guns and Wayne didn’t agree. His arms immediately started shaking. “Try to hold on tight,” Wax said. “Make an opening on the north side, if you can.” He increased his weight, flared his metal, and Pushed on the gun, using it as an anchor to hurl Wayne out off the rocky outcropping and over the camp. The man soared from the Push before dropping through the darkness, some fifty feet toward the ground below. Marasi gasped. “Spoiled Tomato?” she asked. “Yeah,” Wax
said. “Apparently it makes a mess sometimes when he lands.” * * * To rust with that Wax, Wayne thought as he plummeted toward the ground, his hat blowing off. Tossin’ a gun to a fellow without even warnin’ him. Why, that’s just— He hit. Now, there was a trick to falling to your death. Bodies hitting the ground were loud. Louder than anyone ever expected. He mitigated this by hitting feet-first—his legs both snapped immediately—then twisted onto his side, breaking his shoulder, but dampening some of the sound by rolling with the impact. He tapped his fancy new metalmind right before his head smacked the ground, dazing him. He ended up in a crumpled, broken heap beside a pile of rocks. Of course Wax would have sent him into a pile of rocks. As his vision cleared, he tried to glance at his legs, but he couldn’t move. Couldn’t feel anything, actually, which was quite pleasant. It was always nice when you snapped the spine—helped with the pain. Not that the pain went completely away, mind you. But he and pain were old friends what shared a handshake and a beer now and then. Didn’t much like one another, but they had a working relationship. Sensation—and agony—flooded back into him as his metalmind healed his spine, focusing on the worst wounds first. He drew in a deep breath. A snapped spine could suffocate a man. People didn’t know that. Or, well, the ones who did know had suffocated already. As soon as he could move—even while his legs were healing—he twisted and used his good arm to position one of the large rocks in the pile. Looked like these stones were here intended for shoring up the sides of the stream, perhaps to make a pathway across. Wayne put them to good use, reaching up with his other hand as his shoulder healed. Wax had placed him well, right in the dark area between the perimeter watchposts and the building. But that didn’t mean he was safe. Wayne stumbled to his feet, dragging Wax’s gun, his leg twisting about and bones reknitting. Damn fine metalmind, that gold bracelet was. An extensive healing like this would have cost him months of saving up, but this metalmind was still mostly full. He stumbled away as quietly as he could, leaving a large rock balanced on the others as he sought a place deeper in the shadows, then hid the gun near the building so his damn hand would stop shaking. He got away none too soon. A pair of soldiers were approaching from the perimeter. “It was over here,” one said to the other. As they drew closer, one of the spotlights turned around and shone on the area, giving them light and quite nearly exposing Wayne. He froze in the shadows near a pile of work equipment, sweating as his toes popped softly, the bones grinding against one another as they knit back into their proper places. The guards didn’t hear. They stepped up to where he’d fallen—no tomato splat of blood
this time, fortunately—and looked around. One nudged the stone accidentally, and it fell off the peak where Wayne had placed it, rolling down the side of the small pile and clattering against the other rocks. The men looked at it, then nodded, doing a quick sweep but heading back to their post and returning the light to its scan of the nearby area. The noise they’d heard had merely been some rocks shifting. Nothing significant. Wayne stood up straight in the darkness and stopped tapping the bracelet metalmind. He felt good. Renewed, like he always did after a big healing. Felt like he could do something impossible, run up a mountain, or eat the entire boar and chips plate at Findley’s all on his own. He crept off through the shadows, about important business. Fortunately, he found his hat almost immediately, near another rock pile. That done, he moved on to less important matters, like making an opportunity to help the others sneak in. Wax had said north side. Let’s see.… He kept close to the building, and even resisted the urge to go sneaking in on his own to find out what in Ruin’s name was in there. Time to think like a guard. It was hard, as he didn’t have a guard’s hat. He settled into the shadows and listened as a pair of them passed on patrol, digesting their accents like a nice snack of pretzel sticks with mustard. After about fifteen minutes of watching, he picked out a likely candidate and kept pace as the man did his rounds, though Wayne stayed in the shadow. The lanky fellow had a face like a rabbit, but was tall enough he could probably have picked all the walnuts he wanted without needing a stepladder. Here I am, Wayne thought, in the middle of nowhere! Guarding a big old barn. This isn’t what I signed up for. I haven’t seen my daughter in eight months. Eight months! She’s probably talking by now. Rusts. This life. The man turned to go back the other way on his rounds, and someone barked out at him from one of the stations with the floodlights, saying something Wayne couldn’t hear. The tone was unmistakable. And my superiors, Wayne thought, turning and slinking along in the shadows, still keeping pace with the man. Oh, how they lean on me! Every little thing gets me a talking-to. Shouting. That’s all this life is. Being yelled at day in and day out. Wayne smiled, then scuttled ahead of the man, looking for something he’d stepped over earlier. A set of black cords, each as thick as his finger, plugged into a big box near the building. As the guard came strolling past, not paying much attention, Wayne carefully lifted the cords. The guard’s foot caught on them. In that moment, Wayne yanked them from the hub. The floodlights nearest to him went out. Men immediately started shouting. The guard panicked in the darkness. “I’m sorry!” he shouted. “I didn’t mean to. I wasn’t watching my feet!” Wayne slipped
away and found a nice quiet nook between two stacks of sandbags as the guards shouted and argued, and the poor man was chewed out. Some people came in to fix the cords, though Wayne had tossed them to the side, so it took some time searching in the dark to find the ends and get them connected. The lights came back on. Wayne was taking a long swig from his leather canteen as Wax, Marasi, and MeLaan joined him in the shadows. “Nice,” Wax whispered. “It wasn’t, actually,” Wayne whispered. “It was pretty mean. That poor guard ain’t done nothin’ wrong, and everybody keeps yellin’ at him.” Wax took the lead at that point, prowling along the side of the big barnlike building. The roof wasn’t the only thing still unfinished—the entrances were open, not fitted with proper doors. They stopped beside one and Wayne pointed, whispering to Wax where his shotgun was. Wax fetched it, then snuck through the doorway. They followed, Wayne last of all. The cavernous interior was lit by a few electric lanterns here and there, and they passed a long light lattice that was obviously going to be installed in the ceiling, once the roof was done. It was brighter than outside in here, but not by much, and there were stacks of boxes and supplies arranged in rows, which let them sneak through and stay hidden. Once they got to the front of the rows of boxes, Wax hesitated, and the two women peered around him. Nobody gave Wayne a good view, which was how it always went. First he got yelled at on the job, then this. He wiggled between them, getting a good elbow into Marasi’s midriff—which earned him a glare, as if she didn’t know that proper crowd-wiggling protocol involved getting friendly with one another’s extremities. He managed to peek between Wax and MeLaan, finally getting a glimpse at what had stopped them. It was a boat. Of course, the common word “boat” didn’t do the thing justice. Wayne stared at the massive construction, searching for a better description. One that would capture the majesty, the incredible scale, of the thing he was seeing. “That’s a damn big boat,” he finally whispered. Much better. Why would they be building a ship here, miles and miles from the ocean? The thing couldn’t be easy to move. It filled almost the entire building, with a curved bottom and a prow—unfinished on one side—that was easily three stories high. The thing had two long, armlike extensions at the sides. Pontoons? They were big, and one wasn’t finished yet, ending in a jagged line of construction. Jagged? Wayne frowned. That didn’t look like the way you built something. In fact, now that he studied it, that prow looked more crumpled than unfinished. “Someone broke it,” Wayne said, pointing. “They were trying to move it, and cracked off one pontoon.” “It has to be a warship,” Marasi said. “They are preparing for a war.” “I think Wayne is right,” Wax said. “Look at the gouges in the
dirt, the damage to the hull. They were transporting this thing through here, and it rolled free and cracked. So the Set constructed this building to cut it off from the view of anyone outside while they repair it.” “Engineers,” Wayne said, pointing at some people who were obviously smart types, walking along the outside of the ship and pointing, carrying clipboards and wearing dark brown suits and skirts. The type teachers at schools would wear, thinking they were the height of fashion. “It’s not like any ship I’ve seen,” Marasi said, shouldering her purse and clutching her rifle. “You brought your purse,” Wayne said, “on a darin’ infiltration?” “Why not?” she said. “Purses are handy. Anyway, if the Set has technology like that speaking telegraph, what will they put on a ship like this? And why did they build it away from the sea in the first place?” “Suit will have answers,” Wax said, eyes narrowing. “Marasi, I assume you’re still after the spike?” “Yes,” she said, determined. “I’m going to find my uncle. Who do you want? Wayne or MeLaan?” “MeLaan this time,” Marasi said. Wax nodded. “Stay hidden, but if Wayne and I get spotted, try to help. We’ll do the same for you. If you find that spike, return to this point and lie low. If all goes well, we’ll slip back out together.” “And if all doesn’t go well?” “Which it won’t,” Wayne added. “Meet back where we left Steris and the horses,” Wax said, sliding a gun from the holster at his side. MeLaan did the same, only her holster was her leg. Like, the skin split and she reached in through a slit in her trousers and slipped the gun out—a sleek, long-barreled thing. Wayne whistled softly. She grinned, then gave him a kiss. “Try not to get shot too many times.” “You neither,” he said. They split up. 18 Marasi snuck through the warehouse, her rifle’s strap an uncomfortable weight on her shoulder. She was glad for the trousers—they were quieter than rustling skirts—but she kept worrying that the scientists and workers in the room would notice the sound of her boots on the packed earth. Probably not. The warehouse was hardly silent. Though it was night, and activity was muted, some people were still working. Along one side of the room, a few carpenters sawed lengths of wood, each stroke echoing back from the walls. The group of engineers made exclamations as they discussed aspects of the large vessel. They seem surprised by it, Marasi thought. As if they’re not the ones who built it in the first place. Were they new to the project, then? Guards dotted the warehouse, but there weren’t nearly as many as outside. She and MeLaan kept to the shadowed edge of the chamber, near the piles of boxes and supplies, but still had to pass uncomfortably close to a group of soldiers sitting at a small table playing cards. The soldiers didn’t notice them. Eventually, MeLaan and Marasi managed to reach the south wall, which was one
of the long sides of the rectangular building. Here, rooms had been built into the structure, and they were more finished than the rest, complete with doors and the occasional window. “Living quarters?” Marasi whispered, pointing. “Maybe,” MeLaan replied, crouching beside her. “So how are we going to find the spike?” “I’d assume it’s inside a safe of some sort.” “Maybe,” MeLaan said. “Or it could be in a desk drawer in one of those rooms, or packed away in a box … or hell, they may have just thrown it away. Suit only seemed to want it because he required proof that poor ReLuur had been dealt with.” Marasi took a deep breath. “If that’s the case, we’ll have to interrogate Suit once Waxillium finds him. But I don’t think they threw it away. We know the Set is researching ways to make Allomancers, and we know they’re interested in Hemalurgy. They’d study the spike instead of tossing it.” MeLaan nodded thoughtfully. “But it could still be practically anywhere.” Not far away, the scientists—led by a man with a limp—walked up a plank ramp, peering into the open side of the boat. It’s him, Marasi thought. The same one from the train robbery. He was showing the newcomers around the project. They stepped inside. “I’ve got an idea,” Marasi said. “How crazy is it?” “Less crazy than tossing Wayne off a cliff.” “Not a high bar, but all right. How do we start?” Marasi pointed at the hole in the hull that the scientists had entered through. “We get in there.” * * * Wax moved along behind the supply pallets in the direction opposite Marasi’s, feeling as if he were stepping through the shadow of progress. He’d pondered the transformations that Elendel had undergone during his absence: motorcars and electric lights, skyscrapers and concrete roads. It was like he’d left one world and come back to another. That seemed only the beginning. Enormous warships. Technology that enhanced Allomancy. Bracers that one Feruchemist could fill, and another could use. He couldn’t help but feel intimidated, as if this behemoth ship were a soldier from another time, come to stamp out all the dusty old relics like Wax. He pulled up beside the last stack of planks in the line, Wayne joining him. The man yanked out his canteen, which was of sturdy, stiff leather, worked to the shape of a small bottle. He took a swig and offered it to Wax, who accepted it and downed a drink. He coughed softly. “Apple juice?” “Good for the body,” Wayne said, tucking the canteen away. “I was not expecting that.” “Gotta keep the stomach guessin’, mate,” Wayne said. “Or it’ll grow complacent and all. How’re we gonna find your uncle?” “Perspective?” Wax asked, nodding toward the middle reaches of the warehouse, where a complex network of temporary construction catwalks ringed the inside of the building. They were unpopulated in the night. “We’d have a view of the entire area, but wouldn’t be too noticeable from below.” “Sounds good,” Wayne said. “You up for
it, though? You’re gonna have to climb up like a regular person. No Steelpushes.” He didn’t have any metal inside of him—too easy to use reflexively. His vials sat unused on his belt. “I’ll be fine,” Wax said dryly. He waited until nearby guards and workers had passed, then led the way in a low run along the shadows of the building. The lights were aimed on the ship, away from the walls. He had to hope that the few workers walking about weren’t focused on the dark reaches of the large chamber. Two full-sized catwalks ran the length of the wall up high, and leading toward them were a series of ladders and shorter catwalks as landings, to hold supplies. He grabbed the bottom ladder and climbed up one level, then another. By the third one, his arms were aching. He made himself lighter, which helped, but he still had to stop and catch his breath on the fifth tier. Just as making his body heavier granted him the strength to move his oversized muscles, getting lighter always seemed to cost him some of his strength. “Gettin’ old,” Wayne said with a grin, passing him and starting up the next ladder. “Don’t be dense,” Wax said, grabbing the ladder below him and climbing. “I’m trying to pace myself. What if we reach the top and have to fight?” “You can throw your wooden teeth at ’em,” Wayne said from above. “Do some cane waggin’ as well. I’m sure you’re cross about stayin’ up so late.” Wax growled softly and climbed up onto the next tier, but in fact he was winded to the point that arguing was taxing. The younger man seemed to realize it, and had a wide grin on his face as they climbed up the final two tiers to the bottom catwalk. “I should deck you right in your grin,” he grumbled as he joined the still-smiling Wayne on the catwalk. “But you’d just heal.” “Nah,” Wayne said. “I’d fall over and groan. Considerin’ your age, it’s more important to make you feel you’ve accomplished somethin’ in a day.” Wax shook his head, turning and stepping to the side along the catwalk. The board under his foot immediately cracked. His leg slipped through, and though he caught himself and yanked the foot out, for the first time in ages he felt a little of what others must feel at being up so high. That ground was far, far below, and he didn’t have any metals in him at the moment. He growled and stepped around the hole. “That was not my fault. The board was weak.” “Sure, sure,” Wayne said. “It’s okay, mate. Most folks put on a little weight as they hit their twilight years. ’S natural and all.” “If I shot you,” Wax said, “nobody would blame me. They’d probably just say, ‘Wow. You lasted that long? I’d have shot him years ago.’ Then they’d buy me a pint.” “Now, that hurts, it does,” Wayne said. “I—” “Who are you?” Wax froze, then both he and
Wayne looked upward toward the person leaning out over the railing of the upper catwalk, staring down at them. An engineer, by the looks of it, in a white coat over vest and cravat. He frowned at them, then seemed to recognize Wax, his eyes widening. “Rust,” Wax swore, raising his hands as Wayne moved immediately, jumping up. Wax gave him a boost, and he kicked off and grabbed the railing of the upper catwalk. The engineer started to cry out, but Wayne snatched the man’s ankle, toppling him with a thump. Wayne swung up in a heartbeat, and another thump sounded. Wax waited, nervous. Moments passed. “Wayne?” he hissed. “Are you up there?” A moment later, the engineer’s unconscious face appeared over the side of the catwalk, eyes closed. “Of course he’s up here,” Wayne said from up above, imitating the voice of the unfortunate engineer and wiggling the head like a puppet’s. “You just tossed that bloke up here, mate! You’ve forgotten already? Memory loss. You must be gettin’ real old.” * * * Technically, every person in the world was dying—they were merely doing it very slowly. Irich’s curse was not that he was dying. It was that he could feel it happening. As he shuffled down the hallways of the enormous wooden ship, he had to keep close watch on the floor, because the slightest dip or cleft could cause him to trip. When he gestured toward the wall where they’d found the burned maps—explaining to the other scientists—his arm felt as if it were strapped with a ten-pound weight. His left hand barely worked anymore; he could grip his cane, but he couldn’t stop his hand from trembling as he did so—and he practically had to drag his left leg with each step. The shortness of breath had begun. His physician said that one day, he simply wouldn’t have the strength to breathe. On that day, Irich would suffocate alone, unable to move. And he could feel it coming. Step by excruciating step. “And what is this, Professor Irich?” Stanoux asked, gesturing toward the ceiling. “Such a fascinating pattern!” “We aren’t certain,” Irich said, leaning on his cane and looking upward—a task that was surprisingly difficult. Rusts. He hadn’t had trouble tipping his head back before, had he? Step by step. “It looks like a ship,” Stansi said, cocking her head. Indeed, the golden pattern on the corridor ceiling did look something like a small ship. Why paint it here? He suspected it would take years to sort out this vessel’s many secrets. Once, Irich would have been content to spend his entire life picking through these oddities, writing about each and every one. Today however, his “entire life” seemed far too short a period to be spent on such endeavors. Suit and Sequence wanted their weapons, and they could have them, for Irich desired only one thing. A miracle. “Please, continue with me,” Irich said, walking down the corridor with his latest gait. He had to develop a new one every few months, as more of
his muscles grew too weak or refused to function. Step, cane, shuffle, breathe. Step, cane, shuffle, breathe. “What marvelous woodwork!” Stanoux said, adjusting his spectacles. “Aunt, do you recognize what kind of wood this is?” Stansi stepped up beside him, waving over the guard with the lantern so she could admire the strange hardwood. Irich had shown similar interest in the ship’s details at first, but each day his patience grew more strained. “Please,” Irich said. “You shall have all the time you wish to study, prod, and theorize. But only after we have solved the primary problem.” “Which is?” Stansi asked. Irich gestured toward an arched doorway ahead, guarded by a soldier with another lantern. She saluted as Irich passed. Technically, he was an Array—a rank of some influence within the Set. Suit and his people had a high regard for scientific thought. The power and prestige, however, were meaningless to him. Neither could grant him additional breaths of life. Past the doorway, he waved for his group of five scientists to gaze upon the grand machinery that filled the hold of the strange vessel. It was like nothing he had ever seen, without gears or wires. It looked more like a hearth, only constructed of a lightweight metal with lines of other metals running away from it along the walls. Like a spiderweb. “This ship,” Irich said, “is filled with enigmas. You have noticed the odd patterns on the ceilings, but questions like those are barely the beginning. What is the purpose of the room hung with dozens of black hoods, like those worn by an executioner? We have found what appear to be musical instruments, but they seem incapable of making any sounds. The ship has an ingenious system of plumbing, and we have identified facilities for both men and women—but there is a third set of rooms with an indecipherable marking on the doors. For whom were these built? People of the lower class? Families? A third gender? So many questions. “One question tops them all, and we feel that answering it will provide the very linchpin. It is why I have called for you, the most brilliant minds of the outer cities. If you can answer this, we will gain the technological might to secure our freedom from Elendel oppression once and for all.” “And what question might that be?” Professor Javie asked. Irich turned back to them. “Why, how this thing moves of course.” “You don’t know?” Irich shook his head. “It defies all scientific knowledge available to us. Some mechanisms were undoubtedly damaged in the crash, but as you can see, the vehicle is mostly intact. We should have been able to ascertain its method of propulsion, but so far it eludes us.” “What of the navigators?” Stanoux asked. “The crew? Did none survive?” “They have been uncooperative,” Irich said. And somewhat fragile. “Beyond that, the language barrier has so far proven insurmountable. That is why I invited you, Lord Stanoux, as one of the world’s foremost experts on ancient, anteverdant languages. Perhaps you can
decipher the books found on this ship. Lady Stansi, you and Professor Javie will lead our engineers. Imagine the power we would have with a fleet of such ships. We would dominate the Basin!” The scientists shared looks. “I don’t know that I want any group having access to such power, Professor,” Lady Stansi said. Ah, right. These were not politicians. He should not employ the same rhetoric he had used when Suit sent him to gather funds from the wealthy. “Yes,” he admitted, “it will be a terrible burden. But surely you can see that this knowledge is better off in our hands, rather than in the hands of those at Elendel? And think of what we will learn, what we could know.” They took that better, nodding in turn. He would have to speak with Suit—these people must not see themselves as serving a totalitarian army, but a benign freedom movement seeking knowledge and peace. That would be difficult, with all these rusted soldiers marching about and saluting everyone. He prepared for an explanation of what they knew, intending to divert the scientists with promises of knowledge, when he heard a voice echo down the hallway. “Professor Irich?” He sighed. What now? “Excuse me,” he said. “Lady Stansi, perhaps you will wish to inspect this fixture, which appears to provide some kind of power to the ship. It does not have electricity, so far as we can discern. I would value your unbiased opinions before I tell you what we have concluded. I must go deal with something.” They seemed amenable to this—enthusiastic even. He left them and limped down the hallway. Too slow, too slow, he thought, both of his walk and the possibility of progress from the scientists. He couldn’t wait upon research, experimentation. He needed answers now. He had thought that on the train, they might find … But no, of course not. An idle hope. He should never have left this project. Back in the hallway, he found no sign of the person who had called to him. Frustrated, he made it all the way back to the doorway before turning and searching down one of the side hallways. They should know better than to call for him! Could they not see the difficulty he had in traversing even a short distance? He started back up the hallway, but hesitated as he noticed a small storage compartment that had popped open on the wall. There were hundreds of these scattered throughout the ship, containing ropes or weapons or other items. But this one had dropped something to the floor. A small, silvery cube. His heart leaped in excitement. Another of the devices? Such luck! He had thought all these compartments searched by now. He struggled to pick it up, going down on his good knee and fishing for it, then lurched back to his feet. A plan was already forming. He would tell Suit that it had been recovered by one of his spies in New Seran. His punishments would be lifted, and perhaps he would
be allowed to move to the second site, perhaps join the expedition. Excited, he sent a soldier to watch the scientists, then hobbled out of the ship, glad that something was finally going right for him. * * * Marasi cracked a closet door within the strange ship, then looked after the man called Irich, who limped through the gaping hole in the wall. MeLaan slipped out of a closet across the hallway from her and held up a warding hand to Marasi, then snuck to the opening to watch where Irich went. Marasi waited, anxious. Though her duties as a constable usually related more to analysis and investigation, she’d gone on her share of raids in Elendel. She’d thought herself hardened, but Harmony, this mission was starting to rub her nerves raw. Too little sleep, and so much sneaking about, hiding, knowing that at any moment someone could turn a corner and find you there, looking guilty as sin. MeLaan finally waved her forward, and she scrambled out of the closet and knelt beside the kandra at the entrance. “He went into that room,” MeLaan said, pointing at a door along the wall. “Now what?” “We wait just a bit longer,” Marasi said. “And see if he comes back out.” * * * Wax prowled along the wooden planks of the interior scaffolding. MeLaan’s spyglass let him get a good look at the ground floor, though he’d have much preferred binoculars. He scanned the whole area, noticing with interest as Marasi and MeLaan entered the ship. That ship … something about it bothered him. He hadn’t been on many boats, but the decks atop the enormous thing seemed off to him. Where were the masts? He’d assumed them torn down, but from above, he could see no broken stumps. So, was this ship propelled through the water by a steam engine, perhaps? Gasoline? After rounding the entire building on the catwalk, he saw no sign of his uncle. “Still nothing?” Wayne asked as he lowered the spyglass a last time. Wax shook his head. “There are some rooms built into the north side of the structure. He could be in there. He might also be inside the ship.” “So what do we try next?” Wax tapped the end of the spyglass against his palm. He’d been struggling with the same question. How did he find his prey without alerting the guards camped outside? Wayne nudged him. Down below, the limping man came back out of the boat. Wax focused the spyglass on him, watching as he crossed to one of the nearby rooms. “Did he look anxious about somethin’ to you?” Wayne asked. “Yeah,” Wax said, lowering the spyglass. “What did those two women do in there?” “Maybe they—” “I don’t want to hear your guess,” Wax said. “Really.” “Fair enough.” “Come on,” Wax said, leading the way back around the shadowed catwalks toward the ladders. “You have an idea?” Wayne asked. “More of an impression,” Wax said. “Suit doesn’t like talking to minions. Everyone we’ve interviewed indicates the same thing—he
chooses underlings with some power and repute and lets them handle things. Miles, the Marksman. My uncle loathes being bothered.” “So…” “That man with the limp,” Wax said, “probably has a similar role here. He’s an Allomancer, and I heard him referenced in Lady Kelesina’s mansion; he’s an important underling, though perhaps not in favor right now. Either way, he likely reports directly to my uncle.” “So follow him long enough…” Wayne said. “… and we should find Suit.” “Sounds good,” Wayne said. “Unless he reports every afternoon at tea, which would have us waitin’ a long time.” Wax paused by the ladder, noticing with surprise that the man with the limp had already left the rooms. Wax’s view was partially obscured by the massive ship, but he did catch sight of the man hobbling around the front of the vessel, again walking with a determined air. Wax held up a hand to Wayne, then crouched down with the spyglass. The limping man crossed the warehouse to a solitary room, much like a guard chamber, built into the southwest corner. A soldier here stepped aside, letting the limping man enter. As the door swung open, Wax got a good glimpse of the room beyond. His sister was inside. He almost dropped the spyglass. The door swung shut, so he couldn’t get a second glimpse, but he had seen her. Sitting at a small table, loomed over by the large Coinshot brute Wax had fought on the train. “Wax?” Wayne asked. “It’s Telsin,” Wax whispered. “She’s being held inside that room.” He found himself rising and reaching for one of his metal vials. “Whoa, whoa, mate,” Wayne said, grabbing his arm. “I’m all for charging in recklessly and whatnot, but don’t you think it would be best to talk this through? You know, before we get all ‘Let’s shoot this place up.’” “She’s here, Wayne,” he said. “This is why I came.” He felt cold. “She’ll know things about our uncle. She’s the key. I’m going in after her.” “All right, all right,” Wayne said. “But Wax, doesn’t it strike you as worryish that I’m havin’ to be the voice of reason here?” Wax looked down at his friend. “It probably should.” “Yeah, I’ll say. Look, I’ve got an idea.” “How bad an idea is it?” “Compared to burnin’ Allomancy, going in shooting, and inevitably drawing the attention of all those guards, not to mention the Set’s kill squads? I’d say compared to that, it’s a pretty damn good idea.” “Tell me.” “Well, see,” Wayne said, sticking his gum to one of the catwalk’s support beams, “we’ve got this very nice engineer’s outfit over there on the unconscious fellow, and ever since that party half a year back, I been workin’ on my smart-person talk.…” 19 Marasi waited inside the ship, forcing herself—with effort—to remain calm. How did Waxillium do it? He and Wayne could be so relaxed, it seemed like they could take a nap in the middle of a firefight. Well, she stood her ground—or rather, knelt it—and was rewarded. Through
the hole in the ship’s hull, she watched the wall of the warehouse where the rooms were. Irich soon hobbled out of one, then shuffled off and called toward some guards. “What was that he said?” Marasi asked. “He told them to ‘Send to Mister Suit,’” MeLaan said. “You think he really stashed that device in the same place as they’re keeping the spike?” “That’s the hope,” Marasi said. “Shall we?” Marasi nodded, then prepared herself for another nerve-racking experience. MeLaan led, strolling down the planks and out into the open. Marasi followed, keeping her head high as MeLaan had told her. Look like you belong, the kandra had said. The first rule of impersonation is to belong. She felt completely exposed, as if she were dancing naked in the middle of Elendel’s Hub. They reached the bottom of the gangway, walking with excruciating slowness, and crossed the floor of the warehouse to the door. Was Marasi walking too stiffly? She couldn’t check over her shoulder—MeLaan had warned her about that. But surely a quick glance wouldn’t hurt anything.… Stay firm. MeLaan tried the door, and blessedly it opened. The two of them stepped through into an empty hallway, and Marasi shut the door. No shouts of alarm followed. She was positive one of the carpenters had glanced at them, but nobody had said a word. “Nice work,” MeLaan said. “I feel like I’m going to puke.” “Must run in the family,” MeLaan said, leading her along the hallway. It had bare wooden walls and smelled of sawdust, and a solitary electric light hung from the ceiling. Melaan stopped at the simple door at the end, listened carefully, then tried the knob. This one was locked. “You can open it?” Marasi said. “Like you did before?” “Sure,” MeLaan said, kneeling by the doorknob. “No problem. I’ll try something more mundane first.” She cocked her hand, and a set of picks sprouted from the skin of her forearm. She plucked them free and started working on the door. “Handy,” Marasi said. “Pun intended?” “That depends,” she said, checking over her shoulder. The hallway was still empty. Fool girl. “How many times have you heard that joke?” MeLaan smiled, focused on her lockpicking. “I’ve been alive pushing seven hundred years now, kid. You’ll have trouble finding jokes I haven’t heard.” “You know, I should really interview you sometime.” MeLaan cocked an eyebrow in her direction. “You kandra have a unique perspective on society,” Marasi explained softly. “You’ve seen trends, movements across large scales.” “I suppose,” MeLaan said, twisting her lockpick. “What good does it do?” “Statistics show that if we make subtle changes to our environment—the way we approach our legal system, or employment rates, maybe even our city layout—we can positively influence the people living in that environment. Your head may hold the key to what those changes should be! You’ve seen society evolve, move; you’ve watched the shifting of peoples like the tides on a beach.” “My thigh,” MeLaan said, twisting the doorknob with a click, then pushing the door open a
crack. She nodded, standing up straight. “Your … what?” Marasi asked. “You said my head might hold the key,” MeLaan said, striding into the chamber beyond—a small, surprisingly well-furnished room. “It’s actually my thigh, right now. A kandra stores its cognitive system through its entire body, but my memories right now are in a solid metal compartment in my thigh. Safer that way. People aim for the head.” “So what’s in your head?” “Eyes, sensory apparatus,” MeLaan said. “And an emergency canteen.” “You’re kidding.” “Nope,” MeLaan said, hands on hips, scanning the room. Another door on the left led farther into the system of rooms built along the side of the warehouse, but there were no windows out to the main chamber, which was good. Though the room smelled of new sawdust, like the rest of the building, here that was mixed with a scent of wood polish and a faint odor of cigar smoke. Light from a small electric desk lamp revealed a tidy study, with rows of books in a bookcase, two plush chairs with a maroon and yellow pattern in front of the desk, and several decorative plants that probably had to be rotated outside each day to keep from wilting. Marasi trailed through the room, noting its oddities. Every room had them—marks of individuality, clues to the life of the occupant. The desk drawers had wide, exaggerated handles on them. The stand lamp in the corner had been bolted to the wooden floor, as had the chairs, likely to keep them in place should Irich stumble into them. Marasi was not familiar with the man’s disease, but it appeared he liked his chambers to accommodate a little fumbling. MeLaan went straight for the bookcase, then began pulling books off, toppling them to the ground. “It’s always behind the books,” she said. “People don’t like to read, they like to be seen as someone who reads. I—” “MeLaan?” Marasi said, then pointed to the large safe in the corner. “Ah,” MeLaan said, mid-ransack. She knocked the last few books off the shelf, perhaps for completeness’s sake, then strode to the safe. “Hmm … This is going to be a little tougher. Can’t crack something like this with a set of picks.” “Can you manage it?” Marasi asked. “Patience,” MeLaan said. “Bring over that lamp.” Marasi took it from the desk, stretching out the cord to its fullest and directing its light for MeLaan. “Hmmm…” MeLaan said, then pressed her hand against the safe, ignoring the dial. Her fingers and palm went translucent, and then her flesh began to wiggle, squeezing into the joints, leaving behind crystalline bones held together with the barest of sinew. Marasi swallowed, mouth suddenly tasting bitter. She’d known MeLaan could do this, but watching it was something else. She busied herself propping the lamp on the arm of the desk chair to give MeLaan light, though the kandra now knelt with eyes closed, so who knew if she needed it any longer? Marasi then started rummaging through the desk drawers to see if she could
find anything important. Harmony send that Irich goes back to the scientists after this, Marasi thought, instead of returning here to catch up on paperwork. “The world back then,” MeLaan said suddenly, “wasn’t all that different from the one now.” Marasi hesitated. MeLaan still knelt with her eyes closed, her strange bones exposed. The flesh had gone translucent all the way up to her elbow. “What do you mean?” Marasi asked. “People talk about that time,” MeLaan said. “The time of the Lord Mistborn, right after the Catacendre. They speak of it in hushed tones as if it were some time of legends.” “It was,” Marasi said. “The Counselor of Gods, Hammond, Allrianne Ladrian. They forged a new world.” “Yeah, sure,” MeLaan said. “But they also squabbled like children, and each one had their own vision of what this ‘new world’ should be. Half the reason you’re having troubles now was because they didn’t care about settlements outside of Elendel. The Originators were big-city people, through and through. You want trends? Want to know what I’ve seen? People are people. Hell, even kandra act the same, in our own way. Life then was like life now, only you have better street food.” Marasi pondered this, then turned back to the desk. She’d still want to interview some kandra—but perhaps ones who were a little more … reflective than MeLaan. In the desk, she found a notebook with some of Irich’s observations and sketches about the ship, written in a shaky scrawl, along with a map of the area. The more she discovered, the more certain she was that the Set hadn’t built this vessel. They were studying it as much as repairing it. Marasi tucked the book into her purse. See, handy, she thought. After that, she rose to check the other door out of the room. She wouldn’t want to have some random carpenter wander in. She cracked it open and peeked into a completely dark room, and was immediately hit with a pungent odor like that of the slums. Unwashed bodies, dirt and grime. Frowning, she opened the door wider. The shaded illumination of the lamp—which faced the wrong way to give direct light—crept hesitantly into the room. Shadows stretched long from a few bare tables and a stack of boxes. And beyond them … were those cages? Yes. Perhaps four feet tall, with thick bars, the cages looked like the type you might use to contain a large animal. They were empty. “MeLaan?” Marasi asked, glancing at the kandra—who did not respond. She looked utterly absorbed by her task. Marasi inched into the room, wishing for another light. What did they keep in here? Guard dogs? She hadn’t seen any of those at the perimeter. She stopped near one of the three large cages, bending over to see if she could determine what kind of animal had been kept in it. Something rustled in the next cage over. Marasi’s breath caught. What she’d mistaken for a lump of blankets or pillows was moving. She glanced toward the desk in
the other room, where she’d set her rifle. The thing lurched and slammed against the bars. Marasi gasped, jumping away, her back crashing against the stack of nearby boxes. Inside the cage, dim light reflected from a too-flat face of red and black. Dark pits of eyes. The pictures. Marasi had forgotten the pictures that ReLuur had left. Horrible faces of red and black, with those deep, dark eyes. Images as if from a nightmare, drawn in frantic, scribbled strokes. The monsters were real. And there was one in the cage here, swathed in thick fur, face of polished red. It regarded her, silent, then reached out between the bars with a shockingly human hand and whispered a single word through lips that somehow didn’t move. “Please.” * * * Wayne turned down his saunter and added a fair measure of scramble to his step instead. This engineer, he didn’t like being here, among all these soldiers. He’d spent his life building houses and working on skyscrapers, and now here he was, basically in the middle of a bivouac! That ship was marvelous, but he had a distinct worry. It was secret. And secret projects were the kind where little men like himself disappeared when everything was finished. No, something’s wrong, Wayne thought, halfway across the floor of the warehouse. He didn’t stop walking, but he turned his steps in a little circle, like he was pacing. Something was wrong, but what was it? “Wayne?” Wax hissed from the shadows nearby, crouched beside a barrel of pitch. Wayne ignored him, continuing his loop. He … he was a scientist. No, no, an engineer. He was a working man. Learned enough, but not some fancy professor who was paid to stand all day and talk. He built things, and he hated being in this place, with all its guns. He encouraged life, and the soldiers were the opposite of that. They, they … No, he thought again, raising hands to the sides of his head. Wrong, wrong, wrong! Shape up, Wayne. This was your plan. You’ve gotta make it work. What was wrong? He … He was a … He stopped. Then reached into the pocket of his vest and took out a charcoal pencil. He held it up, inspecting it, before slipping it behind his ear. He let out a long sigh. He was an engineer. A no-nonsense man who saw that things got done. He liked it here, as they had a military way about them—they said what they wanted, and were straight with him. Men were rewarded for hard work. He didn’t like all those guns. And he certainly didn’t like the men in charge of this place. There was something off about them. But he held his tongue. Relaxing, Wayne crossed the rest of the way to the door guard. False nose, mustache, a little extra air in the cheeks to fatten his face, and a perpetual squint in the right eye. Came from looking at plans all the time, he figured. But he didn’t need a monocle. Those
things looked downright stupid. He stepped up to the guard. “The lattice supports of the apricity are completely liminal!” The man blinked at him. “Don’t just stand there!” Wayne said, waving toward the walls of the warehouse. “Can’t you see that the forebode malefactors are starting to bow? We could have a full-blown bannock on our hands at any minute!” “What…” the guard said. “What am I supposed to—” “Please,” Wayne said, pushing him aside—the man let him—and pulling open the door. The scene beyond was as Wax had described it. That was Telsin, all right. Dark hair, rugged body. Almost like a Roughs woman. He’d seen her evanotypes all over the mansion. Looked older now. Being a prisoner could do that to somebody. Tweaked-leg and thick-neck stood beside her table, and both turned with annoyance toward him. Now, Wayne thought, focusing on tweaked-leg, the real test. “We’ve got a serious problem,” Wayne said. “I’ve been checking the integrity of the structure, and the caronals are completely nepheligenous out there! We are about to have a full-blown case of ximelolagnia if somebody doesn’t do something.” The bespectacled man looked at Wayne, blinked once, then said, “Well, of course we will, you idiot. But what do we do about it?” Wayne held back a smile, tucking it into his pocket for later use. It seemed to him that the smarter a man was, the more likely he was to pretend he knew more than he did. Like the way the drunkest fellow at the pub was always the one who was most sure he could handle another pint. Tweaked-leg would sooner sell his own grandmother as a footstool than admit he didn’t know what Wayne was talking about. “Quickly,” Wayne said, gesturing. “We’ve got to hold it up while I ratchet the saprostomous underlays! You’ll need to supervise while I work!” Tweaked-leg sighed, but walked out. Thankfully, his thick-necked companion followed. Within moments, Wayne had this guy pushing against the supports of the ship’s pontoon while tweaked-leg observed, a few guards joining in to help. A soft thump from behind indicated that Wax had dealt with the guard at the door. Normally Wayne would feel left out, since he didn’t get to do any hitting. This time though, Wayne got to make a bunch of idiots stand with their hands pressed against some wood, thinking they were keeping the ship from tipping over. So it evened out. * * * “Please.” The creature spoke with a strange accent, but the voice was unmistakably human. Marasi breathed in and out in sharp breaths, regarding that hand reaching for her. A human hand. Lips that didn’t move … polished skin … That wasn’t a face, but a mask. This wasn’t some horrible creature, but a person in a wooden mask, the eyeholes caught by the shadows. What Marasi had mistaken for fur was thick blankets clutched around the person’s shoulders. “Marasi?” MeLaan asked. The kandra appeared in the doorway. “I got it open. What are you doing— What the hell is that?” “It’s a person,”
Marasi said. The masked one turned toward MeLaan, and the new angle lit the holes in its mask, illuminating human eyes with brown irises. Marasi stepped forward. “Who are you?” The person turned back to her and said something completely unintelligible. Then it paused, and said, “Please?” That was a man’s voice. “We’ve got to go,” MeLaan said. “Safe is open.” “Is the spike inside?” Marasi asked. “See for yourself.” Marasi hesitated, then hustled into the other room, passing MeLaan. “Please!” the man cried, huddled against the bars, reaching out. The safe gaped open in the corner of the room. The top shelf was cluttered with objects, including the little Allomantic grenade. Prominent among them was also a length of silvery metal. Kandra spikes, as proven in the Bleeder case, were smaller than Marasi might have once imagined—less than three inches long, and slender, not at all like the spikes in Death’s eyes. She knelt beside the safe, taking it out. “We have it,” Marasi said, turning toward MeLaan. “Do you want to carry it?” MeLaan shook her head. “We don’t touch one another’s spikes.” Marasi frowned, remembering the stories. “Didn’t the Guardian—” “Yes.” MeLaan’s face remained impassive, but her tone was stern. Marasi shrugged, tucking the spike into her purse, then searched in the safe. She left the banknotes—stupid, she knew, but it felt more like really robbing to take those—and took back the little cube that stored Allomantic charges. Beside it were several other small relics—each was coinlike, with cloth bands attached to the sides. They too bore the strange inscriptions in an unknown language. Marasi picked one up, then looked over MeLaan’s shoulder into the other room, where the man in the mask slumped against his bars. Marasi tucked the disc in her purse, then reached farther into the safe, taking out something she’d noticed earlier. A small set of keys. She stood up and strode through the room. “Marasi?” MeLaan asked, sounding skeptical. “It might have some kind of disease.” “He’s not an it,” Marasi said, stepping up to the cage. The figure twisted to regard her. Hand quivering only a little, she unlocked the cage, getting the right key on the second try. As soon as the lock clicked, the figure lunged for the cage door, throwing it open. Outside, he stumbled—he obviously hadn’t been allowed to stand up straight for some time. Marasi backed away until she was beside MeLaan. The tall kandra woman watched with a skeptical expression, arms folded, as the masked figure staggered up against the boxes, holding to them. He panted, then lurched away from the boxes toward the back of the room. There was a door there that Marasi hadn’t noticed in the gloom, and the man frantically shoved it open, stepping into the next room. Lights flicked on as the man found a switch within. “If he alerts the guards, I’m blaming you,” MeLaan said, joining Marasi as they walked after the man. “I would hate to have to tell Wax that…” MeLaan trailed off as they reached the next
room over. “By the Father and the First Contract,” MeLaan whispered. The floor was stained red. Operating tables of sleek metal crowded one wall, gleaming garishly compared to the macabre floor. On the wall hung a dozen wooden masks like the one the man wore. He had fallen to his knees before them, looking up. Dried blood stained the wall where it had dripped from a few of the masks. Marasi raised her hand to her mouth, taking in the gruesome scene. There were no bodies, but the blood bespoke a massacre. The man she’d rescued lifted his mask with a trembling hand, tipping it back so it rested on the top of his head, exposing his face. A young face, much younger than she’d imagined. A youth not yet twenty, she guessed, with a short, wispy beard and mustache. He stared up at those masks, unblinking, hands spread to the sides in disbelief. Marasi stepped forward, moving to lift the hem of her skirt so as not to brush that bloody ground—before remembering she had on trousers. As she reached the youth, he turned to her. “Please,” he whispered, tears in his eyes. * * * Wax stepped into the room. Telsin sat twirling a pencil in her hand. There was a speaking box before her on the table, but making no sound. She turned lazily to see who had entered, then froze in place, gaping. He closed the door quietly, aluminum gun in his other hand. He started to speak, but Telsin leaped from her chair and threw herself into his arms. Head against his chest, she started weeping softly. “Rusts,” he said, holding her, feeling awkward. “What did they do to you, Telsin?” He wasn’t certain what he’d expected from their reunion, but this hadn’t been it. He didn’t think he’d ever seen her cry. He certainly couldn’t remember it. She shook her head, pulling back, sniffling and setting her jaw. She looked … old. Not that she was ancient, but he remembered her as a youth, not a middle-aged woman. Stupid though it sounded, he hadn’t expected age to come for Telsin. She had always seemed invincible. “No other ways out of this room?” Wax asked, glancing about. “No,” she said. “Do you have another weapon?” He pulled out one of his Sterrions and handed it to her. “Do you know how to use it?” “I’m a fast learner,” she said, looking far more comfortable now that she had a gun in hand. “Telsin,” Wax said. “Is he here? Our uncle?” “No. I was just speaking with him through that device. He likes … he likes to check in on me. I have to tell him how wonderful I think my accommodations are. He pretends I’m his guest, even still.” “Well, you’re not. Not anymore. Let’s go.” Hopefully Wayne’s distraction was still working. Telsin, however, sat down in her chair again. She gripped that gun in both hands, held before her, but she stared unseeingly. “There’s so much to ask. Why did you come back? Rusts … why
did you leave, Waxillium? You didn’t come when I sent to you, when I was engaged to Maurin, when our parents died—” “There isn’t time,” Wax said, seizing her by the shoulder. She looked up at him, dazed. “You were always the quiet one. The thoughtful one. How did you get here? I … Your face, Waxillium. You’re old.” The door suddenly slammed open. The tall, thick-armed man that Wax had fought on the train stood there, looking stunned. He turned from Wax to Telsin, and opened his mouth. Telsin shot him. * * * “We need to go,” MeLaan said. “We’re bringing him,” Marasi said, pointing to the man. “Why?” “Haven’t you figured it out, MeLaan?” Marasi asked. “That ship out there wasn’t built by the Set. It’s from somewhere else, someplace distant and alien. It probably wrecked near our coast, and the Set brought it here to be studied.” MeLaan cocked her head. “Harmony does say odd things sometimes, about other peoples, not from the Basin—” She blinked, focusing on the man kneeling on the bloody floor. “Wow. Wow.” Marasi nodded. Proof that there was life past the Roughs, and the deserts beyond. She couldn’t let him stay here, particularly not with the Set. “Bring him then,” MeLaan said, moving out of the room. “And let’s get back to the meeting point.” Marasi gestured toward the way out, trying to usher the masked man along. He just knelt there on the bloody floor, looking up at those hollow masks on the wall. Then, with a trembling finger, he reached up and slid his mask back down over his face. He stood and pulled his blankets tight, shambling after Marasi as she crossed the room with the cages and entered the study. MeLaan was already out in the hallway beyond. Marasi fetched her rifle and moved to join the kandra. Rusts, what was Waxillium going to say when he found out she’d picked up a stray? She could almost hear his voice. You freed him, Marasi, but for all he knows you’re a member of the same group who apparently killed his friends. Be careful. She stopped at the door and looked back, gripping her rifle more tightly. Waxillium could be a curmudgeon, but he was right more often than not. The masked man might be dangerous. He had stopped inside the room with the safe, looking about, seeming dazed. How long had he been in that little cage, trapped in the darkness? Listening as his friends were taken, tortured, and killed. Rust and Ruin … His eyes found the safe, fixating upon it, and then he crossed the room in a shuffle. He reached inside, and for a moment she assumed he was going for the banknotes. But of course not—he pulled out one of the little discs with the straps. He held it up, seeming awed, then shucked off the blankets he’d been wearing like a cloak. She’d expected him to be wearing a loincloth or something savage underneath, but instead he was dressed in trousers that went down
to just below his knees, under which he wore tight white socks. His shirt was loose and white, and over it he wore a snug red vest—matching his mask in coloring—with a double row of buttons up the front. She’d never seen clothing like it before, but it was hardly savage. The man yanked up one sleeve, exposing his arm, and strapped on the disc by its cloth ties. He let out a relieved sigh. Looking toward her again, he seemed more confident now. He was a short man, even a few inches shorter than Wayne, but seemed to have grown a foot by standing up straight and discarding those thick blankets. But rusts, how were they going to sneak him out? He was hardly inconspicuous with that mask. Perhaps Marasi and MeLaan could openly move short distances in here without drawing attention, but this man certainly couldn’t. A series of gunshots rang out in the warehouse. Perhaps sneaking wouldn’t be an issue. 20 The corpse slumped into the room, one hand still on the doorknob, face frozen in an expression of shock. Telsin had fired four times and had only hit twice, but that was enough. Wax cursed, grabbing his sister by the arm and towing her across the room. With his other hand, he found a vial of metal flakes on his belt. “I’ll kill them all, Waxillium,” she whispered. “Each and every one of them. They held me.…” Great. On one hand, he couldn’t blame her. On the other hand, this was going to be rusting inconvenient. He downed the metal vial, then peeked out of the doorway to see the engineers and carpenters scattering for cover as guards came running toward Wax’s position. A few were very near, the ones Wayne had led away, and one pointed at him and shouted. The room’s flimsy walls seemed like they’d be about as effective against bullets as stern words were against the town drunk. As the first soldier took a shot at him—Wax shoved back with a Steelpush—he made a decision. “Hang on to me,” he said, pulling Telsin to his side. He took one step out of the room, fired into the ground, and sent them on a Push up into the air. Soldiers pointed, leveling guns, but in a moment he was on the top of the large ship. As he’d seen earlier, it was wide and flat up here, though the planks were smoother than the deck of any ship he’d seen, and the gunwales were like the crenellated tops of a fort or old tower. He dropped Telsin. “I’ll be back soon,” he promised, leaping over the side of the ship. The man who had shot at him earlier wasn’t giving up, and fired more rounds. Splinters popped off the sides of the ship as Wax fired Vindication and dropped the man. Wax landed, bounced off a stray nail, then skidded to a stop beside a stack of boxes where Wayne was hiding. “What?” Wayne asked. “Get impatient?” “My sister shot one of them.” “Nice.” Wax
shook his head. Soldiers had started to pour into both ends of the large structure. “Not nice. There will be kill squads mixed among those soldiers, Wayne. Aluminum bullets. We need to get Marasi and MeLaan and go. Fast.” Wayne nodded. Wax took another draught of steel flakes, in case he lost his gunbelt, then nodded. “Speed us to the other side.” Wayne ran out, and Wax followed. Gunfire sounded, but Wayne popped up a speed bubble. It only covered about ten feet, but that was plenty to throw off aim. Wayne let Wax pass him, then they charged through the edge, side by side. The bubble collapsed, and bullets zipped through the air back where they’d been. They ran on, but about the time the soldiers got another bead on them, Wayne created another bubble. This lurched them forward again, and shortly they were able to dive behind the broken section of the ship’s pontoon and take cover. Soldiers cried out, confused by the Allomancy—but if there were kill squads among them, trained hazekiller hit men, they wouldn’t be so easily fooled. Wax led the way, darting along the front of the ship, in its shadow. As soon as someone started firing, Wayne tossed up another bubble, and the two of them repositioned. Wayne made to run out, but Wax stopped him, arm on shoulder. “Wait.” Safely inside this speed bubble, Wax looked back across the cavernous hall. They were close to the eastern side, and soldiers in slow motion set up a perimeter, clogging the doorway and kneeling in ranks. Captains at the rear yelled, pointing, and bullets flew toward the last spot where Wayne and Wax had been seen. Uncomfortably, more shots streaked through the air where—if they’d been following their previous pattern—they would have exited the speed bubble. “Damn,” Wayne said, eyeing the bullets. He tossed over his canteen. Wax took a drink, judging distances and feeling the surreal sensation of standing calmly in a maelstrom of gunfire, sipping apple juice. “They’re goin’ all-out,” Wayne said. “Our reputation precedes us. How much time have you got left?” “Two minutes, maybe. I’ve got more bendalloy on the horse, in case. The kandra stocked me up before we left.” Wax grunted. Two minutes could go very quickly. He pointed at the large hole in the ship’s side, where a plank ramp led to the thing’s insides. “I saw the ladies go in there.” “Funny,” Wayne said, “’Cuz I see them peekin’ out over there.” Wax followed his gesture, and indeed saw MeLaan’s face behind a barely opened door out of one of the rooms at the side of the warehouse. Wax took a deep breath. “All right. Those armies will cut us apart, Allomancy or no, if we don’t hide quickly. Those rooms will do. We can move through them toward the outer wall of the building, I can break through it, and we flee into the night that direction.” “Right,” Wayne said. “And your sister?” “She should be safe for the moment,” Wax said. “Once we break out, I’ll
launch myself to the roof, then come back down through the open part and grab her.” “Sounds good,” Wayne said, “’cept for one thing.” Wax handed back the canteen. “Here.” “Ha!” Wayne said, taking it. “But I was talkin’ about that.” He pointed toward the ship. A figure was climbing down one of the rope ladders that hung over the side of the ship. Telsin had not stayed put. “Rust and Ruin,” Wax snapped. “Under a minute left, mate.” “Get her inside a bubble!” Wax shouted, gesturing. “I’ll join the other two. Go!” They split, the speed bubble falling. A sudden storm of gunfire assaulted Wax’s ears as he dropped to the ground, feet forward, and Pushed against the metal supports in the ship behind him. He skidded across the packed dirt of the floor, bullets flying overhead, and reached the door that MeLaan flung open for him. His heels hit the threshold—the corridor had a wooden floor—and he popped up onto his feet, landing inside with a dusty thump. “I’ll have you know,” Marasi said, “that we managed to do our job without alerting anyone.” “I’ll send you a plaque,” Wax said, pointing toward a strange, short man standing behind her. “What the hell is that?” The man pointed back. “His people must have built the ship,” Marasi said. “They had him caged in there, Waxillium.” “Damn,” MeLaan said from the doorway. “That army isn’t playing games.” It was hard to hear her over the gunfire. “I found my sister,” Wax said. “Suit’s people must know how angry that will make him. We need to—” “Wax!” MeLaan said, pointing. He squeezed back up beside her. Wayne had almost reached his sister, who pressed herself against the ship’s side, eyes frantic. But Wayne had been hit. He lurched in place, holding his shoulder, as another bullet hit him right in the neck. He fell in a spray of blood. Wayne could heal from that, with his new, strange metalmind. Unfortunately, the soldiers didn’t stop firing. Another bullet hit Wayne’s side as he dropped and played dead, then another. In an eyeblink he was healed and up, but then another round dropped him. They were prepared. They knew. You want to kill a Bloodmaker? Knock him down and keep shooting. Seeing his friend bleeding, facing some fifty men on his own, awakened something primal in Wax. He didn’t think; he didn’t shout orders. He tore from the hallway in a furious Push on the nails in the walls, soaring out into the warehouse proper a foot or so above the ground, pulling up dust in his wake. The soldiers had been waiting for this. They had formed up on both sides of the warehouse, using boxes as cover, and they sent out twin waves of bullets—completely uncaring that they risked catching one another in the crossfire. Killing an Allomancer was worth the danger. They could only wish to be so lucky. To Wax’s eyes, the room became a frantic network of blue lines, a loom full of a mad weaver’s threads. He shouted,
Pushing to both sides, shoving sprays of bullets in either direction and creating a ballooning hub of open space. Several bullets continued to fly, though he noticed them only because one clipped him on the shoulder. Wax spun and yanked Vindication from her holster. A second volley came, and—his mind instantly matching blue lines with bullets fired—he shot once, dropping one of the men among the ranks who had fired an aluminum bullet. More bullets came in a storm, but Wax swept them aside like dishes off a table. He was at the mercy of anyone firing aluminum, so he kept moving, dashing across the floor and leaping, Pushing behind himself and severely reducing his weight once he’d finished Pushing. The result was immediate; he sped up like an arrow, flying through the air with a roar of wind in his ears. He landed before Wayne in a skid and Pushed bullets away from the healing man with a roar, then increased his weight and Pushed on the hull of the ship nearby. The wood crumpled, nails popping free of joints and planks tearing away before his fury, creating a second hole. “Inside!” he shouted at his sister, prone on the ground nearby. She nodded, scurrying in, and Wayne—still bleeding from a dozen different places—joined her in a crawl, throwing himself in through the opening. Can’t let them stay there, Wax thought, Pushing himself away as another round of bullets pelted the area. One didn’t deflect when he Pushed it, but he couldn’t pick out the owner from among the dozens of firing men. Damn. The ship was a death trap. Yes, it would provide cover, but if they took refuge there the troops would surround them. But Wayne needed a moment to heal. That meant keeping the soldiers— Three men in jet-black suits launched in succession over the hunkered-down soldiers. The guns they bore had no Allomantic metal trails. Wax cursed, dropping Vindication and ripping the shotgun from its holster on his leg. The first of the Allomancers to land Pushed on Wax. He felt it as a jolt on the shotgun as he leveled the thing—increasing his weight and setting it against his shoulder—to fire. The Allomancer smiled, Pushing on the slug as it left the barrel. But the huge powder load of the gun—designed to bring down Thugs—sent the man sprawling backward from his own Push. Dazed, he was just able to glance up as the next slug hit him in the face. Thanks, Ranette. The other two Allomancers ducked down as they landed, expecting more fire, but the powerful shotgun held only two rounds. Wax dropped it into its holster as he knelt, grabbing Vindication. Behind! If there was a kill squad from one direction, they’d likely send another for him the other way too. The regular soldiers were mostly a distraction. He twisted, Pushing around himself and leveling Vindication to surprise a man and woman in suits sneaking up on him. He dropped the woman. The male Allomancer opened fire. Too many shots. No metal lines. Wax—
The bullets froze in the air. Wax blinked, and then noticed something that had fallen to the ground near the enemy Allomancer: a small metal cube. Marasi crouched inside the doorway where she’d been hiding, MeLaan standing over her and drawing fire—absorbing bullets with her flesh like it was no big deal. Wax grinned, then stepped aside. The Allomantic grenade ran out a second later, and the man who had been trapped inside the bubble fired again, trying to kill a Wax who was no longer there. Wax leveled his own gun and killed the fellow. * * * Marasi wished she knew where her earplugs had gotten to. Honestly, how did Waxillium survive without them? The man had to be half deaf by now. A bullet popped up dust on the ground near her. MeLaan knelt beside Marasi, giving her cover from one direction and taking another series of hits. She grunted. “This doesn’t hurt,” she said. “But it’s not particularly pleasant either.” Ahead, Waxillium dodged shots from two more members of the kill squad and scooped up the device. Marasi leveled her rifle, trying to concentrate. Everyone was moving so quickly, and the bullets. They zipped in the air all around her. She brought down several soldiers, trying to focus on the ones that were firing in her direction. Many had taken shelter behind boxes on either side, so they weren’t firing in coordinated volleys anymore. They seemed to know that their job was to make a lot of noise and try to distract Wax while others, better equipped and better trained, actually tried to take him down. Still, it was remarkable he didn’t get hit. Waxillium dashed past, mistcoat tassels flying, and swept bullets from the air. Then he launched himself toward the catwalks above. Two men in suits followed. Allomancers. Marasi took aim at one and fired, but her shot was deflected. Speaking of which … Though gunfire still popped in the huge room, no bullets hit the ground near Marasi, and none seemed to be striking MeLaan. But why? Then Marasi spotted the little cube nearby. Waxillium had charged and then dropped it in front of them as he ran by. Marasi grinned, fishing an aluminum round from her purse. She could feel the device Pushing on her gun, but it was far enough away that it didn’t matter. A hand fell on her shoulder. She jumped, then found the small masked man behind her. Rusts! She’d almost forgotten about him. His other hand was frozen halfway toward his mask, and behind it his eyes were wide. She followed his gaze, which was focused on Waxillium, who landed beyond them. He must have increased his weight manyfold, for he was able to Push a group of boxes by their nails and send them flying backward, along with many soldiers. “Fotenstall,” he whispered in awe. “Allomancer,” Marasi said with a nod. “Hanner konge?” “I have no idea what that means,” Marasi said. “But that cube thing will soon stop buzzing, so we need to move. MeLaan? Do we
retreat back?” “Please,” the masked man said, gesturing toward the ship. He pointed frantically. “Please!” Marasi ignored him, scrambling across the ground—entering the warehouse proper—and grabbing the device. It had indeed stopped buzzing. Waxillium landed nearby, sweeping a round of shots away from her, and Marasi charged the thing in her hand. It seemed like last time … yes, by burning just a tad of her cadmium she was able to get it buzzing, yet not slow herself down too much. She somehow poured the power into the device and tossed it at the people who landed nearby, chasing Waxillium. It froze them in place. “Nice work so far,” Waxillium said. “But we’re going to have to split up. Get back into those hallways. I’ll follow soon. You’re too exposed out here!” The men lurched out of her speed bubble. Waxillium started firing at them, but they ducked, and one grabbed the little cube. Marasi brought him down with the aluminum bullet she’d chambered. Waxillium grinned. “Go!” he said, charging the other man, who yelped and leaped into the air, Pushing himself away. Waxillium scooped up the little cube as he passed, then he too launched into the air. “Come on,” MeLaan said, grabbing Marasi by the shoulder. A bullet took the kandra in the face, ripping off a chunk of her cheek and exposing green crystalline bone underneath. The masked man cried out in fear, pointing and mumbling in his language. “You should see me in the mornings,” MeLaan said. She gestured back toward the hallways. Marasi moved to follow. The masked man pulled on her arm, pointing more frantically at the ship. “Please, please, please.” Marasi hesitated. A bad idea in the middle of a firefight. Fortunately, most everyone seemed to be concentrating on Waxillium. Something bit her in the left side. She looked down to see what it was, and was surprised to see red blooming on her coat around a hole. A bullet hole. “I’ve been shot!” she said, more surprised than pained. Shouldn’t that hurt? She’d been shot! She stared at the blood, her blood, until the masked man grabbed her by the shoulders and started towing her toward the ship. MeLaan cursed and helped him. Marasi realized she’d dropped her gun, and struggled against them, trying to reach for it, suddenly frantic that she not leave it behind. That made almost no sense, and part of her acknowledged it, but rusts— Shock, she thought. I’m going into shock. Oh, hell. * * * Wax soared high above the floor of the warehouse, zipping past the catwalks, where several gunmen with rifles had set up. He flipped Ranette’s ball device outward—catching it around the railing of the catwalk—and hung on tight, pivoting sharply in the air. The gunmen started, trying to draw a bead on him as he landed behind them. He stepped back and Pushed one gunman out at just the right moment, shoving him into the air as the last of the kill-squad Allomancers shot up past the catwalks, bearing a stunned expression at Wax’s
sudden change of direction. He collided with the rifleman in midair, and Wax turned, Pushing the other rifleman away. The poor man screamed as he fell. Farther down the catwalk, two more men had set up with crossbows and wooden shields. Lovely. Wax increased his weight. The entire catwalk shattered as he crashed downward through the wood, destroying the supports. He Pushed himself off a falling bar, shooting back out into the air, spinning Ranette’s ball device on its cord. Above him, the suited man shook off the frantic gunman, dropping him and Pushing off to send himself into the air. Wax flipped Ranette’s ball upward and let go of the cord, still falling backward. The confused Allomancer caught the device by the cord as it passed. Wax shot him in the chest. Shouldn’t drop your Allomantic shield, Wax thought, twisting in the air as he fell. Even to catch a neat toy. As he approached the ground, Wax slowed himself on a spent bullet, then landed with a flare of mistcoat tassels. The dead Allomancer thumped to the ground beside him. The ball dropped from his fingers and rolled toward Wax. “Thanks,” Wax said, scooping it up. Where was— Marasi. Down and bleeding, being dragged into the ship. Damn! Wax growled, launching himself into the air again as more soldiers fired. This place was a mess. Too many soldiers, many of whom were advancing on the ship, hiding a group of men with modern crossbows behind them. As one got close to the ship, Wayne peeked out. “Wayne!” Wax shouted, passing overhead. He pocketed Ranette’s ball and pulled out the Allomantic grenade—which was buzzing furiously—and dropped it. Wayne looked up just in time to snatch the thing from the air, then looked down at it with surprise. When the first bullet curved away from him, Wayne grinned instead, then let out a whoop and flung it at the men in front of him. The thing rolled among them, tossing weapons aside with its power. Wax sighed, landing on the top of the ship. Of course he’d throw it. Wayne followed by jumping among the approaching soldiers, energetically laying about with his dueling canes. A bullet came startlingly close to Wax. More aluminum? As Wayne enthusiastically busted heads, Wax launched off the ship and landed among the advancing soldiers, increased his weight, and Pushed outward with a flare of strength. That tossed people away from him in a blast. When the bodies fell, three men stood, stupefied, holding guns Wax couldn’t sense. He brought them down with a Sterrion—his other guns were out of bullets—then turned as he heard something distant. Horns blaring, a command. He leaped to the side, enough men dead or dropped that he could get a clear view out one of the doors into the night. Men were streaming out of the buildings in the village. Dozens. He had a sinking feeling of dread. How long until his metals gave out? How many could he fight until someone with a crossbow or an aluminum bullet got lucky and
hit him? He roared, launching himself upward in a leap over the fallen men he’d Pushed. Many were climbing to their feet. He was one man, not an army. He needed to run. “Back!” he shouted at Wayne, who already had a crossbow bolt sticking from his thigh. The shorter man joined him, running toward cover inside the wrecked ship. * * * Marasi squeezed her eyes shut against the pain. It had finally come, arriving with a vengeance. MeLaan had given her a painkiller to chew, but it hadn’t done anything yet. “Dieten,” the masked man said, putting her hand on her wound, which he’d bound with a strip of cloth from his shirt. She cracked an eye and saw him nod encouragingly, though with the mask down over his face she could see only his eyes. Well, she wasn’t dead. Even if rusts it hurt. And she thought she remembered reading somewhere that getting shot in the stomach—even on the side—wasn’t good. Don’t think about that. What was going on? She gritted her teeth, shoved down her panic at being wounded, and tried to assess their situation. MeLaan watched the battlefield from beside the hole in the ship. Waxillium’s sister stood nearby, cradling a handgun, eyes intense. Outside, gunfire, grunts, and screams accompanied Waxillium and Wayne doing what they did best: creating havoc. Apparently the havoc quota had been filled, for a few moments later Waxillium swooped in through the hole. He nodded to MeLaan, his face shining with sweat, breathing heavily. Wayne scrambled in a moment later. He had a crossbow bolt sticking from his leg. “Well, that was fun,” Wayne said, plopping down and taking a deep breath. “Ain’t been whooped so bad since the last time I played cards with Ranette.” “Marasi,” Waxillium said, walking over to her. He pushed the masked man aside. “Thank Harmony you’re alive. How bad is it?” “I … don’t really have much to compare it to,” she said through clenched teeth. Waxillium knelt beside her, lifting the bandage and grunting. “You’ll live, unless that nicked the intestines. That could be bad.” “What kind of bad?” “Painful bad.” “I might be able to do something,” MeLaan said. “I’ll check it out once we’re safe. Speaking of which, how exactly are we going to get away?” Waxillium didn’t respond immediately. He looked exhausted. He glanced up at his sister, who was still muttering and holding her pistol. Outside the ship, it had gone unnervingly quiet. “Our best bet is still going out through one of the warehouse’s walls,” Waxillium said. “We’re going to have to push toward those rooms Marasi and MeLaan were in.” “That’s gonna be dangerous, Wax,” Wayne said, stumbling to his feet, still ignoring the bolt in his thigh. “They’ll have formed up, knowing we’re going to try to make a break for it.” “We can manage,” Waxillium said. “With me Pushing, we get to those rooms, find an outer wall, then break through.” “And if they’re waiting on the other side?” MeLaan asked. “Hopefully they won’t be. It—” “Guys,”
Wayne said. “I don’t think we have time to plan!” Gunfire sounded outside again, and bullets started snapping against the hull. Wayne scrambled away from the opening. Marasi thought she could hear Irich out there, shouting for the soldiers not to damage the ship, but the firing continued. It seemed someone had overruled him. “Please,” the masked man said, taking Marasi by the arm and pointing. Marasi managed to get to her feet, though the pain made her eyes water. The masked man gestured, holding her by the arm. She followed. Easier than trying to complain. “We’re going to have to push through it,” Waxillium said from behind. “I want to kill them,” Waxillium’s sister said. “I need more bullets.” “Yeah, let’s have you focus on running, Telsin. Everyone get ready on my mark. Wayne, did you happen to grab that grenade?” “Yup.” “We’ll use it to make a speed bubble at the halfway point,” Waxillium said. “No luck there,” Wayne said. “Completely outta bendalloy.” “Damn,” Waxillium said. “Then we…” He trailed off. “Marasi? Where are you going?” She continued limping along with the masked man. “He wants to show us something,” Marasi said. “They’re coming!” Wayne shouted, peeking around the corner. “Fast!” Marasi focused on moving down the corridor, one hand holding to her wound. She heard Waxillium curse, then gunfire sounded in the hallway. Waxillium was firing on men trying to pile in through the hole after them. Trapped in here, Marasi thought. The masked man let go of her suddenly, then scrambled up the hallway ahead. “Don’t—” Marasi said, but he stopped, threw open a panel in the wall, then reached in and pulled something. A section of the ceiling, painted with one of the strange golden patterns, fell open. A rope ladder dropped down, hanging only halfway to the floor. The masked man jumped up and grabbed it. “There’s a hidden room here!” Marasi called. “Better than nothing,” Waxillium called back. “Everyone up!” Wayne went next, jumping up and catching the ladder and climbing it with a lithe step. MeLaan could touch it without needing to jump, and she hoisted herself next. Waxillium’s sister barely managed to grab the thing, but she climbed up with a hand from MeLaan. Marasi stood looking with despair at the ladder, trying to imagine climbing it with her pain, until Waxillium seized her around the waist and Pushed them both up in a spinning leap. They landed inside the trapdoor, finding themselves in a narrow, low-ceilinged room fitted with a few chairs that were bolted to the floor. A single small window to the left looked out of the hull, letting in a sliver of light. The place looked like a railway compartment. “Great,” Wayne said. “At least now we can die in relaxed positions.” The masked man was fiddling with something near the wall. Some kind of trunk? He got it open and pulled out another one of those small, coinlike medallions with the straps on the sides. He pulled off the one he was wearing, and immediately gave a visible
shiver, then slapped this one on instead. “How’s that?” he asked, looking back at them. Marasi blinked in shock. He’d said it in her language—strangely accented, true, but intelligible. “No?” the man asked. “You’re looking at me confused, still. These things never work right. She swore that—” “No, it works!” Marasi said. “At least, I can understand you.” She looked to the others, who nodded. “Aha!” the man said. “Great, great. Put these on.” He tossed a medallion at each of them. “Touching the skin, please, maskless barbarians. Except you, Metallic One. You will not need one, yah?” Marasi took hers and settled down on one of the seats, feeling dizzy. The painkiller seemed to finally be doing something, but she was still exhausted. Below, shouts sounded in the hallway. “Somebody better shut that door,” the masked man said, crawling down on the floor and fiddling with something underneath a counter. Wayne obliged, pulling up the ladder, which was tied to the trapdoor. It clicked closed, leaving them in even greater gloom. A gunshot sounded below, then another. Marasi jumped as the bullets hammered against the floor of the room. “Does this place have any other exits?” Waxillium asked. The masked man yanked on something, and the room shook with a jolt. “Nope,” he said. “Then why did you lead us here?” Waxillium demanded, grabbing him by the arm. The masked man looked back at him. “Medallions on, yah?” More bullets pelted the floor, but didn’t penetrate into the room, fortunately. “What do they do?” MeLaan asked. “Make you lighter,” the masked man said. As soon as he said it—as soon as she knew what it did—something inside of Marasi understood. She was holding metal that, somehow, she could feel. It wanted something from her, and she poured it in, filling the metal … the metalmind. She grew lighter, rising on her seat, the force of her body pushing less on her backside. Telsin gasped, obviously experiencing a similar sensation. “Now that,” Wayne said, “that’s right strange.” “Great Metallic One,” the masked man said, glancing at Waxillium, “I, of course, wouldn’t dare give orders to one of your stature, even if you wear your bare face out at all times. Who am I to judge? Even if you look equally crass as these others—even the cute one—I’m sure you’re not. But, if I may be so bold as to suggest—” “What?” Waxillium asked. “A little Push,” the masked man said, pointing downward. “On my mark.” “If I Push downward,” Waxillium said, “I’ll just fly up and hit the ceiling.” He hesitated as the masked man pointed to a pair of straps connected to the floor, with wooden handholds at the ends. Waxillium looked at them, then looked at the masked man, who nodded eagerly. Even in the darkness, Marasi could see the curiosity on Waxillium’s face. Despite the men shouting below, the muffled sound of gunshots, he was still the lawman—the detective. Questions teased him. He stepped over to the straps, picked them up, and held them firmly, bracing himself with his
feet on the floor. “Ready,” he said. “A moment,” the masked man said, reaching for a lever. He yanked it hard, and the entire room shook, then slid sideways. Out of the hull, like a drawer in a dresser being opened. Marasi could see out of the front end now, which proved to have a large glass window that had been blocked by wood earlier. “Go!” the man said. Waxillium must have Pushed, for the room shook, then rose into the air. They weren’t in a room at all, but in a small boat that could detach from the main vessel. 21 Wax stood in the center of the small vessel, Pushing against some kind of plate down below, designed—obviously—for this very purpose. It would be attached to the shelf the vessel had been on—not something that rose with it, but some kind of launchpad for an Allomancer to use as an anchor. This vessel, though tiny, should still have been too heavy to lift. He should have broken those straps he held to, or been crushed by the force of his own Push. Yet he managed it. He held to those straps—essentially hitching himself to the ship—and lifted it, with all the people inside, off a ledge that had extended from the mother vessel. It’s those medallions, he realized. They allow everyone to do as I do—to make themselves light, nearly as light as air. That meant he was really only lifting the ship itself, along with their equipment. The vehicle was small—barely six feet wide, though it was maybe twice as long—and had wide openings like doorways on either side. Those had faced walls inside the pocketlike shelf they’d popped out of, but now they exposed the air. All in all, the thing felt like the cab of a motorcar with the doors ripped off. As the craft rose, small pontoons on extended arms folded down and clicked into place. Wax had a brief view of surprised soldiers on the portion of the catwalk he hadn’t broken, and then they were out, rising through the opening in the warehouse roof. The strange man in the red mask scrambled through the vehicle and leaned out one of the holes in the walls to look downward. He looked solemn as he saluted the ship below, then bowed his head, whispering something. Finally, he turned to Wax. “You are doing great, O Divine One!” “I’m not going to be able to Push it much higher,” Wax said with a grunt. “The anchor is too far away.” “You shouldn’t need to,” the man said, scrambling past Marasi—he patted her on the shoulder—then fiddling with some controls at the front of the machine. “I’ll need the primer cube, please,” he said, holding out a hand to Wayne. “Huh?” Wayne said, looking away from where he’d been hanging out the other door to look down. A few distant gunshots sounded as soldiers took potshots at the hovering vehicle. “Oh, this?” Wayne took out the Allomantic grenade. “Yah,” the man said, snatching it. “Thanks!” He spun and
pressed it against Wax’s arm until—as he was still burning steel to keep them afloat—it started buzzing. The little man turned and snapped the cube into place under the shelf at the front of the ship. The machine shook, and then something started thumping underneath them. A fan? Yes, a very large one, blowing downward, powered by an unseen motor. “You can let go, Great Being of Metals,” the man said, looking back at Wax. “If it suits your divine desires.” Wax eased off on his Push. They immediately started to sink. “Reduce your weight!” the man cried. “I mean, if it is aligned with your magnificent will, O Metabolic One.” “Metabolic?” Wax asked, filling his metalmind and decreasing his weight. The ship stabilized in the air. “Uh,” the masked man said, seating himself at the front, “well, we’re supposed to use a different title each time, yah? I’ve never been very good at this, Your Magnificence. Please don’t launch a coin directly into my skull. I’m not insolent, just stupid.” He pushed a lever forward, and smaller fans began whirring at the ends of the pontoons. “They’re not boats,” MeLaan whispered. “Not this one, not the big one below. They’re flying ships.” “Harmony’s Bands,” Marasi said. She was very pale, holding to her wounded stomach. Flying ships that ran on some kind of Allomancy. Rust and Ruin. Wax felt the world seem to lurch around him. If electricity had changed life so dramatically, what would this do? Wax forced himself to shake out of his stupor and looked to the short masked man. “What’s your name?” Wax said. “Allik Neverfar, Tall One,” the man said. “Wait here a moment then, Allik.” “Whatever you desire, O—” Wax jumped out of the vehicle before he could be praised—or insulted, he couldn’t tell which these were—again. He got a better look at the small airship as he left. Yes, it looked more like a long motorcar cab than it did a boat, with that flat bottom. The large fan was separated from the ship by a short space, allowing air intake above. The doorways on the walls didn’t seem to close; it was fortunate the seats had straps. Wax dropped through the sky, afraid to Push off the small airship, but was able to use anchors down below to slow and direct himself toward the forests north of the camp. He wanted to be quick. That ship wasn’t up so high that it would be safe if they had access to cannons. He dropped into the forest and surprised Steris, who sat on her horse with the others in a line, all packed and ready to go. “Lord Waxillium!” she cried. “I assumed you’d be coming, and prepared—” “Great,” Wax said, walking to his horse. “Get down, and grab your pack and Marasi’s.” She did so without objection or question, pulling off her small pack of essentials, then fetched that of Marasi. Wax did the same for MeLaan and Wayne. “We’re leaving the horses?” Steris asked. He released the horses, then grabbed Steris around
the waist. “Turns out we’ve found something better.” He pulled out one of his older guns, then dropped it—he’d need a large chunk of metal to get them high enough—and Pushed, launching them from the forest and into the sky. He’d worried about maneuvering—doing so up high wasn’t easy without skyscrapers to Push against. However, Allik steered the ship toward him, allowing him to get Steris one of the armbands, then set her into the vessel before climbing in himself. It managed to accept the new weight of the supplies, though Allik had to pull a lever to keep them from sinking. “Seven people,” the masked man said. “And supplies. Above the weight Wilg is supposed to carry, but she should manage. Until our metal runs out. The question is, where do you want her to take us?” “Elendel,” Wax said, walking toward the front of the little ship. “Great,” Allik said. “And … where is that?” “North,” Wax said, pointing. The little shelf at the front of the vehicle—like the dash of a motorcar—had a compass set into it. “If you head west first though, and find the river, we can—” “No.” Telsin seized Wax by the arm. “We need to talk.” Gunfire sounded below, followed by an echoing boom. Great. They did have a cannon. “Just get us away from here,” Wax said to Allik as he let Telsin tow him toward the back of the small ship. He passed Wayne, still hanging halfway out of one of the two open doorways and gawking. Marasi was on the floor, with MeLaan checking her wound, while Steris had already started packing their bags into an efficient pile between two of the seats. The fans whirred and the ship began to move—not quickly, but steadily—away from the enemy camp. Wax settled onto a bench at the back of the ship with his sister. Rusts … Telsin. Finally. It had been a year and a half since he’d promised to stop his uncle and free her. Now here she was, sitting beside him. She looked like a modern woman, with her hair in curls, wearing a stylish dress of contemporary fashion—thin material, hem up right below the knees, a neckline to emphasize a long neck and delicate drooping chains. If you didn’t look at her eyes, you could have assumed she was a fine lady on her way to a ball. If you did look into her eyes, all you found was coldness. “Waxillium,” she said softly, “there’s a weapon of some sort to the south, hidden among the mountains separating the Basin from the Roughs. Uncle Edwarn has found it. He’s on his way there.” “How much do you know?” Wax asked, taking her hand. “Telsin, do you know what he’s planning? Is it a revolution?” “He doesn’t tell me much,” she said. Her voice was so calm, so cold, compared to how it had been before. Always full of passion, ever nudging him to do things he should not. It seemed like they’d leeched the life out of her, during her
months of captivity. “We have dinner together most nights when he is here, but he grows angry if I ask about his work. He wanted me for one of his … his projects, originally, but my age makes that impossible. Now I am just a pawn. To use against you, I believe.” “No longer,” Wax said, squeezing her hand. “No more, Telsin.” “And if he finds this weapon?” she asked. “He seems convinced it is there, and that it will give his group the power to dominate the Basin. Waxillium, we can’t let him have it.” Some passion returned to her eyes, some of the Telsin he remembered. “If he seizes the Basin, then he will take me again. He will kill you, and he will take me.” “We’ll get to Elendel, inform the governor, and then send an expedition.” “And if that takes too long?” Telsin said. “Do you know what the weapon is? The thing he is searching for?” Wax looked down at the medallion strapped to her arm. “Feruchemy and Allomancy anyone can use.” “The Lord Ruler’s own power, Waxillium,” Telsin said, passionate. “The Bands of Mourning. We could find them, use them before he does. He has to travel by foot on a treacherous mountain trail. I heard them preparing for it. We, however…” She looked out the doorway, toward the passing landcape. This was a view few ever saw. A view once reserved only for Coinshots. “Let me check on Marasi,” Wax said. “Then we’ll decide.” * * * Marasi soared above the world, looking at a land bathed in starlight. Trees like shrubs. Rivers like streams. Hills like little lumps. The land was Harmony’s garden. Was this how He saw it, with God’s perspective? The Path taught he was all around, that his body was the mists—that he saw all and was all. The mists were pervasive, but visible only when he wanted them to be. She’d always liked this teaching, as it made her feel His nearness. Yet other aspects of the Path bothered her. There was no structure to it, and because of that everyone seemed to have their own idea of how it should be followed. Survivorists, like Marasi herself, regarded Harmony differently. Yes, he was God, but to them he was more a force than a benevolent deity. He was there, but he was as likely to help a beetle as he was to help a man, for all were the same to him. If you really wanted to get something done, you prayed to the Survivor, who had—somehow—survived even death. Marasi winced as MeLaan continued to work. “Hmm, yes,” MeLaan said. “Very interesting.” Marasi lay on the floor of the vehicle, near the doorway, head on a pillow made from a wadded-up jacket. The wind wasn’t too bad, contrary to what Marasi would have expected, as they weren’t moving terribly fast—though the fans did make a fair amount of noise. MeLaan had spread Marasi’s uniform aside in a very improper way, barely keeping the most important bits covered. Nobody seemed to
care though, so Marasi didn’t make a fuss. Besides, that was far less disconcerting than what MeLaan was doing to her. The kandra woman knelt over Marasi, hand on her side, the flesh having liquefied and run down into the wound. It was discomfortingly like what had happened when she’d picked the lock, as if Marasi were just another puzzle to be manipulated. Rusts, she could feel MeLaan poking around in there with bits of flesh that had become tentacles. “I’m going to die, aren’t I?” Marasi asked softly. “Yes,” MeLaan said. Light from a small lantern from their packs illuminated her face. “Nothing I can do about that.” Marasi squeezed her eyes shut. It served her right, running about like some lawman from the Roughs, scrambling through firefights and assuming she was invincible. “How is it?” Waxillium’s voice asked. Marasi opened her eyes to see him leaning over, and she found herself blushing at her state of near-nudity. Of course. Her final emotion would be embarrassment because of damned Waxillium Ladrian. “Hmm?” MeLaan asked, pulling her arm out, the flesh forming back over her crystalline bones. “Oh. I caught a hole in the intestines, as you’d guessed. Sewed that up tight, using some catgut I made from some spare intestines I had brewing. I patched it with some of my flesh, grafted on.” “She’ll reject the flesh.” “Nah. I took a bite and replicated her skin. Her body will think it’s hers.” “You ate part of me?” Marasi said. “Wow,” Waxillium said. “That’s … wow.” “Yeah, well, I’m incredible,” MeLaan said. “Excuse me.” She reached her hand out the open side of the flying vehicle, then dropped a stream of something vile. “Had to slurp up things inside there to clean everything out. The safest way.” She eyed Marasi. “You owe me.” “Is that the part of me you … um … ate?” Marasi asked. “No, just what was leaking,” MeLaan said. “That grafted patch over the wound should hold until you heal on your own—I melded it to your veins and capillaries. It’s going to get itchy, but don’t scratch it, and let me know if it starts to go necrotic.” Marasi hesitated, then prodded at her wound with exploratory fingers. She found only tight flesh, like that from a scar, patching the hole. It barely hurt, more a dull pain like a bruise. She sat up, amazed. “You said I was going to die!” “Of course you’re going to die,” MeLaan said, cocking her head. “You’re mortal. Can’t turn you into a kandra by just— Oh, you thought today. Hell, girl. That shot barely clipped you.” “You’re an awful person,” Marasi said. “You realize this.” MeLaan grinned, nodding to Waxillium, who offered a hand to help Marasi up. She quickly straightened her uniform, though MeLaan had cut it in ways that made modesty difficult. She’d have to dig into her pack for something new, but how would she ever change in the vehicle’s crowded confines? She sighed, taking Waxillium’s hand and letting him pull her to her feet. For
now she kept one hand at her waist, preventing her trousers from falling off. He offered her his mistcoat and, after a moment’s hesitation, she put it on. “Thanks,” she said, noting that underneath the coat he had been wearing a bandage of his own, upper left arm, right below the shoulder. Had he also been shot during the fighting? He hadn’t said anything, which made her feel even more foolish. Waxillium nodded his head toward the front of the vehicle, where Allik sat with his feet up on the dash, leaning back. Due to the mask, it was impossible to read his expression, but she felt his posture was reflective. “You feel up to talking with him?” Waxillium asked. “I suppose,” Marasi said. “I’m a little light-headed and a lot humiliated. But other than that, I’m fine.” Waxillium smiled, then took her arm. “You got ReLuur’s spike?” “Yes,” Marasi said, though she fished in her purse to make sure, to have her fingers on it, just in case. She held it up. “These degrade if they’re out of a body, don’t they?” Waxillium said, glancing at MeLaan, who had settled in a doorway with her legs dangling out, completely ignoring the perfectly good seats. “How do you know about that?” she asked. “The book Ironeyes gave me.” “Oh, right,” MeLaan said, her expression darkening. “That. You know, the Lord Mistborn was wrong to create it.” “I’ve read it, regardless.” MeLaan sighed, looking out. “The longer it’s away from ReLuur, the more its Blessing will weaken. But they are powerful, and can last some time—besides, even if the Blessing degrades, the spike will still restore his mind anyway. With some … loss of memory.” Her voice caught on that last part, and she turned away. “Well, we have it thanks to you,” Waxillium said, looking at Marasi. “And I have my sister. So we should turn back to Elendel and find out what Allik knows.” “We should,” Marasi agreed. “But your uncle—” “You heard my conversation with Telsin?” “Enough of it.” When she hadn’t been distracted by the fear that she was dying. Stupid kandra. “And what do you think?” Waxillium asked. “I don’t know, Waxillium,” Marasi said. “Did we really come here for the spike, or even your sister?” “No,” he said softly. “We came to stop Suit.” Marasi nodded, then dug a little more in her purse, bringing out the notebook she’d stolen from Irich’s study. She flipped to the page with the map and held it so both she and Waxillium could see it. It had a spot clearly labeled Second Site, some kind of base camp in the mountains. And beyond that, something high up among some other peaks, indicated as dangerously high. Notes from Irich said, Temple reported to be here. “The weapon,” Waxillium said, brushing the map with his fingers. “The Bands of Mourning.” “It’s real.” “My uncle thinks it is.” Waxillium hesitated. “And I do too.” “Can you imagine him as a Mistborn,” Marasi said, “and a Full Feruchemist? Immortal—like Miles, only far worse. Possessing
the strength of all metals. Like the Lord Ruler come again.” “My uncle said he was going to the second site,” Waxillium said, studying the map. “It’s possible that his expedition hasn’t gotten to the temple yet, though. They know where it is, from their interrogations, but they were still planning their expedition. With this machine, we could beat him there.” Waxillium drew in a deep breath, then nodded toward Allik up in his seat. “Will you talk to him? Find out what he knows.” “The man’s been through a lot, Waxillium,” Marasi said softly. “I think they must have tortured and murdered his friends. He doesn’t deserve an interrogation right now.” “We don’t deserve a lot of things that happen to us, Marasi. Talk to him, please. I’d do it, but the way he treats me … well, I think you’ll get better answers.” She sighed, but nodded and climbed past Wayne, who was—unsurprisingly—slumped in a seat and snoring away. Steris sat with hands in her lap, content, as if riding in a flying machine were an everyday occurrence. Telsin sat in the very back. Marasi wobbled. Rusts, she was light-headed. Fortunately, the front of the vehicle had two seats, the one Allik used and a smaller stool next to him. Allik glanced at her, and she realized she’d been wrong about his posture. He wasn’t pensive, he was cold. He sat there with arms wrapped around himself, and even shivered a little. She was surprised. It was colder up here than down below, true, but she wasn’t particularly cold herself. Then again, she was wearing Waxillium’s coat now. Allik turned back toward the windshield as she settled down on the stool. “I had assumed,” he said, “that everyone up here in the land of the Sovereign was a barbarian. Nobody wears masks, and what your people did to my crewmates…” He shivered again. This didn’t seem to be the cold. “But then you let me out,” he continued. “And you had one of them with you, a grand Metalborn of the precious arts. So I’m left confused.” “I don’t feel like a barbarian,” Marasi said. “But I doubt all but the most barbarous of people feel like one. I’m sorry about what happened to your friends. They had the misfortune of running across a group of very evil people.” “There were fifteen masks on the wall,” Allik said. “But Brunstell’s crew was nearly a hundred, yah? I know that some died in the crash, but the rest … do you know where they might be?” He looked to her, and she could see pain in his eyes behind the mask. “Maybe,” Marasi said, surprised to realize she might. She turned the notebook around, showing the map. “Do you know anything about this?” Allik stared at it. “How did you get that?” “I found it in the desk of one of your captors.” “They couldn’t communicate with us,” Allik said, taking the notebook. “How did they get this from us?” Marasi grimaced. While torture was a terribly ineffective method of interrogation,
at least as far as legal cases were concerned, she suspected it was a powerful motivator for overcoming barriers. “You think they’re here,” Allik said, pointing at the map. “You think the men who captured them, the evil men, brought my crewmates to find the Sovereign’s temple.” “It sounds like something Suit would do,” Marasi said, glancing back at Waxillium, who had settled into a seat behind her and leaned forward to listen. “Bring guides, or experts, just in case. He’s on his way here, the leader of those who killed your friends.” “Then that is where I must go,” Allik said, sitting up and changing the direction of the ship. “Wilg and I will drop you somewhere, if you demand it, for I’m not about to make that one angry.” He thumbed over his shoulder at Waxillium. “But I’ve got to find my crewmates.” “Who is the Sovereign?” Waxillium asked from behind. Allik winced. “Surely he was not as great as you, Remarkable One.” Waxillium said nothing. “He’s staring at me, isn’t he?” Allik asked softly of Marasi. She nodded. “Eyes like icicles,” Allik said, “drilling into me from behind.” He spoke more loudly. “The Sovereign was our king from three centuries ago. He told us he was your king first. And your god.” “The Lord Ruler?” Waxillium said. “He died.” “Yes,” Allik said. “He told us that too.” “Three hundred years ago,” Waxillium said. “Exactly?” “Three hundred and thirty, Persistent One.” Waxillium shook his head. “That’s after Harmony Ascended. Are you sure about those dates?” “Of course I’m sure,” Allik said. “But if you wish me to revise my beliefs in order to—” “No,” Waxillium said. “Just speak the truth.” Allik sighed, rolling his eyes, an odd expression to see from one in a mask. “Gods,” he whispered to her. “Very temperamental. Anyway, the Sovereign came about ten years after the Ice Death happened, yah? Silly name, but you’ve got to call it something. The land was beautiful and warm, and then it froze.” Marasi glanced toward Waxillium, frowning. He shrugged. “Froze?” she said. “I don’t recall hearing of freezing.” “It’s frozen right now!” Allik said, shivering. “You had it here too, you must have. Over three centuries ago, the Ice Death came.” “The Catacendre?” Waxillium said. “Harmony remade the world. Saved it.” “Froze it,” Allik said, shaking his head. “The land was soft and warm, and now it is harsh and broken and frozen.” “Harmony…” Marasi whispered. “Allik’s from the South, Waxillium. Haven’t you read the old books? The people from the Final Empire never went in that direction. The oceans boiled, supposedly, if you got too close to the equator.” “The people who lived down south adapted,” Waxillium said softly. “No Ashmounts to fill the sky with ash, to cool it…” “So, the world nearly ended,” Allik continued. “And the Sovereign, he came and he saved us. Taught us this.” He gestured toward the armband he wore, with the medallion, then paused. “Well, not this one in particular. This one.” He reached into his desk and took out
the other medallion he’d worn, the one he’d taken out of the safe back in the warehouse. He put it on, swapping it for the language one, and sighed in contentment. Marasi watched him, then raised her hand as if to touch his, and he nodded, allowing it. His skin grew warmer even as she sat there. “Heat,” she said, glancing toward Waxillium. “This medallion stores heat. That’s a property of Feruchemy, right?” Waxillium nodded. “The most archetypal. In the ancient days, my Terris ancestors dwelled in the highlands, often traveling through snow-filled mountain passes. The ability to store their heat, then draw upon it, allowed them to survive where nobody else could.” Allik sat, basking in his warmth for a time, before—with obvious reluctance—pulling off his medallion and swapping it quickly for the one that somehow allowed him to speak to them. “Without these,” he said, holding up the first medallion, “we’d be dead. Gone. All five peoples extinct, yah?” Marasi nodded. “And he taught you this? The Sovereign?” “Sure did. Saved us, bless him. Taught us that the Metalborn were pieces of God, each one of them, though we didn’t have any of those at first. He gave us devices, and started the Firemothers and Firefathers, who live to fill these medallions so the rest of us may leave our homes and survive in this too-cold world. After he left, we used his gifts to figure out the rest, like these that make us fly.” “The Lord Ruler,” Marasi said, “seeking redemption for what he did up here by saving the people down there.” “He was dead,” Waxillium said. “The records—” “Have been wrong before,” Marasi said. “It had to be him, Waxillium. And that means the Bands…” Waxillium moved up beside Allik, on the other side. The masked man eyed him, as if made very uncomfortable by his presence. “These,” Waxillium said, plucking the heat-giving medallion off the dash. “You can create these, as you wish?” “If we have the Metalborn to do so, and the Excisors, yes. The Excisors are the gifts the Sovereign made for us.” “So with one of those devices, a Metalborn can create a medallion like this—one for any Allomantic or Feruchemical ability?” “Holy words,” Allik said. “But if anyone can say them, it is you, O Blasphemous One. Yes. Any.” “And did one of you create a medallion that grants all of the powers?” Waxillium asked. Allik laughed. Marasi frowned. “Why laugh?” “You think us gods?” Allik said, shaking his head. “You see that? The one you hold? It is very complicated. It is stored with the ability to give yourself a sliver of holiness.” “Investiture,” Waxillium said. “This inner ring is nicrosil. You tap it, and it grants you Investiture—turning you into a temporary Feruchemist who has the ability to fill a metalmind with weight.” He held up the medallion. “The iron on this is for convenience, right? You can fill it, but so long as you’re tapping the Investiture, you could touch any source of iron and turn it into a
metalmind.” “You know much about this, Mysterious One,” Allik said. “You are wise and—” “I learn quickly,” Waxillium said, glancing at Marasi. She nodded for him to continue. This was fascinating … but the Metallic Arts was not one of her areas of expertise. Waxillium had a passion for it though. “What’s this other ring built into the medallion?” “That grants the warmth,” Allik said. “It is a grand combination—two attributes, from separate rings. Took us long to make these work, yah? The one I wear now, also grants two. Weight and Connection. I’ve seen medallions with three. Twice in my life only. Every attempt at four has failed.” “So wear multiple medallions,” Waxillium said. “Strap thirty-two to your body, and have all the abilities.” “I’m sorry, great Wise One,” Allik said. “You are obviously very knowledgeable about this, and know things that none of us would ever think to try. How could we be so foolish as to not realize that we could simply—” “Shut it,” Waxillium growled. Allik flinched. “Doesn’t work?” Waxillium asked. Allik shook his head. “They interfere with each other.” “So to create one with multiple powers…” “You must be very skilled,” Allik said. “More skilled than any who has lived among us. Or…” He chuckled. “Or you’d have to have all the powers, rather than adding yours to the medallion, then passing it to another to have it added to! If that were the case, you’d be a great god indeed. As powerful as the Sovereign.” “He did create one of these,” Waxillium said, rubbing the medallion with his thumb. “One with all of the abilities. A bracer, or a set of them, that granted all sixteen Allomantic abilities and all sixteen Feruchemical abilities.” Allik wilted. “That’s why you’re here, isn’t it, Allik?” Waxillium asked, looking into the man’s eyes. Marasi leaned forward. Waxillium said he wasn’t good at reading people, but he was wrong. He was great at it—so long as reading them involved bullying them. “Yes,” Allik whispered. “You traveled from your lands to find the Bands of Mourning,” Waxillium said. “Why are they up here?” “Hidden away,” Allik said. “When the Sovereign left us, he took them with him, along with his priests, his closest servants. Well, some of them eventually returned, yah? With stories to tell. He’d taken them on a great journey, and had them build a temple for him in a hidden range of mountains. He’d left the priests there, with the Bands, and told them to protect them until he returned for them. And, that was dumb, yah? Because we could really use those to fight the Deniers of Masks.” “Deniers of masks? Like us?” “No, no,” Allik said, laughing. “You’re just barbarians. The Deniers are really dangerous.” “Hey,” Wayne called from behind them, hair whipping in the wind, hat held in his hands. When had he woken up? “We knocked your big ship outta the sky, didn’t we?” “You?” Allik said, laughing. “No, no. You could not have so harmed Brunstell. He fell to a great storm. It is
a danger of our ships—so light, so easily troubled by storms. We would have landed Brunstell, but we were in the mountains, searching. We were so close to the temple, but then … yah. Blown out of the mountains over your lands. Smashed into that poor village. The barbarians there were nice at first. Then the others came.” He shrank down in his chair. Waxillium patted him on the shoulder. “Thank you, Wonderful One,” Allik said. He heaved a sigh. “Well, ever since the Sovereign’s elite told us the stories, we’ve tried to find the bracers.” “Find them?” Waxillium said. “You told us he’d left the Bands there for himself.” “Well, yah, but everyone interprets it as a challenge. A test sent by the Sovereign? He was fond of those. Why would he let priests tell us about them, if he didn’t want us to come claim them? “Only, after years of searching, everyone started thinking the temple was some fancy legend, lost in time. Everyone’s uncle had a map, yah? The type worth less than the paper it’s written on? But then, recently, some interesting stories started circulating. Talk of lands up here, and of mountains nobody had explored. We sent several scout vessels, and they returned with stories of your people, in this land. “Well, five or six years back, the Hunters sent a big ship up with a quest to finally find the temple. And they succeeded, we think. One skimmer came back with a map of where they’d been. The rest froze to death; a blizzard in the mountains overwhelmed their medallions.” Wind rocked the small ship as Allik fell silent. “We’re going after that temple, right?” Marasi asked, looking at Waxillium. “Damn right we are.” 22 Marasi had plenty of time to think as they traveled southward toward the mountains. Allik guessed the trip would take about two hours, which surprised her. She’d imagined an airship to be a fast-moving vehicle, but this was likely slower than a train. Still, being able to proceed there in a straight line instead of having to follow the landscape was a distinct advantage. Even with the fans whirring in their casings, the airship seemed to spend much of its time gliding. Allik would increase their height or lower it, trying to find favorable winds—and he complained that he didn’t know the airstreams of this area. He did his navigation using devices she didn’t recognize along with some startlingly accurate maps of the lower Basin. How often had these people prowled through the skies up here, hidden in the darkness, observing and making their maps? Most of the others slept, comfortably tapping warmth as Allik had taught them. When Marasi considered sleeping herself, she could not banish the image of falling from one of those doorways and awakening just as she hit the ground—even with the waist belts tying them all in. Wayne gave her something else to help with the pain, though he wouldn’t say what it was. It felt good though, and she could mostly ignore her aching side.
She settled into the seat beside Allik and chatted with him. She felt guilty, as that required him to wear the medallion that let him translate, but he seemed as eager to talk as she was. She could not say whether that was because he was starved for interaction following his incarceration, or if he wanted to be distracted from thinking about the friends he’d lost during his journey. Over the next two hours, he told her more about the medallions they wore, and the legends of the Bands of Mourning. In Allik’s lore, the Lord Ruler had filled them with a great deal of every attribute—but had also crafted them to grant any person who used them the ability to draw those forth. A kind of challenge to mankind to find them, along with a warning not to. Allik didn’t seem to consider this a contradiction at all. He also spent more time telling her about life where he was from—a place over the mountains, across the entire Southern Roughs and the wastelands beyond. A distant, wonderful place where everyone wore masks, though not everyone wore them in the same way. Allik’s own people preferred to change masks according to their professions or moods. Not each day, certainly, but it wasn’t uncommon for them to change their mask as often as a lady in Elendel might change her hairstyle. There were other groups though. One gave a mask to each child, and those only changed once, when they reached adulthood. Allik claimed that these people—called Hunters—even grew into their masks somehow, though Marasi found that difficult to believe. Still other people, to whom he referred derisively, wore only plain, unpainted masks until they did something to earn a more ornate one. “They are the Fallen,” he explained to her, wagging one hand before himself in a gesture she didn’t understand. “They were our kings, yah? Before the world froze. They offended the Jaggenmire, which is why everything went wrong, and—” “Wait,” Marasi said, speaking softly so the others could sleep, “the … yayg—” “Jaggenmire?” he asked. “It didn’t translate? You don’t have a word for it in your language, then. It’s like a god, only not.” “Very descriptive.” Surprisingly he lifted his mask, something she’d only seen him do that once, when he’d knelt before the masks of his friends. He didn’t seem to consider it an infraction of any sort, and kept talking. She liked being able to see his face, even if his wispy beard and mustache looked a little ridiculous—it made him look younger than he really was, unless he was lying about being twenty-two. “It’s like…” he said, grimacing, “like a thing that runs the world, yah? When something grows, or dies, the Jaggenmire make that happen. There is Herr, and his sister Frue, who is also his wife. And she makes things stop, and he makes things go, but neither can—” “—make life on their own,” Marasi said. “Yah!” he said. “Ruin and Preservation,” she said. “The old Terris gods. They’re one now. Harmony.” “No, they
were always one,” Allik said. “And always apart. Very odd, very complex. But anyway, we were talking about the Fallen, yah? They work doing anything they can to relieve their burden of failure. A compliment means a lot to them, but you have to be careful, because if you tell them they did well, they might take your compliment to heart and travel back to their people to tell everyone. Then you might be called in to testify about how good a job they did, so they can change their mask. And their language, that’s a real pain. I speak a smattering of it—always useful, so you don’t have to wear the medallion—and it makes my head spin as if I’d been flying too high for way too long.” She smiled, listening to him go on, gesturing wildly as he spoke—which she figured was only natural, if everyone’s faces were covered all the time. “Do you speak many languages?” she asked, as he took a breath, finally pausing his narrative. “I don’t even speak my own that well,” he said with a grin. “But I’m trying. Seems like a good skill for a skimmer pilot to have, since it’s often my job to pilot Wilg and take people between ships or towers. And if I’m going to sit half the day in a class, I figure it should be something useful. Though mathematics has—” “Class?” Marasi asked, frowning. “Sure. What do you think we do all day on the ship?” “I don’t know,” Marasi said. “Swab decks? Tie ropes. Um … trim … stuff. Deckhand types of things.” He looked at her, eyes bulging, then slapped his mask down. “I’m going to pretend that you did not just compare me to a common lowshipman, Miss Marasi.” “Ummm…” “You have to be something more special than that, if you want to fly. We’re expected to be gentlemen and ladies. We’ve thrown people overboard for not knowing the proper dance moves.” “What, really?” “Yah, really.” He hesitated. “All right, so we tied a rope to his foot first.” He made a gesture she had started to realize was something like a smile or a laugh. “He dangled there below Brunstell for a good five minutes, cursing up a storm. He never got the cistern three-step wrong again, though! And Svel always said to him…” Allik trailed off, growing silent. “And?” Marasi prodded. “Sorry. His mask … Svel, I mean. On the wall…” Oh. The conversation died, Allik staring out the front of the ship, then making a few adjustments to their heading. Outside, the landscape was dark save for a few pinpricks of towns, now far to their left. Though they’d initially skirted the Seran Range, Allik had moved the skimmer into the mountains about a half hour back. Now they flew over the tops of the peaks, having ascended higher than they’d been when flying over the Basin. “Allik,” Marasi said, resting her hand on his arm. “I’m sorry.” He didn’t respond. And so, hesitantly—fully aware that she was probably doing something taboo—she
reached out and lifted his mask. He didn’t stop her, and the motion revealed eyes staring sightlessly, a tear trickling down each cheek. “I’m never going to see them again,” he said softly. “Brunstell is crashed; I’ll never serve on him again. Hell, I’m never going to see home again, am I?” “Of course you will,” Marasi said. “You can fly there.” “Wilg won’t last on the stone I’ve got,” he said, wiping the tears from first one cheek, then the other. “The stone?” “Fuel,” Allik said, glancing at her. “What, you think Wilg flies on clouds and dreams?” “I thought it flew on Allomancy.” “Allomancy Pushes the impellers,” Allik said. “But ettmetal is what supports it.” “I don’t think that one translated either,” Marasi said, frowning. “Here, see,” Allik said, kneeling down and opening the compartment where he’d put the little cube that Waxillium called an Allomantic grenade. It was attached to a metal shell, which glowed softly at the center. Allik pointed, and to the side she could see a greater light blazing with a pure whiteness. A stone, burning like a limelight. Or like Allomancy itself, Marasi realized. “What kind of metal is it, though?” “Ettmetal,” Allik said, shrugging. “There’s a little bit in the primer cube too, to make it work. A lot more to make a ship like Wilg go, and a lot, lot more to get Brunstell into the air. You don’t have this metal?” “I don’t think so,” Marasi said. “Well, what we have in Wilg, it’ll be enough to fly us a day or two. After that, we’d need an Allomancer Pushing full-time. So unless His Greatness the Drowsy One back there wants to fly with me all the way back, I’m stuck, yah?” “You said there was more on Brunstell.” “Yah, but they have it.” He grinned. “At first, the evil ones didn’t know how to care for it. Got some wet. That was a good day.” “Wet?” “Ettmetal explodes if it gets wet.” “What kind of metal explodes if you put it in water?” “This kind,” he said. “Anyway, your evil men, they got most of ours.” “And we’re going to stop them,” Marasi said firmly. “We’ll get your crewmates back, stick you on your ship—or some of these skimmers, if the big one won’t fly anymore—and send you home.” He settled back in his seat, closing the panel under the dash. “That’s what we’re going to do,” he agreed, nodding. Then he eyed her, his mask still up. “Of course, your people don’t have what we do. No airships at all. So they’ll simply let me and mine soar away, no information demanded, with this technology?” Rusts. He was clever. “Maybe we can give the governor some technology,” she said, “like a few medallions. Then promise him trade between our two peoples, fueled by the goodwill of having helped you and yours get home. That will erase some of the shame of what Suit did.” “There are those from my lands who might find your Basin up here … tempting, with
no defenses against attack from above.” “All the more important to have allies among your people.” “Maybe,” he said, pulling his mask back down. “I appreciate your genuine nature. You have no mask to hide your emotions. So odd, but welcome in this case. Still, I have to wonder if this will be more complicated than you say. If we do find the relics, what you call the Bands of Mourning, who keeps those? They are ours, yet I cannot see your Metalborn lord letting them slip away from him.” Another difficult question. “I … I honestly don’t know,” Marasi said. “But you could say we have as much a claim to them as you, since it was our ruler who created them.” “A ruler you killed,” he pointed out. “But let us not argue about it, yah? We will find what we find, and then determine what to do.” He hesitated. “I must tell you something, Miss Marasi. It is possible we will find nothing at the temple but destruction.” She frowned, settling on her seat, wishing he still had the mask up so she could read his face. “What do you mean?” “I told you of the ones who came seeking the temple,” Allik said. “The Hunters,” Marasi said. He nodded. “They were warriors, in the time before the freezing. Now they hunt answers to what happened to us, and secrets to making it never happen again. Miss Marasi, I have known many, and they can be a good people—but very, very stern. They believe that the Bands of Mourning were left with us as a test—but opposite the one we all assume. They think the Sovereign intended to see if we would take the power when we should not. And so…” “What?” Marasi asked. “Their ship,” he said, looking toward her, “that came up here first. It carried bombs, great ones, made from the ettmetal. Intended to destroy the Bands. They did not succeed, it is said. But anything could have happened. The place of the temple is said to be frozen beyond anything else in this world. A dangerous place for my kind.” He shivered visibly, then looked longingly at the medallion set on the desk before him. “Go ahead,” Marasi said, “put it on.” He nodded. They’d had to do this several times during the flight so far, letting Allik warm himself with the Feruchemical device. Marasi wore one herself, comfortably warm—though up this high, the air was probably freezing. Allik settled back, and Marasi—curious—picked up the Connection medallion that he had set down. She turned it over in her fingers, noting the sinuous lines down the center, dividing it into separate metals. Iron for weight, duralumin for Connection, and most importantly nicrosil, to give her the ability to tap metals in the first place. She knew enough Metallic theory to identify the metals, but Connection … what did it actually do? And how did that make him speak a language of all things? Suddenly feeling foolish, she smiled and took off her medallion. The ship immediately
dipped due to her restored weight. She let out a squeal of alarm and immediately donned the weight/Connection one instead, then blushed—making herself light again—as Waxillium whipped his gun out and leaped to his feet. So he hadn’t been sleeping, but eavesdropping. He looked around to see what had caused the lurch. None of the others stirred. Wayne kept snoring. Marasi held up the disc to Allik, then tapped Connection. She waited for some reaction inside of her, but it didn’t seem to do anything. “We’ve been foolish,” she said. “I could have been wearing this all along, and speaking your language. Then you could have been warm the entire time.” Allik grinned at her, then said something completely unintelligible. “What’s going on?” Waxillium said from behind her. “Nothing,” Marasi said, blushing again. It wasn’t working. Why wasn’t it working? Allik gestured to her, and she switched back to her previous medallion—working very carefully this time to avoid causing a jolt, but mostly failing. How did he transition between them so smoothly? He made a gesture, like a hand drawn across his face, that she thought indicated a smile. “Clever, but it won’t work on you.” “Why?” “Because we’re in your lands,” he said. “The visitor always has to wear the medallion. It’s filled with Connection, yah? Blank Connection, to no place. But Connection can’t just be connected to nothing, so when you tap it, it reaches out and connects you to the place where you are. Makes your soul think you were raised in this place instead, so your language changes.” Marasi frowned, though Waxillium perked up, pulling up between their two seats. “Curious,” he said. “Very curious.” “It is the way of the world,” Allik said with a shrug. “Then why do you have an accent still?” Marasi asked. “If your brain thinks it was raised here?” “Ah,” Allik said, raising his finger. “My soul thinks I was raised here, in your lands, but it knows that I am Malwish by descent, and that parents are from Wiestlow, so I cannot help but have an accent, yah? I got it from them. It is how the medallions always work.” “Strange,” Marasi repeated. “Yah,” Allik agreed. But Waxillium was nodding, as if it made perfect sense to him. “Those mountains to the right,” Waxillium said, pointing. “Those are some taller peaks than the ones we’ve been passing.” “Yah!” Allik said. “Good eye, O Observan—” “Stop with the titles.” “Yes, um, O Confusing … er…” Allik took a deep breath. “Those are the peaks we’re seeking. Getting close. We’ll have to climb Wilg up even higher. Cold temperatures, dangerous altitudes.” He hesitated as Waxillium pointed at something ahead. Difficult to see, but distinct once Marasi noticed it. Light, hovering in the darkness—only a glimmer, but stark against the blackness. “The Seran Range is uninhabited,” Waxillium said, “except in a few of the valleys. Too cold, too many storms.” “So if there’s a light…” Marasi said. “Suit has left on his expedition,” Waxillium said, standing up straight. “Time to wake the others.” 23

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