The Lost Metal

1

TWENTY-NINE YEARS LATER

Marasi had never been in a sewer before, but it was exactly as awful as she’d imagined. The stench was incredible, of course. But worse was the way her booted feet would occasionally slip for a heart-stopping moment, threatening to plunge her down into the “mud” underneath.

At least she’d had the foresight to wear a uniform with trousers today, along with knee-high leather work boots. But there was no protection from the scent, the feel, or — unfortunately — the sound of it. When she took a step — map in one hand, rifle in the other — each boot would pull free with a squelch of mythical proportions. It would have been the worst sound ever, if not overmatched by Wayne’s complaining.

“Wax never brought me into a rusting sewer,” he muttered, raising the lantern.

“Are there sewers in the Roughs?”

“Well, no,” he admitted. “Pastures smell almost as bad, and he did make me march through those. But Marasi, they didn’t have spiders.”

“They probably did,” she said, angling the map toward his lantern. “You just couldn’t see them.”

“Suppose,” he grumbled. “But it’s worse when you can see the webs. Also there’s, you know, the literal sewage.”

Marasi nodded to a side tunnel and they started in that direction. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“What?” he demanded.

“Your mood.”

“Nothing’s wrong with my rusting mood,” he said. “It’s precisely the mood you’re supposed to have when your partner forces you to stick your frontside into a buncha stuff that comes out of your backside.”

“And last week?” she asked. “When we were investigating a perfume shop?”

“Rusting perfumers,” Wayne said, his eyes narrowing. “Never can tell what they’re hiding with those fancy smells. You can’t trust a man what doesn’t smell like a man should.”

“Sweat and booze?”

“Sweat and cheap booze.”

“Wayne, how can you complain about someone putting on airs? You put on a different personality every time you change hats.”

“Does my smell change?”

“I suppose not.”

“Argument won. There are literally no holes in it whatsoever. Conversation over.”

They shared a look.

“I should get me some perfumes, eh?” Wayne said. “Someone might spot my disguises if I always smell like sweat and cheap booze.”

“You’re hopeless.”

“What’s hopeless,” he said, “is my poor shoes.”

“Could have worn boots like I suggested.”

“Ain’t got no boots,” he said. “Wax stole them.”

“Wax stole your boots. Really.”

“Well, they’re in his closet,” Wayne said. “Instead of three pairs of his poshest shoes. Which somehow ended up in my closet, completely by happenstance.” He glanced at her. “It was a fair trade. I liked those boots.”

Marasi smiled. They’d been working together for almost six years now, since Wax’s retirement following the discovery of the Bands of Mourning. Wayne was an official constable, not some barely-within-the-law deputized citizen. He even wore a uniform once in a while. And–

— and Marasi’s boot slipped again. Rusting hell. If she fell, he would never stop laughing. But this did seem the best way. Construction on the citywide underground train tunnels was ongoing, and two days ago a demolitions man had filed a curious report. He didn’t want to blast the next section, as seismic readings indicated they were near an unmapped cavern.

This area underneath the city of Elendel was peppered with ancient caves. And it was the same region where a local group of gang enforcers kept vanishing and reappearing. As if they had a hidden entrance into an unknown, unseen lair.

She consulted the map, marked with the construction notes — and older annotations indicating a nearby oddity that the sewer builders had found years ago, but which had never been properly investigated.

“I think MeLaan is going to break up with me,” Wayne said softly. “That’s why maybe I’ve been uncharacteristically downbeat in my general disposition as of late.”

“What makes you think she’s going to do that?”

“On account of her tellin’ me, ‘Wayne, I’m probably going to break up with you in a few weeks.’”

“Well, that’s polite of her.”

“I think she’s got a new job from the big guy,” Wayne said. “But it ain’t right, how slow it’s goin’. ’S not the proper way to break up with a fellow.”

“And what is the proper way?”

“Throw something at his head,” Wayne said. “Sell his stuff. Tell his mates he’s a knob.”

“You have had some interesting relationships.”

“Nah, just mostly bad ones,” he said. “I asked Jammi Walls what she thought I should do— You know her? She’s at the tavern most nights.”

“I know her,” Marasi said. “She’s a woman of … ill repute.”

“What?” Wayne said. “Who’s been saying that? Jammi has a great reputation. Of all the whores on the block, she gives the best—”

“I do not need to hear the next part. Thank you.”

“Ill repute,” he said, chuckling. “I’m gonna tell Jammi you said that, Marasi. She worked hard for her reputation. Gets to charge four times what anyone else does! Ill repute indeed.”

“And what did she say?”

“She said MeLaan wanted me to try harder in the relationship,” Wayne said. “But I think in this case Jammi was wrong. Because MeLaan don’t play games. When she says things, she means them. So it’s … you know…”

“I’m sorry, Wayne,” Marasi said, tucking the map under her arm and resting her hand on his shoulder.

“I knew it couldn’t last,” he said. “Rustin’ knew it, you know? She’s like, what, a thousand years old?”

“Roughly two-thirds that,” Marasi said.

“And I’m not quite forty,” Wayne said. “More like sixteen if you take account of my spry youthful physique.”

“And your sense of humor.”

“Damn right,” he said, then sighed. “Things have been … tough lately. With Wax gettin’ all fancy and MeLaan being gone for months at a time. Feel like nobody wants me around. Maybe I belong in a sewer, you know?”

“You don’t,” she said. “You’re the best partner I’ve ever had.”

“Only partner.”

“Only? Gorglen doesn’t count?”

“Nope. He’s not human. I gots papers what prove he’s a giraffe in disguise.” Then he smiled. “But … thanks for askin’. Thanks for carin’.”

She nodded, then led the way onward. When she’d imagined her life as a top detective and lawwoman, she hadn’t envisioned this. At least the smell was getting better — or she was getting used to it.

It was extremely gratifying to find, at the exact spot marked on the map, an old metal door set into the sewer wall. Wayne held up the lantern, and one didn’t need a keen detective’s eye to see the door had been used recently. Silvery scrapes on one side of the frame, the handle rubbed clean of the pervasive filth and cobwebs.

The people who had built the sewers had discovered it, and highlighted it as a site of potential historical significance. But the note had been lost due to bureaucratic nonsense.

“Nice,” Wayne said, leaning in beside her. “Some first-rate detectivin’, Marasi. How many old surveys did you have to read to find this?”

“Too many,” she said. “People would be surprised how much of my time is spent in the documents library.”

“They leave the research outta the stories.”

“You did this sort of thing back in the Roughs?”

“Well, the Roughs variety of it,” Wayne said. “Usually involved holdin’ some bloke’s face down in the trough until he remembered whose old prospectin’ claim he’d been filchin’, but it’s the same principle. With more swearin’.”

She handed him her rifle and investigated the door. He didn’t like her to make a big deal out of it, but he could hold guns these days without his hands shaking. She’d never seen him fire one, but he said he could if he needed to.

The door was shut tight and had no lock on this side. But it seemed the people she was hunting had found it closed too — there were a bunch of marks along one edge. There was enough room to slip something between door and frame.

“I need a knife to get through this,” she said.

“You can use my razor-sharp wit.”

“Alas, Wayne, you aren’t the type of tool I need at the moment.”

“Ha!” he said. “I like that one.”

He handed her a knife from his backpack where they kept supplies like rope, and extra metals in case they faced Metalborn. This kind of gang shouldn’t have an Allomancer — they were your basic “shake down shopkeepers for protection money” types. Yet she had reports that made her wary, and she was increasingly sure this group was funded by the Set.

Years later, and she was still hunting answers to questions that had plagued her from the very start of her career as a lawwoman. The group known as the Set, once run by Wax’s Uncle Edwarn, then revealed to involve his sister, Telsin, as well. A group that followed, or worshipped, or somehow furthered the machinations of a dark figure known as Trell. A god, she thought. From ancient times.

If she caught the right people, she might finally get the answers. But she perpetually fell short. The closest she’d gotten to answers had been six years ago, but then everyone they’d captured — including Wax’s uncle — had been killed in an explosion. Leaving her to chase at shadows again, and the rest of Elendel’s elite fully committed to ignoring the threat. Without evidence, she and Wax had been unable to prove that the Set even existed beyond Edwarn’s lackeys.

Using the knife, she managed to undo the bar holding the door closed from the other side. The bar swung free with a soft clang, and she eased the door open to reveal a rough-hewn tunnel leading downward. One of the many that dotted this region, dating back to the ancient days before the Catacendre. To the time of myths and heroes, ashfalls and tyrants.

Together she and Wayne slipped inside, leaving the door as they’d found it. They dimmed their lantern as a precaution, then started into the depths.

2

“Cravat?” Steris said, reading from the list.

“Tied and pinned,” Wax said, pulling it tight.

“Shoes?”

“Polished.”

“First piece of evidence?”

Wax flipped a silvery medallion in the air, then caught it.

“Second piece of evidence?” Steris asked, making a mark on her list.

He pulled a small folded stack of papers from his pocket. “Right here.”

“Third piece of evidence?”

Wax checked another pocket, then paused, looking around the small office — his senator’s chamber in the House of Proceedings. Had he left them … “On the desk back home,” he said, smacking his head.

“I brought a spare,” Steris said, digging in her bag.

Wax grinned. “Of course you did.”

“Two, actually,” Steris said, handing over a sheet of paper, which he tucked away. Then she consulted her list again.

Little Maxillium stepped up beside his mother, looking very serious as he scanned his own list of scribbles. At five years old he knew his letters, but preferred to make up his own.

“Dog picture,” Max said, as if reading from his list.

“I might need one of those,” Wax said. “Quite useful.”

Max solemnly presented it, then said, “Cat picture.”

“Need one of those too.”

“I’m bad at cats,” Max said, handing him another sheet. “So it looks like a squirrel.”

Wax hugged his son, then put the sheets away reverently with the others. The boy’s sister — Tindwyl, as Steris liked traditional names — babbled in the corner, where Kath, the governess, was watching her.

Finally, Steris handed him his pistols one at a time. Long-barreled and weighty, they had been designed by Ranette to look menacing — but they had two safeties and were unloaded. It had been a while since he’d needed to shoot anyone, but he continued to make good use of his reputation as the “Lawman Senator of the Roughs.” City folk, particularly politicians, were intimidated by small arms. They preferred to kill people with more modern weapons, like poverty and despair.

“Is a kiss for my wife on that list?” Wax asked.

“Actually, no,” she said, surprised.

“A rare oversight,” he said, then gave her a lingering kiss. “You should be the one going out there today, Steris. You did more preparation than I.”

“You’re the house lord.”

“I could appoint you as a representative to speak for us.”

“Please, no,” she said. “You know how I am with people.”

“You’re good with the right people.”

“And are politicians ever right about anything?”

“I hope so,” he said, straightening his suit coat and turning toward the door. “Since I am one.”

He pushed out of his chambers and walked down to the Senate floor. Steris would watch from her seat in the observation balcony — by now, everyone knew how particular she was about getting the same one.

As Wax stepped into the vast chamber — which buzzed with activity as senators returned from the short recess — he didn’t go to his seat. Over the last few days, senators had debated the current bill, and his was the last speech in line. He had secured this spot with many promises and much trading, as he hoped it would give his arguments the advantage, give him the best chance to avert a terrible decision.

He stood to one side of the speakers’ platform and waited for everyone to sit, his thumb hooked into his gunbelt, looming. You learned to put on a good loom in the Roughs when interrogating prisoners — and he was still shocked by how many of those skills worked here.

Governor Varlance didn’t look at him. Instead the man adjusted his cravat, then checked his face powder — ghostly pale skin was fashionable these days, for some arcane reason. Then he laid out his medals on the desk, one at a time.

Rusts, I miss Aradel, Wax thought. It had been novel to have a competent governor. Like … eating hotel food and finding it wasn’t awful, or spending time with Wayne and then discovering you still had a pocket watch.

However, the governor’s job was the type that chewed up the good people but let the bad ones float blissfully along. Aradel had stepped down two years back. And it had made sense to choose a military man as the next governor, considering the tensions with the Southern Continent. Many people among the newly discovered countries there — with their airships and strange masks — were upset about how things had gone down six years ago. Specifically, that the Elendel Basin had kept the Bands of Mourning.

Right now, Elendel faced two primary problems. The first was the people on the Southern Continent, the foremost nation of which was known as the Malwish. They made constant noise about how small and weak the Basin was. Aggressive, militaristic posturing. Varlance had been a hedge against that, though Wax did question where he had earned all those medals. So far as Wax knew, the newly formed army hadn’t seen any actual engagements.

The second problem was far closer to home. It was the parts of the Basin that were outside the capital, the people in what were collectively known as the Outer Cities. For years, maybe decades, tensions had been building between the city of Elendel and everyone else.

It was bad enough to be facing threats from another continent. But to Wax, that was a more distant danger. The immediate one, the one that gave him the most stress, was the prospect of a civil war among his own people. He and Steris had been working for years to prevent that.

Varlance finally nodded to his vice governor, a Terriswoman. She had curly dark hair and a traditional robe; Wax thought he’d known her in the Village, but it could have been her sister, and he’d never come up with a good way to ask. Regardless, it looked respectable to have a Terris person on staff. Most governors appointed one to a high position in their cabinet — almost as if the Terris were another medal to display.

Adawathwyn stood up and announced to the room, “The governor recognizes the senator from House Ladrian.”

Though he’d been waiting for this, Wax took his time sauntering up onto the podium, which was lit from above by a massive electric spotlight. He made a slow rotation, inspecting the circular chamber. One side held the elected officials: senators who were voted into office to represent a guild, profession, or historical group. The other held the lords: senators who held their positions by benefit of birth.

“This bill,” Wax declared to the room, loud and firm, his voice echoing, “is a fantastically stupid idea.”

Once, earlier in his political career, talking so bluntly had earned him ire. Now he caught multiple members of the Senate smiling. They expected this from him — even appreciated it. They knew how many problems there were in the Basin and were glad someone among them was willing to call them out.

“Tensions with the Malwish are at an all-time high,” Wax said. “This is a time for the Basin to unite, not a time to drive wedges between our cities!”

“This is about uniting!” another voice called. The dockworkers’ senator, Melstrom. He was mostly a puppet for Hasting and Erikell, nobles who had consistently been a painful spike in Wax’s side. “We need a single leader for the whole Basin. Officially!”

“Agreed,” Wax said. “But how is elevating the Elendel governor — a position no one outside the city can vote on — going to unite people?”

“It will give them someone to look toward. A strong, capable leader.”

And that, Wax thought, glancing at Varlance, is a capable leader? We’re lucky he pays attention in these meetings rather than going over his publicity schedule. Varlance had, so far in the first two years of his tenure, rededicated seventeen parks in the city. He liked the flowers.

Wax kept to the plan, getting out his medallion and flipping it into the air. “Six years ago,” he said, “I had a little adventure. You all know about it. Finding a wrecked Malwish airship, and thwarting a plot by the Outer Cities to use its secrets against Elendel. I stopped that. I brought the Bands of Mourning back to be stored safely.”

“And almost started a war,” someone muttered in the reaches of the room.

“You’d prefer I let the plot go forward?” Wax called back. When no response came, he flipped the medallion up and caught it again. It was one of the weight-affecting medallions the Malwish used to make their ships light enough to fly. “I dare anyone in this room to question my loyalty to Elendel. We can have a nice little duel. I’ll even let you shoot first.”

Silence. He’d earned that. A lot of the people in this room didn’t like him, but they did respect him. And they knew he wasn’t an agent for the Outer Cities.

He flipped the medallion and then Pushed it higher, all the way up toward the ceiling high above. It came streaking down again, glimmering in the light. As he snatched it, he glanced at Admiral Jonnes, current ambassador from the Malwish nation. She sat in a special place on the Senate floor, where visiting mayors from Outer Cities were given seats. None had come to this proceeding. A visible sign of their anger.

This bill, if approved, would elevate the Elendel governor above all Outer Cities mayors — allowing him or her to intervene in local disputes. To the point of removing a mayor and calling a special election, approving candidates. While Wax agreed that a central ruler would be an important step for uniting the Basin, this bill was an outright insult to all of their people living outside the capital.

“I know our position,” Wax said, turning the medallion over in his fingers, “better than anyone. You want to make a show of force to the Malwish. Prove that we can make our own cities bend to our rules. So you introduce this bill.

“But this underlines why everyone outside Elendel is so frustrated with us! The revolutionaries in the other cities wouldn’t have gotten so far without the support of their people. If the average person living outside Elendel weren’t so damned angry about our trade policies and general arrogance, we wouldn’t be in this position.

“This bill isn’t going to placate them! It’s not a ‘show of force.’ It’s specifically designed to outrage the people. If we pass this law, we’re demanding civil war.”

He let that sink in. The others were so determined to appear strong to external enemies. But if left unchecked, they’d strong-arm themselves right into war over internal disputes. The Malwish problems were real, but not as immediate. Civil war, though, would be devastating.

The worst part was, someone was pushing for it in secret. Wax was certain the Set was again interfering in Elendel politics. His … sister was involved. He wasn’t certain why they wanted a civil war, but they’d been trying for years now. And if he let this proceed, playing into the hands of their real enemies, both the elite around him now and the revolutionaries in the cities outside would have cause to mourn.

Wax pulled out the stack of papers in his left pocket. He tucked the dog and cat pictures at the back, then held the rest up to the room. “I have sixty letters from politicians in the Outer Cities here. They represent a large faction who don’t want conflict. These are reasonable people. They are willing — eager — to work with Elendel. But they are also frightened about what their people will do if we continue to impose tyrannical, imperial policies on them.

“I propose that we vote down this bill and work on something better. Something that actually promotes peace and unity. A national assembly, with representation for each Outer City — and an elected supreme official elevated by that body.”

He’d expected boos, and he got a few. But most of the chamber fell silent, watching him hold those letters aloft. They were afraid of letting power leave the capital. Afraid that Outer Cities politics would change their culture. They were cowards.

Maybe he was too, because the idea of the Set pulling strings terrified him. Who among those looking at him now were secretly their agents? Rusts, he didn’t even understand their motives. They wanted war — as a way to gain power, certainly. But there was more.

They followed orders from something known as Trell.

Wax turned around slowly, still holding the letters, and felt a little spike of alarm as he turned his back on Melstrom. He’s going to shoot, Wax thought.

“With all due respect, Lord Ladrian,” Melstrom said. “You are a new parent, and obviously don’t understand how to raise a child. You don’t give in to their demands; you hold firm, knowing that your decisions are best for them. They will eventually see reason. As a father is to a son, Elendel is to the Outer Cities.”

Right in the back, Wax thought, turning around.

He didn’t respond immediately. You wanted to aim return fire carefully. He’d made these arguments before — mostly in private — to many of the senators in this room. He was making headway, but he needed more time. With these letters, he could return to each senator, the ones on the fence, and share the words. The ideas. Persuade.

His gut said that if the vote happened today, the bill would pass. So, he hadn’t come here to repeat his arguments. He’d come with a bullet loaded in the chamber, ready to fire.

He folded up the letters and tucked them snugly into his pocket. Then he took the smaller stack — two sheets — from his other pocket. The ones that Steris had brought spares of in case he forgot. She’d probably made copies of the other stack too. And seven other things she knew he wouldn’t need — but it made her feel better to have them in her bag just in case. Rusts, that woman was delightful.

Wax held up the sheets and made a show of getting just the right light to read. “‘Dear Melstrom,’” he read out loud, “‘we are pleased by your willingness to see reason and continue to enforce Elendel trade superiority in the Basin. This is a wise choice. We will deliver half a percent of our shipping revenues for the next three years in exchange for your personal support of this bill. From Houses Hasting and Erikell.’”

The room erupted into chaos. Wax settled in, hooking his finger into his gunbelt, waiting for the cries of outrage to run their course. He met Melstrom’s eyes as the man sank back into his seat. The rusting idiot had just learned an important lesson: Don’t leave a paper trail detailing your corruption when your political opponent is a trained detective. Idiot.

As the shouts finally died down, Wax spoke again, louder this time. “I demand we hold impropriety hearings to investigate Senator Melstrom’s apparent sale of his vote in blatant violation of anti-corruption laws.”

“And by so doing,” the governor said, “delay the Elendel Supremacy Bill vote?”

“How could we vote on it,” Wax said, “if we aren’t sure the votes are being cast in good faith?”

More outrage. Wax weathered it as the governor consulted with his vice governor. She was a smart one. Anything Varlance accomplished that didn’t involve cutting a ribbon or kissing a baby was probably her doing.

As the chamber calmed, the governor looked to Wax. “I trust you have proof of this letter’s authenticity, Ladrian.”

“I have affidavits from three separate handwriting experts to prove it’s not a forgery,” Wax said. “And you’ll find my wife’s detailed account of the letter’s acquisition exhaustive and unimpugnable.”

“Then I suggest impropriety hearings follow,” the governor said. “After the vote on the Supremacy Bill.”

“But—” Wax said.

“We will,” the governor interrupted, “require Melstrom, Hasting, and Erikell to sit out the vote. Assuring that the vote is not corrupted.”

Damn.

Damn, damn, damn.

Before he could counter that, the vice governor slammed her gavel. “Votes in favor of continuing?”

Most of the hands on the Senate floor went up. For a simple vote like this, a more straw poll method would do — unless the vote turned out to be very close. It wasn’t.

The real vote, on the bill, would proceed.

“Have you any more explosions to detonate, Ladrian?” the governor said. “Or can we get on with this?”

“No more explosions, Your Honor,” Wax said with a sigh. “They were my old partner’s specialty anyway. Instead, I have a final plea to the chamber.” His maneuver had failed. Now he had one last card to play. A request not from Waxillium Ladrian.

But one from Dawnshot, the lawman.

“You all know me,” he said, turning around in a circle, meeting their eyes. “I’m a simple man from the Roughs. I don’t do politics right, but I do understand angry people and the hard lives of working women and men.

“If we’re going to take the role of parent, we should treat our children well. Give them a chance to speak for themselves. If we keep pretending they’re toddlers, they’re merely going to start ignoring us — at best. You want to send a message? Send the message that we care and are willing to listen.”

He took his seat finally, next to Yancey Yaceczko, a good-natured and patient fellow — and one of the senators who’d actually listened to Wax.

“Good show, Wax,” the man whispered, leaning in. “Good show indeed. It’s always a pleasure.”

Yancey would vote with him. In fact, a decent number of the nobles empathized with Wax. While a lot of the things Marasi had been saying recently made Wax uncomfortable about his hereditary position, in this instance the lords might turn out to be slightly less corrupt than their counterparts. The elected senators had to retain their seats, and voting for this bill was likely to improve the lives of their constituents.

That was the problem. According to the latest census, more people now lived outside the city than inside it. Most of the laws dated back to when there had been one city and a bunch of farming villages. Now that those villages had grown up into cities, their people wanted a stronger voice in Basin politics.

Elendel was no longer a scrappy settlement rebuilding after an apocalypse. They were a nation; even the Roughs were changing, growing, being modernized. Rusts, with all the land in the Roughs, he could imagine a time when more people lived there than in the Basin proper.

They needed to enfranchise those people, not ignore them. He still had hope. He and Steris and their allies had worked for months to erode support for the bill. Innumerable dinners, parties, and even — as he’d started doing for some of the city’s elite — some training on the shooting range.

All in the name of changing the world. One vote at a time.

The governor called for the vote, and Lady Mi’chelle Yomen cast the first one — against the bill. As it proceeded, Wax sat, as anxious as he’d ever been before a confrontation with a bandit group. Rusts … this was somehow worse. Each vote was the crack of a bullet. Lady Faula and Senator Vindel. How will they break? And Maraya? Was she persuaded, or …

Two of them voted for the bill, along with multiple others that he’d been uncertain about. Wax felt a sinking feeling, worse than being shot, as the vote proceeded — and eventually landed at 122 for, 118 against.

The bill passed. His stomach fell further. If Wax was going to stop a civil war, he’d need to find another way.

THE TWO SEASONS

^{MAREWILL 19, 348}

^{Vol. 32, No. 247}

^{Kyndlip Ternavyl, Editor and Proprietor}

^BILMING

^{“No Two Seasons Are Alike,” an Originators Proverb}

^{5 clips}

Handerwym Presents

NICKI SAVAGE

and

The COMPASS of Spirits

In my last letter, the Haunted Man, my two Faceless Immortal companions, and I saw the Coinshot Vila Mecant grab the Compass of Spirits and throw herself off a stone outcropping into the mists. The aluminum key that activated it, however, was still with me. Knowing Vila would be back, I entrusted the key to the Haunted Man, who used his hellguns to launch himself to another outcropping, leaving me to convince my faceless friends I had a plan… Which, of course, I did.

Chapter 8: “Flight of the Ornisaur”

KeSun rolled her eyes. “Exactly how do you expect to follow Vila and lure her out?”

“The aluminum bones we lifted from the ornisaur quarry,” I said, patting Tabaar’s giant backpack.

He groaned deep within his corpulent body. “Oh no…”

“You are incredible at imitation,” I said encouragingly. “Remember when you were Human the koloss in A Hero for All Ages? You were masterful! You can do this!”

“He can’t,” said KeSun, folding her arms. “Not without me. I’m the one with experience impersonating birds.”

Turning to Tabaar, she said, “If you are willing to yield some control to me, then we can carry Miss Sauvage across this abyss.”

“But the rest of my collection…” he said, the bag of bones shifting on his back.

“We’ll return for them,” said KeSun, with a compassion in her voice she reserved only for Tabaar. “I promise.”

She raised an eyebrow at me. “Will you kindly look away?” she asked. “We’d rather you not see us when we…”

“…merge,” said Tabaar.

What followed was one of the strangest things I’ve ever encountered, stranger even than the Beast of Belmon Couture or that time when I was Allomancer Jak’s assistant.

(Continued below the fold!)

The Two Seasons would like to retract our dear editor Kyndlip Ternavyl’s comments of two weeks ago, prior to her disappearance, when she compared our beloved mayor to “an irascible boar; no smarter, less attractive, and unable to keep from rolling around in every mire he comes across.”

ELENDEL SUPREMACY BILL THREATENS BASIN UNITY

UNITY OR DIVISION? PROGRESS OR PERNICIOUSNESS?

In a matter of days, Elendel’s Senate will vote on what Bilming’s top political mind, Professor Garven Munz, has called “the most monumental change to our government structure since the Words of Founding.”

Days of speeches, debates, and posturing are planned leading up to the vote, and the eyes of the Outer Cities are focused on the so-called Lawman Senator of the Roughs, whose recent visits north of the Basin have solidified his stance with which many Outer City dwellers concur: Representation Before Supremacy.

Governor Varlance and his cronies vehemently oppose this tack, their views summed up in Vice Governor Adawathwyn’s bold opening remarks that “We’ll need a strong, experienced leader when war comes to us from our masked Southern friends.” Admiral Jonnes of the Malwish Nation looked visibly shaken and did not return after the Senate’s following recess.

When Varlance was asked if he too thought the Basin might be headed toward war with the Malwish, he merely patted his chest where he’d conspicuously hung his military medals.

(Continued on back.)

3

Marasi studied the footprints in the dust. They appeared to be a few weeks old, as they’d gathered dust themselves. She walked over to Wayne, who was inspecting the path farther down into the depths: an arduous-looking tunnel with a steep decline. He glanced at her.

“If they’re slippin’ in and out of the city fast,” he said, “they musta found a different way out of here. They aren’t makin’ this hike regularly.”

“Agreed,” she said. “We should be stealthy anyway, in case they posted lookouts.”

In response, he turned his lantern down and whispered, “You want to continue without backup?”

“For now. We want to scout and see what we find. I don’t want to mobilize everyone for a dead end.”

Together, the two of them struck forward through the tunnel. The difficulty of the path and its apparent lack of traffic encouraged her. If the enemy was down here but used a different route, then taking this path meant she and Wayne were less likely to be discovered.

They took the decline carefully. Rusts … thank goodness she had trousers on. If she was going to slip and break her skull, she could at least do it with dignity. Or as much dignity as a woman could manage after hiking through sewage for an hour.

She distracted herself by imagining that these caverns must be as old as the Ascendant Warrior — or even older. These tunnels had slumbered through the destruction of the world, through the Catacendre, through the rise and fall of the Final Empire. Had the stones they walked past broken loose from the ceiling during the days of the Ashmounts?

She couldn’t help wondering if they would stumble across the mythical Survivor’s Cradle — the Pits of Hathsin — though she knew that was foolish. Wax said he had been to them, and had found no magical metals of lore.

They eventually hit a particularly deep shaft down; it was essentially vertical, though with a lot of obstructions and clefts in the stone to climb on. Wayne brightened their lantern again, looking doubtful.

“We sure they came this way?” he asked in a whisper.

“Who else would have made the footprints?”

“Footprints?”

“In the dust? And near the opening, they were crusted over with sewage from boots? Seriously, Wayne, you can be remarkably oblivious for a detective.”

“You and Wax are detectives,” he said. “Not me.”

“What are you then?”

“Bullet stopper,” he said. “Skull knocker. Guy who occasionally gets exploded.”

“We’ll be doing nothing like that today,” Marasi whispered. “We will peek in, see if I’m right, then get out for clearance and support.”

“Guess we’ll be comin’ back up this way then,” he said with a sigh, then dug the climbing rope out of his canvas backpack. He found a sturdy rock formation to tie it around, then tossed the other side down into the darkness.

He started down first, then Marasi followed, rifle slung across her back. The descent proved easier than she’d feared, as the rope had knots in it. Still, her arms were soon burning.

“So,” Wayne said softly, dangling below, keeping pace with her instead of going on ahead, “wanna hear my list of ways how women break the laws of physics?”

“Depends,” Marasi said. “How misogynistic is it? Can you give me a number on some kind of scale?”

“Uh … thirteen?”

“Out of what?”

“Seventeen?”

“What kind of insane scale is that?” she whispered, halting atop a boulder and glancing down at him. “Why in the world would you pick seventeen? Why not, at least, sixteen?”

“I don’t know! You’re the one what asked me for a scale. Look, this is good. Women. Break the laws of physics. I’ve been thinkin’ on this forever. Couple days at least. You’ll like it.”

“I’m sure.”

“Way one,” he said, sliding to the next outcropping. “When they take off clothes, they get hotter. Strange, eh? Normal folks, they get colder when they take off—”

“Normal folks?” she repeated, following him. “By normal, you mean men?”

“Uh … I guess.”

“So half the world is not normal? Women are not normal?”

“It sounds a little silly when you say it like that.”

“You think?”

“Look, I just wanted to point out something interesting. Useful observationalizing ’bout the nature of the cosmere and the relationship between the genders.”

“I think you thought of something that amused you, and wanted an excuse to say it.” She landed on the little platform next to him, and below she could finally see the bottom. They were roughly halfway.

He met her eyes. “So … uh … fourteen then?” he said. “Outta seventeen.”

“And rising. It’s not even true, Wayne. Plenty of men get hotter when they take off clothing. Depends on the man.”

He grinned. “What about Allik?”

“With Allik, it’s more the mask.”

“He raises the rusting thing so often, makes you wonder why he wears it in the first place.”

“Moving the mask is like … emphasis to the Malwish. It’s not wrong to let people see under the mask, though they pretend it’s taboo — and maybe it was once upon a time. Now they like the way they can use it to express themselves.”

He swung over the side and continued down. She gave him a little space, then followed.

“So…” he said. “Want to hear number two?”

“Actually … I kind of do.”

“Ha! I thought so. Wax would have said no.”

“Wax had years to get accustomed to the depths of your depravity, Wayne. To me, it’s still remarkable how you manage to dig yourself deeper each and every time.”

“Fair enough. Number two: Ask a woman how much she weighs. Then lift her. She’ll have increased in weight. Feruchemists, every one.”

“Wayne, that joke is so tired, it slept through breakfast.”

“What. Really?”

“Absolutely. My father was making stupid cracks about women lying about their weight when I was a child.”

“Damn. Old blustering Harms made that joke?” He looked up at her with wide eyes. “Oh, hell, Marasi. Am I getting old? Was that an old man joke?”

“I have no comment.”

“Damn conners and their damn tight lips.” He reached the bottom and dropped off the rope softly, with a rustle of cloth and boots on stone, then held the rope steady for her.

She climbed the rest of the way to join him. “So, what’s number three on the list?”

“I don’t got one yet.”

“It’s a list of two items, one of which was dumb?”

“Two of which was dumb,” he said sullenly. “One was apparently also geriatric. Same jokes as Lord Harms. I’m losing my edge, I am.” He met her eyes, then grinned. “Does this mean I get to be the grumpy old one in the partnership? You can be the young spunky one what swears all the time and makes bad life decisions.”

She grinned. “Do I get a lucky hat?”

“Only if you treat it well,” he said, his hand over his heart, “and take it off before somethin’ unlucky happens, as to not break its lucky streak.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” she said, eyeing the tunnel that extended onward from the bottom of the shaft. “But let’s cut the chatter — as much as I love learning whatever has metastasized in your brain lately, we can’t afford to be overheard.”

He dimmed the lantern again and they continued along the tunnel. People at the constabulary offices gave her sympathetic looks on occasion for putting up with Wayne — but the truth was, he could be a really good constable when he wanted to. And he usually did want to.

Case in point, at her request he kept his mouth closed and concentrated on the job. Wayne could lack decorum, and could be painfully un-self-aware at times, but he was a good partner. Even excellent. So long as you got past his bubble — not his Allomantic one, but his personal one. Wayne was a fort of a man, with outer walls and defenses. If you were one of the lucky few he let in, you had a friend for life. One who’d stand with you against literal gods.

We’re going to find you, Trell, Marasi thought, creeping forward. She’d first heard that name uttered by a dying man, years ago — and she was increasingly certain Trell was a god of vast power like Harmony. You can’t hide forever. Not if you want to keep influencing the world.

Wayne grabbed her arm, stopping her without a word. Then he pointed at a tiny light shining far along the tunnel ahead. They crept the final distance, then peeked around the corner and were rewarded by the exact sight she’d been hoping for: a pair of men in vests and hats only a few feet away, playing cards on an overturned box. A small lamp flickered on their improvised table.

Marasi nodded backward. She and Wayne crept away again, far enough to not be heard whispering. She looked to him in the darkness, wondering at his advice. Should they poke forward further, or was this enough of a confirmation to go get backup?

“Tragic,” Wayne whispered.

“What?”

“Poor sod’s got a great hand,” Wayne whispered. “One in a million. And he’s playin’ against his broke buddy on guard duty? Rusting waste of a full-on Survivor’s suite…”

Marasi rolled her eyes, then pointed to a small darkened side tunnel splitting off the main one. “Let’s see where this goes.”

Behind them, a cursed exclamation echoed in the tunnels; sounded like the fellow with the good hand had just revealed it. This smaller tunnel wound around to the right of the guard post, and they soon saw why it wasn’t guarded; it hit a kind of dead end. Though some light did spill through a two-foot-wide hole in the rocks there.

They sidled up to it, then peeked through into a midsized cavern — roughly as big as a dock warehouse — full of men and women boxing goods or lounging on improvised furniture. The hole appeared to be part of the natural rock formations; dripping water from the ceiling had covered the wall with odd protrusions and knobs, covering up what might once have been a larger opening. Marasi and Wayne were maybe fifteen feet up.

She let out a long breath and surveyed the operation. It was here. Months of work. Months of promising Reddi her leads were good. Months of connecting theft records, witness accounts, and money trails. And here it was. A large-scale smuggling base set up directly underneath the city, funded by — best she could guess — a mix of Outer Cities interests and the Set.

It was actually here. By Harmony’s True Name … she’d done it.

Wayne looked to her with a wide smile on his face, then nudged her in the shoulder. “Nice,” he whispered. “Real nice.”

“Thanks,” she whispered.

“When you tell the constable-general about this,” he said, “leave out the part where I whined because of the sewage.”

“And the bad jokes?”

“Nah. Leave those in. You gotta give people what they expect, or they won’t believe your lies when you tell them.”

Marasi took in the sight. Thirty-seven people, counting the two guards, all armed. Even the menial workers wore holsters. Judging by the leads she’d been tracing, those boxes would be full of military supplies — with a frightening number of explosive components. The gang had tried to cover their tracks by making some more mundane thefts as well, but she was confident she knew what was really happening here.

Elendel had been squeezing the Outer Cities by refusing to let certain items — including weapons — be shipped out of Elendel, which was a central hub for all the train lines. This group was acting like an ordinary gang with their shakedowns and the like, but she was almost a hundred percent certain their purpose was to funnel weapons toward Bilming, current capital of Outer Cities interests.

She didn’t like the Outer Cities being forced to work this way — but these gang members had killed innocent people on the streets. Plus, they were likely collaborating with some kind of evil god bent on the subjugation or destruction of the world.

“Right, then,” Wayne whispered, pointing. “See that fellow near the back in the nice outfit? He’s a Set member for certain. Maybe the new Cycle.”

Marasi nodded. Cycle was the lowest level of real officer in the Set. They were local bosses that operated gangs of hired muscle. Miles Hundredlives had been a Cycle, reporting to the Suit above him. This man was dressed in an upscale way — visibly more decorated than the others in the cavern. He was also lean, muscular, and tall. As a Cycle, he might be Metalborn. So they’d best not underestimate him in a fight.

“You plug that fellow in the head with a nice rifle shot,” Wayne said, “and I bet the entire group will fold to us.”

“That isn’t how things work in the real world, Wayne,” Marasi whispered.

“Sure it is,” Wayne said. “If that’s the guy payin’ them, those other sods got no reason to keep fightin’.”

“Even if you were right — and I sincerely doubt you are — that’s not how we’re going to do this. Confirmation, coordination, backup, and proper authorization. Remember?”

“I try not to,” he grumbled. “Can’t we do this one my way? I got nothin’ against some blokes just doin’ their jobs, but I’d hate to hike through all that muck again, then return here and find this lot gone. Let’s bring ’em in now.”

“No,” she said. “Your way involves too much chaos.”

“That’s a bad thing because…”

“Well, there’s the whole officers of the law thing.”

“Right, right,” he said, then checked in his coat to reveal a shiny badge. It wasn’t something they used in the city, preferring their paper credentials.

“Is that … Wax’s old badge from the Roughs?” she asked.

“He traded it to me.”

“For?”

“Half a meat-’n’-ale bun.” Wayne grinned. “He’ll find it eventually. They get real hard to ignore.”

She shook her head, waving him back down the tunnel. They had to keep their lantern darkened though — and that made it difficult to see. So despite being careful, as they returned to the main tunnel they surprised a guard who had stepped that direction to relieve himself.

He glanced at them in the darkness, then shouted. Wayne had him down and knocked out half a second later, but cries of alarm sounded from the direction of the main cavern.

Still standing atop the body, Wayne looked to her and grinned again. “My way it is!”

4

There was no way for Marasi and Wayne to escape using the difficult route they’d taken to get here — not with the entire gang on their tails. Beyond that, she wanted to capture that Cycle, who would certainly vanish after this.

Unfortunately all of this meant Wayne was right. So much for protocol.

It was time to do this his way.

They burst into the main tunnel, where the other guard had his gun pointed toward them. Wayne tossed up a speed bubble, giving him and Marasi time to step aside and flank the guard.

Once the speed bubble dropped, the gangster fired into now-open space. Wayne was on him a moment later, laying into him with dueling canes. Marasi left him to it, instead picking her spot. Beyond the card table was a wide tunnel presumably leading into the main warehouse cavern. She went to one knee and raised her rifle, sighting, calming herself, waiting …

She fired the moment someone appeared from that direction. Only her training on the range prevented her from immediately trying to cycle the bolt on her gun. This was a new semiautomatic Bastion rifle, and so she kept it shouldered and downed the next person who stumbled over the falling body. Those behind called a warning, and no one dared come barreling in after that.

Wayne wiped his brow, leaving an unconscious gangster on the floor. “You got the magic boxes?”

“They’re not magic, Wayne,” Marasi said. “Malwish technology is just different but—”

“Magic boxes from your boyfriend. How many?”

“I have three Allomantic grenades,” she said. “All of the new design. And two flash-bangs. Wax charged one of the grenades for me before we left.”

“Nifty,” Wayne said. “Got a plan?”

“You hold the tunnel. I’ll go back to that overlook and toss some Allomantic grenades to catch groups of enemies, then cover you as you move in. Once you’re out of the line of fire, I’ll follow.”

“Good as done!” Wayne said, and they split, him heading toward the two people she’d dropped. There he picked up one of their handguns and fired it a bunch of times into the main chamber — not to hit, but to make those beyond take cover. His hand wobbled a little, and he tossed the weapon aside as soon as it was empty, but it was excellent progress. Not that he needed to be more deadly, she supposed.

She left him, rounding to the overlook, which made a decent sniper spot. She picked out several groups of gangsters behind nearby boxes, watching as Wayne fired a second gun.

Marasi carefully took a small metal box from the pouch on her belt. All her life she had suffered disappointment and even dismissal because of her useless Allomantic talent. She could slow time around herself, which was … well, not much use. It essentially froze her to the perspective of everyone around her — removing her from a fight, giving the advantage to her enemies.

She’d found occasional uses for it, but mostly she’d internalized the presumed truth that her abilities were weak.

Then she’d met Allik.

His people revered all Metalborn, Allomancers and Feruchemists alike. Though he’d been in awe of Wax and his flashy powers, Allik had been equally impressed with her abilities. She had one of the most useful Allomantic skills, he claimed. That had been difficult to accept, but the upshot was that if you had access to a little specialized technology, you could turn the world on its head.

Perhaps an inch and a half across, the Allomantic grenade hummed as she burned cadmium — and it absorbed her energy. She wasn’t swallowed by a bubble of slowness; with these new designs, all the power went into the box. She’d charged it earlier, but that had been hours ago and she wanted to top it off.

Then, judging the distance carefully, she tossed it toward a group of enemies who had gathered behind some boxes for cover. Her months of practice paid off; she managed to land the device right in the center of the gangsters, who — focused on Wayne — barely noticed it rolling among them.

The grenade used ettmetal, which was tightly regulated by the Malwish, so she didn’t blame the gangsters for not knowing what to do; even among the Malwish these were rare. If the men had heard of the devices — and they might have, since the Set was known to employ them — they had likely never seen one.

A second later, a bubble of slowed time popped up around the device, trapping about ten of the men and women. She quickly topped off, then threw, the second of her three grenades — this one aimed at a group of enemies farther along. Her aim was true, and she ensnared another eight.

Calls of “Metalborn!” echoed through the cavern as the rest of the gangsters noticed that over half their number were frozen. Those would move in turgid slow motion as they tried to escape the bubble — but the ten-minute charge on the grenade would run out before they managed it.

She unslung her rifle and laid down covering fire — even picking off two of those remaining — as Wayne slipped into the main chamber. He moved in a blur of speed for a moment, then popped out of his speed bubble and leaped over a cleft in the rock. It took a bit between uses for him to recover his talents and put up another bubble, but she swore that time was shrinking.

He avoided the trapped people; she and he would deal with them later. For now he took advantage of the confusion to get in close to a couple of enemies. They noticed him, but he became a blur again — then came in from above, dueling canes held high.

Their shouts of pain distracted the others, which let Marasi pick off two more. Then she dashed back around to the main tunnel. Here she glanced into the warehouse cavern, then ran in a low crouch — careful to avoid the faintly shimmering perimeter bubbles of the grenades. She knew all too well how it felt to be surrounded by that molasses air while everything around you moved like lightning.

Marasi found her own cover near some packing equipment, and as the remaining gangsters reoriented, gunfire began pounding the stone and metal around her. As a girl, she’d read all about Wax’s exploits in the Roughs — and the more she practiced her trade, the more inaccuracies she spotted. Sure, the stories mentioned gunfire. But they usually left out how loud it was when bullets struck. With them pelting the equipment around her, it sounded like she’d given little Max a set of drumsticks and let him loose in a kitchenware shop.

A second later the sounds slowed — like a phonograph playing at a fraction of normal power. The air shimmered near her, and Wayne slumped up against the equipment, a grin on his face — and a bloody wound on his shoulder.

“Sloppy,” she said, nodding to the wound.

“Hey now,” he said. “Any fellow can accidentally get shot now and then. ’Specially if he’s runnin’ around with a pair of sticks in a room with lotsa guns.”

“How much bendalloy do you have left?”

“Plenty.”

“You sure?”

“Yup.”

“Wayne, I’m proud of you,” she said. “You’re actually saving it, being frugal like I asked.”

He shrugged like it was nothing, but she was legitimately proud of him. He received an allotment from the department, and during the early days of their partnership he’d always run out on missions. She’d been planning to talk to Captain Reddi about increasing the allotment, until she’d discovered that Wayne used his bendalloy for all kinds of non-combat, non-detective work. Playing pranks, changing costumes to delight children, the occasional casual thievery …

It was good to see him doing better.

“How many idiots left?” he asked.

“Eleven,” she said.

“That’s higher than I can count.”

“Unless you’re doing shots in a drinking contest,” Marasi said.

“Damn right,” he said.

Together they peeked out from around the equipment — which was for nailing lids to crates. Wayne immediately yanked her back under cover. A bullet moving in slow motion hit the perimeter of the speed bubble, then zipped through the air above them in a flash before hitting the other side and slowing again. Bullets behaved erratically when they hit speed bubbles, and you could never tell which way they’d turn when entering one.

“Guy in the suit is escaping out the back,” Wayne said. “You want to grab him, or do you want to stay here and fight the rest of them?”

She bit her lip, considering. “We’ll have to split up,” she said. “You’re better with groups. You think you can handle this lot?”

“Aren’t most of these boxes full of stuff what goes boom?”

“Yes…”

“Sounds like fun to be had!”

“You should have another eight minutes or so on the grenades.”

“Great,” he said. “I’ll see if I can take those sods alive. I can grab them one at a time from their slowness bubbles, using my bubbles to counteract. See, I’ve been practicing, been gettin’ good at making mine bigger and smaller. Should be able to walk to the edge of one of your bubbles, put up mine in a way to overlap one person, then pull them out.”

“Wayne!” she said. “That’s amazing. Have you told Wax? It’s really hard to control the size of your bubbles like that.”

He shrugged. “You ready?”

She retrieved the flash-bangs from her pouch and handed one to him. Then she pulled the pin on the other to light the fuse. “Ready,” she said. Even if he had “plenty,” bendalloy was rare and expensive. They needed to be careful with it.

Wayne dropped the bubble, and she tossed the flash-bang. After it detonated, they scrambled out on opposite sides of the machine. Wayne went for the last group of gangsters while she dashed after the Cycle, who vanished through a reinforced metal door at the rear of the cavern. She reached it a moment later and picked the lock fairly easily. She spared a glance for Wayne — who was quickly being surrounded by enemies. He’d found cover behind a box marked EXPLOSIVES. He winked at her, then pulled the pin on his flash-bang and dropped it inside.

Delightful. Hopefully he knew what he was doing. Wayne’s healing abilities were extraordinary — but it was still possible for him to take so much damage he couldn’t heal. Any blast that separated his metalminds from the bulk of his body would leave Wayne dead, just like the Lord Ruler when he’d lost the Bands of Mourning centuries before.

Well, she couldn’t monitor Wayne all the time. And she most certainly couldn’t survive an explosion of … well, of any size. She slipped through the door and pulled it closed with a loud thump. The entire cavern complex shook a few moments later, but she focused on her task: heading into the dark cavern tunnel after the Cycle, who — among everyone in the cavern — was most likely to have answers for her.

5

Wax trudged across the floor of the Senate, and others gave him space. They seemed to not want to face him — even those who had voted with him. They turned away as he passed, stretching and chatting.

In the hall, he headed toward his chambers, crossing over inlaid floors and beneath a row of chandeliers. Crystal and marble. This was his life now. Everything he’d fled as a young man ornamented each footstep, and the shadows seemed darker now, despite the twinkling light from above.

He believed his accomplishments as a senator could far outshine his accomplishments as a lawman, in terms of the raw good done to help the most people possible. That meant his failures carried much higher stakes. In the Roughs you depended on your gun, your instincts, and your ability to ask the right questions. Here he had to depend on others to do the right thing. And so far there had been no greater test of his faith in humanity — serial killers included — than working with politicians.

He shoved into his chambers and found his family and Kath, the governess, there already. He tried not to let his displeasure show, but Max still sensed the mood, staying back with Kath and playing with his Soonie pup.

“Well,” Wax snapped, throwing himself into his seat, “there goes over a year of work.”

“We did everything we could,” Steris said, settling down beside him.

“Did we?” Wax asked, glancing at her stack of notebooks. “I know you have six of those full of new ways to try to persuade individual senators. If we’d had more time…”

“We did everything it was reasonable for us to do,” she said, “accounting for our other obligations.” Then she hesitated. “Didn’t we, Wax?”

He met her eyes, and saw she was trembling. Hell. This would be just as hard for her, wouldn’t it? Pay attention, you rusting idiot. He took her hands and squeezed them.

“We did,” he said. “We tried with everything we had, Steris. In the end though, it wasn’t our decision.”

He squeezed her hands tightly. Steris was incredibly stable — she’d been there for him ever since his return to Elendel, though he’d never imagined how much she would come to mean to him. In that moment though, he felt her shaking. And … rust him if he wasn’t doing the same himself. They’d poured so much into stopping this bill. And every single rusting senator he’d talked to had said they needed more time. Now they voted like this? Now they–

No. It’s done.

“We need to move forward,” he said.

“Yes. Forward.” She nodded, then looked around. “And maybe get out of this building for a while. Currently, all that’s going through my mind are the various ways a convenient natural disaster could turn it to rubble.”

Wax grunted, and helped Steris gather the rest of their things. As they did, Wax saw an envelope on the corner of his desk. That hadn’t been there before, had it? Picking it up, he felt something heavy slide to the corner. A bullet?

No, he discovered after slipping it open. An earring. And with it a small note. You’ll need to make a second, once the proper metal arrives.

He had no idea what that meant. And he didn’t care. Not today, Harmony, he thought. Leave me alone.

“What’s that?” Steris said.

“Something from Harmony,” Wax said.

She paused, looking at him.

“So, likely,” he added, “something useless.”

Steris drew her lips to a line. She was a Survivorist, and didn’t strictly worship Harmony, who was seen as the god of the Path — a distinct but complementary religion. Still, after all they’d done and the things he’d seen, Steris had adopted a somewhat … cross-denominational view of God. At any rate, she knew he’d once worshipped Harmony.

These days … Well, he and God had history. Wax felt he’d overcome his worst problems with Harmony, ever since their conversation directly before he’d donned the Bands of Mourning. But that didn’t stop Wax from making the occasional snide remark. Today, he shoved the envelope in his back pocket and put it out of his mind.

They packed up their things — rusts, with kids there were so many things to cart around. Steris wanted another child, but Wax worried about that. He didn’t fancy being outnumbered.

But then again … he couldn’t help smiling as Max went running down the hall, making his Soonie pup leap between black squares of marble, avoiding the white ones. Wax didn’t normally see the other senators with families; they claimed that having children in the building wasn’t respectful. But if they respected the building so much, why had they made a mockery of it with that vote?

A good number did vote as you wanted, Wax had to remind himself. And others are scared. Of being seen as weak. Of outside interests. They’re not all slag for voting against you. Remember that. There are some good ones. Same as in every profession. It was just … well, he didn’t want to think about that right now.

Outside the building, fleets of motor carriages had arrived to pick up senators. They’d drive off to parties, or appearances, or informal get-togethers. Even those who worked with Wax rarely invited him along unless they wanted to strategize. It was like they thought he was above simple socializing. Or maybe he made them uncomfortable.

As his family gathered to wait for their driver, Max tugged on his suit coat. “Is ya sad, Pa?” he asked loudly. “I hates the sads. Right bad, they is.”

The way he said it caused several nearby senators to turn their noses up and sniff. Wax cocked an eyebrow. “Has Uncle Wayne been teaching you accents again?”

“Yeah,” Max said, softer. “Says I shouldn’t tell you though, so you’d think I was a genius for doing it on my own.” He smiled. “He told me to talk like that around the senators because it’ll upset them. And they need to be upset today, don’t they? Because they made you and Mother sad?”

Wax nodded, kneeling down. “You don’t need to worry about that though.”

“Know what makes me feel better when I’m sad?” Max asked.

“Hugging Tenny?” Wax said, patting the stuffed kandra on the head.

“Well, that,” Max said, “and … um … flying?” He looked at Wax with big, hopeful eyes.

Nearby, their motorcar pulled up to the curb and Hoid, the driver, stepped out. “Your carriage, sir,” he said, holding the passenger door. But rusts, who could deny a child when he looked at you like that?

“Thank you, Hoid,” Wax said. “Please take my wife wherever she would like to go. Kath, you have the harness?”

“I do, m’lord,” she said, handing Steris the baby, then digging into the enormous bag of extra clothing and washcloths. She tossed the harness to Wax, who gave her his coat and vest in exchange.

It gave him an impish stab of glee to pull on the leather harness and strap Max to his back in front of everyone. Then, with a fond kiss for Steris — and a promise to meet her at home — he dropped a bullet casing and turned toward the crowd.

“Don’t none of you get jealous or nothin’!” Max shouted. “He can give you a ride fer cheap, if you ask real nice and stop being a pile o’ bad turds!”

Yeah … maybe Wax should have a little talk with Wayne. But for now he waved to the crowd, then launched himself into the air, Max letting out a whoop of riotous glee.

6

The tunnel Marasi entered bore signs of ancient civilization: the remnants of brick walls covering up the rough natural stone. A smooth floor, chiseled and graded. Sconces on the walls, now pocked with rust as if suffering some terrible disease.

She took out the last of her grenades, the one Wax had charged for her. These newer ones could hold a charge for hours — though by now the effect wouldn’t last long once activated. Three or four minutes at most. She still felt better holding it — and so, reluctantly, she set her rifle on the ground and instead drew her pistol. It also contained less metal than the rifle, making it a slightly better tool against a potential Allomancer. For the same reason, she left her pouch with extra metals, though she kept her belt with a few non-metal tools useful for fighting Allomancers.

Grenade and pistol in hand, she crept forward into the dim tunnel. The gang members had hooked some electric lights along the right wall, cords tied around the ancient sconces, but they flickered drowsily as if seconds from nodding off to sleep. She soon reached another vast open cavern but lingered at the entrance, crouching and inspecting the path ahead. The Cycle had come this way, and part of her wanted to scramble after him as fast as possible. The more careful part of her kept calm, watching for an ambush.

This particular cavern held a long, narrow rift running from her left to her right. An ancient stone bridge had spanned it, but it had fallen long ago — and instead a newer construction of boards and rope stretched across the perhaps sixteen-foot gap. About thirty feet of stone ground separated her from the chasm and bridge — and a tunnel in the wall on the other side continued the path forward.

She didn’t go toward the bridge though. She hesitated, still at the mouth of the chamber. These brick walls were so old. Who had built them, centuries ago? Was this like the Originator Tomb in the heart of Elendel? Had people huddled in this cavern, their walls and bridge falling, as Harmony remade the world?

Regardless, she was worried. The Cycle had seen her; her instincts said he wouldn’t just run off, his back exposed. He’d lay a trap. She looked carefully, and glimpsed a dark shape behind some rocks between her and the chasm. He was probably hoping she’d rush across the bridge, so he could shoot her from behind.

Unfortunately, as she spotted him, he rose and lifted a gun. Marasi activated the grenade — which she’d been holding close to her chest — by reflex. It let out a powerful Steelpush, ripping her pistol out of her hand and tossing it out in front of her. It fell straight into the chasm.

Her reaction had been just in time though, because the Cycle unloaded his pistol at her — and each shot missed, the bullets veering away and snapping into stone to either side of her. Marasi dashed straight at him, picking out his fine suit in the dim light. His features were more rugged than she’d expected. A thick neck, stubble on his chin.

She’d hoped he would be carrying metal, and her advance with the grenade would throw him off balance. Instead he merely lost his own pistol, which was Pushed across the chasm, hitting the wall on the other side and falling near the path over there.

Other than that, it appeared he — like Marasi — was wise enough not to keep much metal on his person.

“By the authority of the Fourth Octant Constabulary,” she said, stopping ten feet or so from him, “you are under arrest for tariff avoidance, racketeering, and the illegal transport of weapons. You’re unarmed and cornered. Do the smart thing and surrender.”

Instead he grinned. Then began to grow.

His suit had buttons along the arms, which snapped open, giving more room as his muscles expanded to ridiculous proportions. His jacket stayed on, but also expanded through clever use of unsnapping wooden buttons along the sides.

Oh, hell. A Feruchemist. He didn’t have the Terris look — but then, neither did Wayne. You couldn’t always tell.

Marasi retreated. Getting into a fistfight with someone tapping strength was a quick road to a crushed face. Instead she switched off the grenade to conserve the rest of the charge, and ran for the bridge and the gun on the other side. The Cycle lunged forward and cut her off by placing himself directly in front of the bridge. There, with a laugh, he ripped apart the ropes holding it in place.

Okay. Feruchemists weren’t like Allomancers. They couldn’t just pop a new metal charge into their mouths and keep going. Maybe she could run him out of strength.

He dropped the rope, letting the whole wooden construct collapse. “Trell has wanted you in particular, lawwoman,” he noted in a voice that seemed too high pitched for the enormous body. “So kind of you to deliver yourself to me.”

Marasi turned and dashed for her rifle. Thumping footsteps chased her, gaining on her, forcing her to throw herself to the ground just before reaching the rifle. Her move let her narrowly dodge a grab.

She rolled as he punched, hitting the ground and grunting, then raising bloodied knuckles. Feruchemical strength could be dangerous — a lot of the Metallic Arts could hurt you. Her own included. She managed to dodge the next punches as well. Fortunately for her, the Cycle didn’t seem practiced with his powers. Despite the prepared clothing, he obviously found it awkward to move and fight in this bulkier form.

What kind of Feruchemist didn’t practice with their abilities? She scrambled for her rifle, getting to her knees and half lunging, half falling to grab it. He moved first, leaping over her with a powerful bound to snatch the gun. He then snapped it clean in half and hurled the barrel at her.

She barely activated the grenade in time, which bounced the barrel back at him — but she was holding the box awkwardly. It nearly slipped from her fingers at the jolt of force from the thrown object.

Steelpushes. Force transference. The Cycle wasn’t the only one using powers they weren’t practiced with.

She turned off the box as the Cycle dodged. The barrel of her rifle bounced against the rear wall and then rolled toward her. She reached for it, thinking to use it as a club.

Unfortunately, he lunged and seized her left arm, the one holding the box. His powerful grip squeezed her flesh, and rusts, it felt like he could crush her very bones. Cursing in pain, she scrambled at her belt and the sheath there. As her eyes started to water, she brought up a small glittering weapon and stabbed him straight through the arm.

He howled and dropped her, then yanked the bloody weapon free.

“Glass dagger,” she said. “It’s a classic.”

He glared at her, then held up his arm. The bleeding wound began to heal.

Hell. Feruchemical healing? That proved it. She’d never met someone who naturally had two Feruchemical powers. He was using the forbidden art. Hemalurgy.

Marasi grabbed the rifle barrel and backed away, but their fight had positioned her so that she could only move toward the chasm. Each step took her farther from the doorway she’d come in through, where she might have been able to escape. Rusts.

She retreated, step by step, holding the barrel of her rifle in one hand, the grenade in the other. How much charge did it have left? In the chaos she hadn’t tracked how much she’d used.

The Cycle followed, sticking her knife into his belt. Then, horribly, his eyes started to glow faintly red. “Trell is choosing hosts,” he said. “Avatars, bestowed with his power. How would you like to be the accomplishment that proves I’m worthy of immortality, lawwoman? All you have to do is die.”

She continued backward, her mind racing. He didn’t seem worried he’d run out of strength anytime soon. Within moments, he had forced her up to the precipice of the chasm, near the clump of rocks he’d been hiding behind earlier. She put those between them, but they weren’t very high.

A quick glance told her that the chasm now inches behind her was at least fifty feet deep. No escape in that direction.

“You’ve backed yourself up against a pit,” he said, advancing. “Now what? Perhaps it’s time to … what was it? Do the smart thing and surrender?”

Instead she set the grenade to go off on a few seconds’ delay, then wedged it securely into a spot among the rocks. Then she gripped the barrel of her rifle under her arms and pressed it firmly against her chest.

He frowned. Then the grenade went off.

Force transference. Every Push creates an equal and opposite Push. The grenade shoved the rifle barrel, which hurled her backward with enormous force — straight across the chasm.

She smashed back-first into the wall. That was enough to stun her, but then the grenade’s charge gave out. She dropped to the ground. Safely across the chasm as she’d planned, but winded and dazed.

Through teary eyes, she saw the Cycle run and leap across the chasm. So she scrambled, half-blinded by pain, searching the dusty stone, looking desperately for the pistol …

There!

He loomed overhead, a terrible shadow, his arm raised to smash her skull. In response, she delivered three shots straight into his face. He dropped.

Oh hell, she thought, sitting up despite the pain. Wax did things like this all the time. Leaping off cliffs, jumping around and slamming into things. How on Scadrial was his body not horribly ruined by it all?

She prodded at her ribs, hoping nothing was broken. Her left shoulder protested the most, and she winced. The pain was so distracting that she had to force herself to focus. A shot to the head should stop a Bloodmaker from healing, but some part of her insisted she should check anyway.

She lurched over to inspect the corpse. And found the bullet wounds pulling closed on the man’s head, the holes in the skull resealing.

Rusting hell.

She heaved the slumped-over body onto its back and scrambled to pull her knife from his belt. He was healing from bullets to the head? Something was very wrong here. She shot him again, but that would only be temporary.

Instead, she ripped aside his shirt — revealing four spikes pounded in deep between his ribs. As she had suspected. Knife in hand, she began the gruesome work of digging the spikes out. She dug faster as she realized at least one of them was made of a strange metal with dark red spots like rust. One they’d been searching for forever.

The Cycle’s eyes snapped open, despite his broken jaw and the holes in his skull. Marasi cursed and worked faster, bloodied fingers straining to pry out the first of the four spikes, which was so tightly embedded between his ribs it was difficult to yank free.

Those eyes. They were glowing a vivid red now.

“The ash comes again,” the man said through bloody lips, his voice strangely grating. “The world will fall to it. You will get what you deserve, and all will wither beneath a cloud of blackness and a blanket of burned bodies made ash.”

Marasi gritted her teeth, working on the rusty-looking spike, slick with blood.

“Your end,” the voice whispered. “Your end comes. Either in ash, or at the hands of the men of gold and red. Gold and—”

Marasi yanked the spike out. The red glow faded and the body slumped, the healing stopping. She felt at the throat anyway, and even when she found no pulse, she dug out the other three spikes.

Then she finally leaned against the wall, groaning softly. Wayne had better have found a way to deal with those other thieves — because Marasi doubted she had the strength to lift a gun at the moment. Instead she closed her eyes, and tried not to think about that terrible voice.

7

Max called for Wax to make each leap higher, faster. The boy’s shouts of glee carried over the rushing wind and flapping clothing. And rusts if that wasn’t infectious. Wax had been a solemn child, a trend that had continued into adulthood. But even he appreciated the rush that came from a well-executed Steelpush.

The sudden explosion of speed, the moment of stillness at the zenith. The lurch in the stomach as the plummet began. It wasn’t like any other experience a man could have — at least, not and survive.

In the distance a Malwish trade ship hovered into the city, flying using their strange ettmetal devices, as the two of them bounded across the city, afforded a view that was somehow reductive and expansive at once. From up so high, you could see the octant divisions along major roadways. You could understand and feel the different neighborhoods, the crunched-up forced familiarity of the slums, the expansive yet isolated grounds of the manors.

Once, Wax had assumed this kind of experience — not just the height, but the motion while traversing the city from above — would always be reserved for Coinshots. Then the Malwish airships had taken that assumption and tossed it out a window from three thousand feet.

Regardless, something about this perspective felt like it belonged to him. This was his city. He’d returned to it, and had — over the years — come to love it. It represented the best that people could achieve: a monument to ingenuity, a home to thousands of different ideas, types of people, and experiences.

At Max’s urging he took them higher, using skyscrapers as his anchors to Push upward, back and forth, until they landed near the top of one building in particular: Ahlstrom Tower. The penthouse was their home, and Wax had picked it specifically. It was tough getting to the peak of a too-tall building with Steelpushes as your anchors ran out below. Fortunately, this one had several tall skyscrapers unusually close, and that gave him anchors to Push himself inward.

Today Wax didn’t stop at their penthouse. He took them to the roof, where there was a little built-in platform for a worker to latch on and lower window-cleaning devices. Wax settled onto it and Max unhooked, though he was still tethered to the harness by a strong cord. Wax wasn’t worried about its reliability. Steris had designed it.

Max took out a pouch of twirly-seeds and began dropping them off the side of the building, watching them go spinning down toward the busy street below. Despite the height, Wax could hear cars honking on the roadway. Six years, and there was barely a horse-drawn carriage to be seen in the arteries below. Progress here was like a wrecking crew. You moved with it or you became rubble.

The platform faced north. To his left, the shimmering waters of Hammondar Bay were a vast highway toward … well, he didn’t rightly know what. The people of the Basin weren’t explorers. For all their love of stories about Wax in his young days, or worse that fool Jak, most were content to enjoy their city. That was a problem with Elendel: it had everything you thought you’d need, so why go looking elsewhere? They hadn’t even realized there was an entire Southern Continent out there until an airship had sailed up to investigate the Basin.

Yes, there had been expeditions since then. But most people were content here, and he couldn’t blame them. His best efforts at improving life had been focused on the Basin. He didn’t know what to do about the Malwish. Six years, and he still found the suddenly expansive size of the world intimidating.

Max hopped up and down with glee, throwing out an entire handful of twirly-seeds. The boy’s fascination with heights made Kath uncomfortable — but that was what happened when, from infancy, you were often strapped to a father who found ordinary means of transportation too time-consuming.

Wax looked north toward the Roughs. Toward wonder, mystery, and a life he’d loved. He felt …

Rusts. He didn’t feel sad.

He blinked, cocking his head. Ever since his return, Elendel had felt like a duty to him. Adventure and comfort had both been outside the city, calling to him. Though things had improved over the years, he’d continued to feel it. That call. Until …

Until today. Today, he remembered the parts of his life he’d loved in the north — but he didn’t want them back. He had a life here he loved equally. Maybe more, judging by the warmth he felt as Max laughed. This … this was where he belonged. More, this was where he wanted to belong.

It felt calming to realize these things. He’d … finally stopped grieving, hadn’t he?

With a grin of his own, he scooped Max up and gave the child a powerful hug — though Max had been too wiggly, even as a baby, to stand that sort of thing for long. Soon, at the boy’s urging, they were playing a game of fetch, a variety Max had invented a few months back. Max tossed a wicker ball with a tiny metal weight at its center, then Wax tried to launch it onto the top of a nearby building. The wicker would keep it from doing damage if it fell, but the metal let him aim it. Once it was in place on a roof, they would jump over and retrieve it.

Max threw, but Wax struggled to get the ball to go far enough. “Toss it higher,” he suggested to Max once they’d recovered it.

“If I throw it up,” Max complained, “it will come down on our heads. I want to go onto that building over there.”

“Height first,” Wax said. “Trust me. The higher you throw it, the farther I can get it to fly.”

Max tried again. With more height to the throw, Wax was able to land the ball on the rooftop Max wanted. Then they leaped after it. He wondered what the people in the neighboring skyscrapers thought of the frequent sight of a senator shooting past their windows with a child strapped to his back.

Unfortunately, the fun of the game could only distract him for so long. They’d been playing for half an hour when he topped a building and was confronted by an awesome sight. The Malwish ship he’d seen earlier had come closer.

The wooden construction, moved by giant fans, loomed in the air over Elendel. Wax had seen Basin attempts to design their own airships using helium or hot air. But the size of the cabin those ships could lift — in the most optimistic of projections — was nothing compared to what the Malwish could field. Their ship soared, a fortress in the sky.

This was no trade ship as he’d thought earlier. It was a warship. A show of force, though not an overtly hostile one — as it was approaching slowly and low in the sky. It was meant to make a statement, not a threat.

So, with Max strapped securely back into place, Wax launched them into the air toward the vessel, intent on finding out what was going on.

8

Marasi eventually managed to find a service ladder to get her down into the chasm and back up the other side. Worn out, she approached the main chamber, shaken by what she’d heard and been forced to do. But she carried a small book of numbers and shipping dates she’d found on the corpse, and that looked promising.

She also carried something more dangerous. Four spikes. Curiously, the red-spotted one did not like touching the others — it pulled away from them if brought close. So she’d wrapped it in a bundle of cloth and kept them in separate pockets.

She stumbled through the reinforced metal door and found a scene of utter chaos. A large blast had set off several other explosions, judging by the scars on the ground. The cavern was littered with shrapnel, pieces of equipment, and an alarming number of bodies.

Wayne squatted in the center of it all, his clothes ripped, playing cards with a whole group of tied-up gangsters. He had their cards laid out on the floor in front of them — though their hands were tied behind their backs.

“You sure you want to lead with that one, mate?” Wayne asked, nodding at the card one of the men had tapped with his toe.

“It’s the high card,” the fellow said.

“Yeah, but are you sure,” Wayne said, eyeing his own hand.

“Um … I think so.”

“Damn,” Wayne said, laying down his hand. “I play three eights on the back of the nines. You win.”

“But…” another of the men said, “you know our hands … Why would you play it that way?”

“Gotta pretend I can’t see your cards, friends,” Wayne said. “Otherwise, where’s the sport in it? Cheatin’s one thing, but if I can just see what you’re going to do, then … well, might as well be playin’ with myself. And there are much funner ways to do that.”

Marasi stumbled up. He had fifteen of them in various states of captivity. Exactly as he’d said, he’d been able to use his speed bubble to counteract her slowness bubble and grab them one at a time. His control over his powers was increasingly impressive.

She wasn’t surprised he’d taken so many captive — Wayne preferred not to kill. It was something they agreed on. As for the card game, well … at this point his antics barely shocked her. She settled down on the remnant of a broken crate. “Wayne, I could have used your help.”

“By the time I had these chaps all trussed up,” Wayne said, “you already had that fellow in the suit down. I saw you restin’, and it seemed best to give you some time.”

She hadn’t even noticed. Rusts, her shoulder still hurt. She grimaced, looking around the room.

“So, uh,” Wayne said, “damn. Did you turn to cannibalism or something?”

Marasi looked down at her uniform, which was covered in blood. “Cannibalism? That’s where your mind went?”

“One sees a lady covered in blood,” Wayne said, “and it goes to a natural place: wonderin’ if maybe she feasts on the livers of the people what she defeated. Not that I’m judging.”

“Not judging?” Marasi said. “Wayne, that’s absolutely something you should judge someone for.”

“Right. Shame on you, then.”

She sighed. “Here I was thinking that I was finally used to your Wayne-ness.” She proffered the spikes, each six inches long with a thick head — save for the smallest, most interesting one, which was narrow and thin, barely four inches long. “I dug these out of the Cycle’s body. He would have come back to life, healing himself, if I’d left them in.”

“How?” he said. “It don’t work that way.”

“Did for him. This other spike might be why.”

“Is that…”

“Trellium?” she said. “Yes. It has to be.”

Wayne whistled softly. “We should celebrate. You save any liver for me?”

She gave him a flat stare, at which he just grinned. “We don’t eat people,” she said to the captives. “He’s just joking.”

“Aw, Marasi,” Wayne said. “I’ve been workin’ on my reputation with these blokes.”

“We broke into their cavern,” she said, “defeated their leader, blew up most of their goods, killed half of them and captured the rest. I think your reputation is fine.” She narrowed her eyes, noticing that all of the captives were barefoot. “Dare I ask why you took off their shoes?”

“Shoelaces,” Wayne said, and she glanced at their bound hands. “Old Roughs trick when you don’t have enough rope.” He nodded to the side, and the two of them stepped away to talk in private. “That’s a lot of captives, Marasi, and shoelaces aren’t going to hold them real well. Any moment now, one of them will pop out a knife I missed — or worse, a gun. So…”

“Instant Backup?” she asked.

“Rusts, I love that code name.”

“As long as it gets me to a bath sooner, I’m for it. There should be a way up to the city through the door I used — and there’s a ladder to the right, inside the chasm.” She paused. “Check on the body for me? I have this terrible premonition that I missed a spike and he’ll come looking for me.”

“Got it,” Wayne said. He surveyed the room. “Nice work.”

“We blew the place up and killed the guy who had the most information.”

“We survived,” Wayne said, “stopped a gang of miscreants, protected the city, denied our enemies resources, and recovered some important metals. In my book we did a rustin’ good job. You’re too hard on yourself, Marasi.”

Well … maybe she was. It was the sort of thing you learned, growing up as she had. So she nodded and let herself take the compliment, feeling some weight lift from her. Wayne jogged off, and she walked back to the tied-up gang of thugs, pistol held in a deliberately threatening way.

Judging by how they looked at her, she didn’t need to do much to intimidate them. “You’re the lucky ones,” she said — mostly to distract them. “You’re going to be treated fairly. So long as no one does anything stupid.” She fished in her pocket, ignoring the book she’d taken from the Cycle for now, instead pulling out a notebook that was only slightly coated in blood. “I have a list of rights here I’m going to read to you. Listen carefully, so you know what options and legal protections will be available to you.”

She opened the notebook and burned cadmium, tossing out a bubble of slowed time that covered them all. Hopefully they’d be distracted by her lecture, because if they were watching the perimeter they’d see the smoldering fires wink out too quickly.

That was probably the extent of the clues; there weren’t as many tells in a cavern as there would be outside, where the motion of the sun, falling leaves, or passing bystanders would indicate exactly what was happening. As the minutes passed in slowed time for Marasi and the gangsters, Wayne would be jogging to the constabulary to get backup.

Marasi finished her recitation, then did a slow walk around the captives, pistol at the ready, metal burning within her. A few of them stilled as she passed; they’d been trying to work out the knots in their bindings. Wayne was right. This many captives presented a potentially volatile situation. Hopefully backup would come quickly.

For now though, she let herself think about the Cycle, whose dying words reminded her of what Miles Hundredlives had said when he had died. One day, the men of gold and red, bearers of the final metal, will come to you. And you will be ruled by them.

She touched the trellium spike in her pocket.

The ash comes again, the Cycle had said today.

That couldn’t be true. The Catacendre had marked the death and rebirth of the world. Ashfalls were a thing of myths and old stories. Not something of these days, with their electric lights and petrol-powered autos. Right?

She shivered and glanced toward the door at the back of the cavern, eager to spot more constables. It was a relief when a blur indicated someone arriving. Marasi almost dropped the speed bubble, then paused as she saw it was only one person. Who was this? Wayne? The blurred figure zipped up to the perimeter of the bubble and stood there for a moment.

That gave Marasi just enough time — an eyeblink really — to pick out a female figure in dark clothing, a black cloth mask over her face. Not like a Malwish mask; more like one a thief might use, prowling in the night. She was slender, with straight black hair. Her eyes seemed to meet Marasi’s, then she became a blur again.

Perhaps Marasi could have dropped the bubble, but it was over too quickly. Indeed, as she was still trying to sort through what had happened, a host of other blurs in constable brown entered the room. A second later, Wayne jumped into the slowness bubble. He activated his own powers and the two canceled each other out, creating a pocket of normal time around them.

Rust, could she get that good with her bubbles? Her schedule was so constrained that such experiments seemed impossible, but still … it was remarkable. And surreal, that she was now unaffected by her own slowness bubble. She turned back toward the frozen gangsters, one of whom had managed to untie himself and was trying to sneak away.

“You arrived just in time,” Marasi said, noting the constables gathered around the bubble with nets and ropes. “Wayne … did you pass anyone on your way in?”

“No,” he said, frowning. “Why? Your corpse is still out there, dead as when you deadified him.”

“There was someone in here a moment ago,” she said. “Maybe fifteen minutes ago regular time? She inspected us, then fled.”

“Bizarre,” he said. “You still have those spikes?”

She checked her uniform’s pockets; three spikes on one side, one on the other, and they hadn’t been disturbed. “Yes. Ready for the bubble to go down?”

He nodded and they dropped their bubbles, letting Marasi shout orders to the constables. They moved in methodically, taking the man who’d been about to escape, tightening the bonds on the others. Constable medics checked the dead just in case, and others moved in to gather evidence. Well, the evidence Wayne hadn’t detonated.

“Come on,” Wayne said. “They can handle this. We should show Wax what we found.”

“Well, after some cleaning up,” she said. “Judging by how you smell, Wayne, I don’t want to know how I smell. But yes. We need to talk to Waxillium.”

About more than just the spikes. About glowing red eyes, and cryptic deaths. You will get what you deserve, and all will wither beneath a cloud of blackness and a blanket of burned bodies made ash. She left the scene to the other constables, following Wayne as he led the way out.

9

A warship’s arrival was certainly an event, but not an unprecedented one. They visited now and then, with permission.

Even its low altitude, unfortunately, was higher than Wax could reach with his Allomancy. He’d need a metal anchor of incredible size to Push himself that high — either that or he’d need … well, metals he no longer had access to.

There had been a time when he’d borne them all. A transcendent flash of incredible strength — as if he’d touched the Well of Ascension itself. But it was best not to dwell too long on his experience with the Bands of Mourning, lest he make all other moments seem dull by comparison.

Today, he made himself known by leaping up in a few high bounds near the ship. They sent a small skimmer down to collect him and Max, giving them medallions to decrease their weight, though Wax didn’t need one. It intimidated the masked Malwish airmen when he handed his back — a reminder that he was Twinborn.

Of the five different nations that made up the Southern Continent, the Malwish — these people — were the ones Wax had interacted with the most. They were the only nation that had sent an ambassador to Elendel. And increasingly, all official interactions with the South went through them. From what he’d been able to gather, these last six years had shaken up Southern Continent politics even more than they had Basin politics. Once-tempestuous rivalries had stilled, and unity had been forged. Why squabble with one another when there were actual devils to the north who might invade at any moment? Never mind that Wax’s people couldn’t even make airships yet.

A few minutes later the skimmer — which was shaped a little like an open-topped flying fishing boat — docked with the larger ship. Max was unstrapped by now and stood patiently, holding Wax’s hand. Getting to board a real airship was so exciting that Wax could feel him trembling. Indeed, as they stepped onto the main ship — into a corridor made of dark wood, the walls bowing outward at the center like a tube — Max saluted the person waiting for them.

The man was the captain, judging by his intricate mask. Wooden, but carved and inlaid with six different metals in a pattern around the eyes. The man glanced at the child but made no move to salute back, as the constable officers cheekily did when Max saluted them. He didn’t raise his mask either.

“Honored Metalborn,” the captain said, nodding to Wax, “and … unless I miss my guess, Honored Once-Bearer of the Bands?”

“That’s me,” Wax said.

“And also taker of the Bands, which should have been restored to their rightful people.”

“Also me. I delivered them to the kandra, as agreed — to be held so that no nation could control them or their power. If you need to be reminded.”

They were silent for a few moments, staring at one another.

“I am Admiral Daal,” the man said — sounding reluctant. “Welcome to my former ship, Blessed Thief.”

“Former?” Wax asked.

“I’ve been chosen to be the new ambassador from the Malwish Consortium to your nation.”

Malwish … Consortium? It seemed the unification of the South had been completed. “What about Jonnes?” Wax asked.

“She will be returning home,” Daal said. “It has been determined that she has been too … familiar.”

Wonderful. A political shift indeed. It was probably best not to say too much more than simple pleasantries, to avoid inflaming tensions by accident. “Then let me be the first senator to welcome you to the Basin,” Wax said. “I look forward to continued peace and favorable trade between our nations.”

“Favorable?” Daal said. “For you, perhaps.”

“We’ve both benefited. You’ve had access to our Allomancers.”

“Limited access,” he said. “Far too limited compared to the rich accommodations you have received.”

“Three skimmers?” Wax asked. “A handful of medallions? All essentially useless without the ability to maintain them on our own or create more.”

“Surely you don’t expect us to give up the means of our production? One sells the goods, not the factory.”

Every time they tried to get more information on medallions from people in the know, they got stonewalled. Obviously these were Malwish trade secrets, which explained part of it, but interviewing Allik they were able to consistently pick out discrepancies in what he said and what they actually saw. Why weren’t there Feruchemical soldiers in the Malwish army with extremely heightened strength, mental speed, or other dangerous Feruchemical talents? Why weren’t there Allomancer medallions? The more they learned, the more certain Wax became that there was a secret there, indicating the medallions were not as effective or as versatile as the Malwish would like people to believe.

Right, Wax thought. About not inflaming tensions by accident … He was quiet, staring at the admiral. Air as tense as a midday duel.

Then Max tugged his sleeve. “Uh … Dad?”

“Yes?” Wax said, not looking down.

“I need the potty.”

Wax sighed. Tense diplomatic situations were not improved by the presence of a five-year-old. But it could have been worse — he could have brought Wayne instead.

“Is there one available?” Wax asked Daal.

“He can wait.”

“Do you have children, Ambassador?”

“No.”

“Five-year-olds do not wait.”

After another tense moment, the admiral sighed and spun on his heel, leading the way past masked sailors. Wax followed with his son. Years spent near Allik and others from the South had taught Wax to be comfortable around those masked faces. It was still hard to not feel intimidated by that line of shadowed eyes. Not a one speaking, not a one lifting their mask. Wax had laughed and drunk with Malwish in the past, but this crew seemed a different class entirely.

Daal presented the restroom with a gesture.

“Wow!” Max said, peeking in, the electric light flickering on inside. “It’s so small. Like it’s made for me!”

“Quickly, son,” Wax said.

Max closed the door and hummed softly as he did his business. Wax stood with the admiral, feeling awkward. He actually found himself wishing for Wayne, who had a way of breaking tension like this — by creating a different variety of tension entirely. One which allowed you and your presumed antagonist to share a moment of mutual embarrassment, maybe even understanding.

I wonder if he does that on purpose, Wax thought. It was hard to tell with Wayne. At times he seemed deeply insightful. He inevitably ruined that impression. But you couldn’t help wondering …

“The Bands of Mourning,” Daal said. “They are safe, yah?”

“I assume so,” Wax replied. “I haven’t seen them since we delivered them.”

“I passed the gun emplacements at the city perimeter,” Daal said. “I’ve been told about those. The maximum range straight up is what, a thousand feet? Maybe two?”

Wax didn’t respond. It was a little more than that, but … honestly not much, at least not straight upward, despite what propaganda would claim. And though the skimmers that had been delivered to the Basin had a maximum altitude of around fifteen hundred feet, he knew that some Malwish ships could sail so high that the air grew thin and men would die if they remained there too long.

“One wonders,” Daal said, “what would have happened if our people had met during a more … warlike era. Why, one quick bombing campaign and your city would fold like an old flag.”

“Fortunate,” Wax said, “that we met now instead.”

The admiral turned toward him, eyes peeking out through metal-encrusted holes. “What would you have done?” he asked. “If we had simply attacked?”

“I don’t know,” Wax said. “But I think you’d have had a harder time of it than you believe.”

“Curious, how often your papers repeat the same lines,” Daal said. “Boasts about the kandra assassins and Allomancer soldiers. When I know that your demon immortals can’t kill. And your Allomancers? Tell me, how did you reach this ship? By your own power, or…?”

What a delightful individual.

“Of course,” Daal said, “we don’t live during such … brutal times. I am not here to start a war, Honored Twinborn. Do not look so offended. But I represent many among us who feel your people have taken advantage of our … lenient nature. In particular with the Bands of Mourning. They are ours, and should reside with us.”

Wax wanted to leap to arguments. Explain the Bands had been found in Basin territory. That they’d been created by someone from the North, not the South. That a deal had been fairly agreed. But this man was baiting him, and — whatever he’d done in the past — Wax didn’t speak for Elendel. He was only one representative out of many.

He refused to be goaded. “Then,” he said, “that is a discussion you may have with the governor and our legislature. And perhaps with God.”

The masked admiral regarded him, saying no more. But rusts, if tensions were getting worse …

This is the absolute worst time, Wax thought with frustration. With the Supremacy Bill passed, there was a real chance the Basin would crumble as a political entity. How would the South respond to that? Daal said he didn’t want war, but what if the South saw the Basin as easy pickings?

Their initial encounters had wowed the Southerners. A northern land full of Metalborn and walking myths? But the longer they’d interacted, the more each side had recognized the ordinary nature of the other. Myths became men. And every society knew how to kill other men.

Max finally came out, holding up his wet hands to prove he’d washed them. Daal marched them back down the corridor, where Wax strapped his son into the harness again.

“It is good to meet you, Ladrian,” the ambassador said. “Good for me, yah? It shows which stories I should believe.”

“And which are those?”

“The true ones, of course,” Daal said, and gestured for one of his airmen to open the doors, revealing the city below. “I trust my time here will be profitable. Good day, Senator.”

With a sigh, Wax threw himself out of the airship — accompanied by a whoop from Max, who seemed to consider this encounter the highlight of an absolutely wonderful day.

Wax slowed them carefully with some Pushes, then sent them through a series of quick leaps back to Ahlstrom Tower. The penthouse had a landing platform, and moments later the two of them burst into their suite — Wax carefully locking the door behind them.

Steris was putting Tindwyl down for her nap, but walked out to the front room a short time later — to find Max playing with a puzzle while Wax mixed himself a drink.

“Mother!” Max said, looking up. “I got to poop on an airship!”

“Oh!” she said, with the enthusiasm for the topic only a mother could muster. “That’s exciting!”

“I got some strange toilet paper!” he said, lifting it up. “It’s white instead of brown! Traded for it just like Uncle Wayne says!”

“Oh. And what did you leave in exchange, dear?”

“Well,” he said, “you know…”

“Right. Of course.” Steris joined Wax behind the bar, slipping her hand around his waist. “What happened?”

“New ambassador,” Wax said. “Doesn’t much like us. Wants the Bands back. Made some vague threats.”

“Delightful day for that,” she said.

“You were right about the unification timetable,” Wax said. “The ambassador will announce a new consortium of states under the Malwish banner.”

“That won’t help our work,” Steris said. “The Elendel Senate will see today’s bill as building a nation out of squabbling cities, a counterpoint to Malwish imperialism.”

“Conquest by another name,” Wax said, nursing his drink. He’d occasionaly disparaged Elendel whiskey … but the truth was, some of the stuff you could get here was fantastic. Strong flavored, smoky and complex. He’d come to like it better than Roughs varieties — and it was far, far better than whatever Jub Hending had made in his tub, which peeled off layers of skin as a punishment for drinking it. He did still miss good Roughs beers though.

“Well, I do have some potentially good news,” Steris said, slipping a letter out of her pocket — she refused to wear skirts without them, no matter how fashionable they were. “It came while you were away.”

He slipped the card out.

They shared a look.

“Do we bring Max or not?” Wax asked softly.

“How likely is it to involve explosions?” Steris asked.

“With us, you never can tell…”

“He stays here with Kath, then. His history tutor is coming anyway.”

Wax nodded. “I’m going to wash up, and then we can leave.”

10

Marasi felt about a thousand times better when she arrived at the Fourth Octant Constabulary headquarters, showered and cleaned up, wearing her preferred uniform of a vest and jacket over a calf-length skirt.

As a special detective, she technically wasn’t required to be in uniform, but she usually wore one anyway. The uniform was a symbol. It meant she represented something bigger than herself: the people of the Basin and the good of all. The uniform comforted those who saw her — at least those who were happy to have a constable around. And if it gave warning to those who were up to something, then that was part of the reason for the law.

As she entered, younger constables in the main headquarters room lowered their reports and conversations hushed, all eyes turning to Marasi. Then came the applause.

Rusts, that always felt so weird. You weren’t supposed to be applauded by your coworkers, were you? More than one new constable — most of them women — watched her with wide eyes as she passed. Marasi knew that she had specifically inspired both Wilhelmette and Gemdwyn to join up last year.

That left her conflicted. On one hand, she’d rather the broadsheets stop writing stories about her. On the other hand, if it was inspiring other women …

Either way, she was glad to stride into the back rooms, passing the offices of the higher-ranked constables. Even a few of these called out congratulations. She stopped and chatted with a few, asking after their own investigations. Though she just wanted to be on with her work, this was important too. You never knew when you’d need another constable’s expertise.

Besides. It was good to have friends among her peers. Finally.

Eventually she neared Reddi’s office. She passed Constable Gorglen on his way out — the tall man’s head almost brushed the ceiling. He nodded to her and made way, and she found Reddi inside the large rear office, frowning at his desk. His drooping mustaches had greyed in recent years, and she knew the uniform of the constable-general weighed on him. He was more politician than officer these days, spending half his time in meetings with the city leaders.

“Constable Colms,” he said, scratching his chin. “Can you make any sense of this?” He showed her the drawing, which proved to be a crude sketch of Constable Gorglen as a giraffe hiding in a constable’s uniform. It said Approved by Expert Types at the bottom.

“I’ll talk to Wayne,” she promised.

Reddi sighed, then slipped the paper into a very large folder on the corner of his desk — the one where he kept complaints about Wayne. Reddi had evidently stopped returning it to the cabinet.

“I’m sorry, sir,” she said.

“Sorry?” he asked. “Rusts, constable. Sorry? How many people did you two bring in today? At any rate, don’t apologize for him — I’ve got a feeling if you weren’t keeping Constable Wayne in check, this folder would be ten times as thick.”

She smiled. “He does do best when channeled toward … productive activities.”

Reddi grunted, picking up another folder. “Don’t tell him this, but his imitation of me is amusing. Though you should know, those two men with the bowler hats were looking for him again.”

“Any idea who they are?” she asked.

“Some accounting firm, probably their collections department,” Reddi said. “It … seems Wayne owes money to some important people this time, Marasi. The kind of people that even I can’t dissuade.”

“I’ll figure it out,” she said with a sigh. Harmony’s Bands … she hoped Wayne hadn’t stolen something truly valuable.

“I’ll leave that to you then.” Reddi rapped the folder with his knuckles. “The governor has been breathing down my neck asking for evidence the Outer Cities were siphoning off weapons, and you provided it. Thank you, Marasi. Really.”

“I hope to deliver even more, sir,” she said. “I have a notebook from their leader, and it has some interesting shipping manifest information.” She pulled the book out, then held it open to show him. “We’ll want to make copies, get it through research and code cracking in case I’ve missed something, but I’ve already read some curious things.”

She tapped a list near the front. “This,” she said, “is a series of tests the Cycle was overseeing to determine what can be shipped into Elendel without being stopped by customs or raising red flags with inspection agents.”

“Wait,” Reddi said. “Into Elendel?”

“Exactly,” Marasi said.

“It’s not illegal to ship things into Elendel,” he said. “This group was breaking the law by smuggling things out.”

“Which is why this is so intriguing,” she said. “The shipping list is all very mundane, too. Foodstuffs, lumber … but they’ve noted which ones were inspected, which package sizes were suspicious, all of that.”

“I find this … vaguely unnerving,” he said. “I don’t have any idea what it means, and that’s even worse.”

“I’m going to dig into it,” Marasi promised. “For now, I’ll get some of these other pages copied by the scribes. They’ll give you hard evidence that the explosives and weapons we found today were going to be smuggled to Bilming. That shipment was leaving the city, as have many others.” She hesitated. “I’ve had an idea.”

“Go on…”

“I’ll need authorization to work outside the city for a while … and if possible, we need to keep this news from the press for a few days. That means quieting the other constables. I know it will be hard, but it will help me chase down the people these men were going to supply.”

“What are you planning?”

“According to this book, someone in Bilming is expecting a shipment soon. Weapons, explosives, and … food.”

“That matches what we found in the cavern,” Reddi said, looking at the initial reports. “Lots of food.”

That was curious. Why would they be smuggling dried foods to the Outer Cities? Were these soldier or sailor rations?

“Regardless,” Marasi said, “the Set tends to run silent in times like this. I didn’t see any radio equipment down there — they were deep enough that a signal couldn’t get out anyway. So our enemies probably don’t know their team has fallen. Which means…”

“… We could send in the shipment,” Reddi said. “And perhaps capture the people who are behind all of this.”

“Or at least move one step farther up the chain.”

“They’d be expecting to meet with one of their own,” Reddi said, rubbing his chin. “We couldn’t maintain the subterfuge for long.”

“Well, sir,” Marasi said, “we do have the Cycle’s corpse.”

“There are a lot of people who don’t believe in this shadowy organization you’re chasing, Colms,” he said. “You know that, right?”

“What do you believe, sir?”

“All those people we interviewed six years ago were certainly up to something,” he said. “I’m still not a hundred percent sure it wasn’t merely an Outer Cities plot — and the idea of some kind of evil god doesn’t sit well with me. But honestly, I’ve learned not to bet against you.”

“You do have to admit,” Marasi said, “at the very least, that Waxillium’s uncle was involved in some kind of paramilitary group.”

“Yes,” Reddi said, “and someone assassinated him in prison — along with the others who followed him. If you say that was the Set, I believe you. But I need you to be aware — the governor and his people want our official focus to be on the Outer Cities and the threat they present to Elendel supremacy, not on some secret society that might be pulling their strings.”

“Understood, sir,” she said. “But I think this could accomplish both goals. Most of the people we caught were common street thugs — not actual Set members. I’ll bet the only one down there who had any real contact with the Set was the man who had this book. It mandates radio silence from inside the city, to not be overheard, in the days leading up to a drop-off — so no one in Bilming is expecting to hear from him. I believe we can surprise them. Particularly since we have that corpse.”

“Wait,” Reddi said, “how does a corpse help us?”

“I figured I’d ask Harmony to lend us a kandra to imitate the dead man for the operation. Wayne could be a generic lackey, speaking with a Bilming accent, to help shore up the subterfuge.”

“Oh. Um. Right.” Reddi got uncomfortable when she implied she was close with Harmony — and doing so was a little cheeky on her part, since she’d never met him herself. She knew Death far better than she knew God.

Regardless, Reddi didn’t like being involved with the kandra — Faceless Immortals had made him uncomfortable ever since the business with Bleeder. He’d probably prefer she did her thing and didn’t mention how. But, well, she wanted everything to be on the up-and-up.

The department deserved to know how she got her results — she didn’t accomplish them without things like Malwish tech on loan from Allik, or access to Faceless Immortals. She’d originally hoped that by making all this clear, her reputation would drop to more reasonable levels. She’d been wrong. Still, that had its advantages.

“My reform suggestions?” Marasi asked. “About how we police slums, and the proper training of constables? How is that going?”

“The other constables-general have agreed to the articles,” he said. “All but Jamms, but I think after today he’ll listen. Just need to get the governor to sign off on the ideas.” He narrowed his eyes. “I like this shipment plan of yours. Get me a detailed proposal.”

“Will do, sir. We’ll need to move quickly.”

“You will have the full support of the department,” Reddi said. “The governor is going to be so pleased with today’s results that I can all but guarantee you extra funding if your operation requires it. I’ll wait for that proposal, but in the meantime I’ll have some people get to work on replacing the supplies that were destroyed today.”

“Thank you, sir,” she said, taking a deep, satisfied breath.

“Something wrong, constable?” he asked.

“No, sir,” she said. “Just … appreciating the path I’ve walked, and where it’s led me.”

“Appreciate it on your own time, constable!”

She eyed him, and he returned a rare grin.

“It’s the sort of thing I’m supposed to say,” he explained. “The governor likes it when I’m gruff. Fits his expectations better, I suppose. Oh, before I forget. Constable Matieu says you had something specific you wanted to show me? Something that’s not in the reports. Was that the book?”

“That and a little more, sir,” she said, taking the spikes from her shoulder bag. “I want you to turn these three in to the scientists at the university.” She held up the thinner fourth one. “I’m going to keep this one for a bit though.”

“Ruin…” Reddi whispered. “Is that … atium?”

“No, though it’s nearly as mythical. We think it’s trellium, a metal from offworld.”

He eyed her. Talk of other worlds didn’t sit right with him either, and she suspected he’d never fully accepted what she said about Trell.

“Isn’t that the stuff they used to blow up the prison?” Reddi asked.

“I don’t know if I believe that story,” Marasi said. “There’s no proof Wax’s uncle had any of this on him.”

“Still,” Reddi said, “be careful with that. If it’s half as bad as ettmetal…”

“I’ll be careful,” she said. “I plan to deliver it to Lord Ladrian for study.”

Reddi grunted. “I thought he was retired.”

“Depends,” Marasi said, tucking the trellium spike back into her shoulder bag. “For this, you should consider him on the case.”

“Well, I never revoked his constable privileges.” Reddi wiped his brow with his handkerchief. “Just try to keep him from … causing any incidents. When he’s involved, things tend to get … unsettling.”

“I’ll do what I can, sir.”

“He doesn’t have any other hidden apocalyptic family members or half-sane wives with mystical powers, does he?”

“If any show up, I’ll have him file a report. And maybe move confrontations with them to next quarter, for budgetary reasons.”

Reddi smiled. “I’m glad you’re out there, Colms. Not just for my career. I’m glad there’s someone rational around, to … you know, balance the insanity. Go. Chase your mysteries, and let me know what you need.”

She nodded, feeling a deep satisfaction as she left his office and walked back down the hallway. She had achieved so much — both in life and in this case. She had done it; she’d arrived.

And is this all? She tucked that annoying thought away and hurried to the commissary, where she grabbed a sandwich and began stuffing it down. She didn’t have long until her meeting with Wax. Still, Marasi was only halfway done when the cleaning lady came to take her tray.

“Actually, I still have half,” Marasi said, holding up the rest of her sandwich.

“Thanks,” the lady said, taking the sandwich from Marasi’s hand and taking a bite. “I was hungry.”

“Wayne,” Marasi said with a sigh, looking closer at his face. “What are you doing?”

“Hidin’ from those bean counters.”

“The two men with the suits and bowlers?” Marasi said. “They bothered Captain Reddi about you again, Wayne. Who do you owe money to this time?”

“None of your business,” he said around another bite of her sandwich. One might have thought he’d look silly in a serving woman’s apron and cap, but — with the fake breasts — he wore it well. Wayne could never be accused of poor fashion sense. Just poor taste.

“I think it is my business,” Marasi said.

“No, it ain’t,” Wayne said. “I’ll make sure they don’t bother old Reddi no more. You contacted Wax?”

“I sent him a note. Meeting at three o’clock.”

“Then why are we wasting time playin’ dress-up?” Wayne said. “We got work to do!”

11

Wax landed at the front doors to Ladrian Mansion, his ancestral home. Steris let go of his waist — as always, she’d clung to him with a death grip while flying, but had worn a gleeful grin the entire time.

They walked up the steps, and Wax undid the locks with a few Steelpushes in a specific sequence, causing the door to swing open before them. Others could use a set of keys, but few occupied the place any longer. The staff had moved to the tower along with Wax and Steris. These days the place had a single tenant, who stayed there off and on.

Wax called out, “It’s just us, Allik!”

Aside from giving the Malwish man a place to stay, the mansion had — over the years — undergone a small transformation. Space in the Ahlstrom Tower penthouse was tight, so Wax and Steris kept their projects and hobbies here.

Upstairs, Steris had three rooms for her ledgers, notebooks, and catalogues — which she liked to look through in her spare time. The things she thought they’d need — delivered these days via mail order — might have overwhelmed a lesser household. However, having repeatedly benefited from her preparations, Wax didn’t feel he had reason to object.

Steris went to the washroom to fix her hair after the flight, but Wax paused next to the door, where a pair of long Roughs dusters hung on the wall. One was white, and the other — his old one — was sliced into two layers of thick ribbons. A mistcoat. Each coat had a Roughs hat on a peg above it. It wasn’t quite a shrine. Because one of the people it represented wasn’t dead; he’d just moved on to a different kind of adventure. Still, Wax paused, kissed his fingertips, then pressed them to the wood beneath Lessie’s hat. Again, it wasn’t quite a ritual. It was merely something he did.

A moment later, a masked head popped out above the banister on the second level. “Oh, hi!” Allik said. His current mask was bright red, with flakes of yellow paint radiating from the center. It always made him look eager, like his face was sweating sunlight. Then he raised it, and his toothy grin beamed even more brightly.

For all his short, spindly figure and somewhat embarrassing beard, Allik was a force to be reckoned with. At least when it came to his pastries.

“A new batch is almost done!” he called to Wax. “O Hungry One!”

“Don’t start that again, Allik,” Wax snapped. “And I didn’t come here because I’m hungry.”

“But you’ll still eat, yah?”

“Yah,” Wax admitted.

“Great!” He slammed his mask back down and disappeared into his room on the second floor, where he kept the fireplace running overtime. He’d had an oven installed as well, because the Malwish could never have too much heat. He was technically a “junior goodwill ambassador” to the Basin, a title he’d earned two years ago by being willing to take up semipermanent residence in Elendel. Wax had been glad to see it. Allik had been fooling no one with his constant “coincidental” trips up here to see Marasi.

Besides. His pastries were … well, they were really good.

Marasi and Wayne were apparently running late, so Wax went to brew some tea while Steris fetched “a few” of her ledgers from upstairs. She came wobbling back balancing some two dozen of them, then plopped down on a couch in the sitting room. Wax gave her a cup of tea, then — frowning — went looking for the source of an odd smell.

He’d just found half an old meat bun in the pocket of his mistcoat when a dog came trotting in through the front door. A large grey-and-white short-haired animal that almost reached Wax’s waist.

“Hey,” it said with a feminine voice. “Did you bring Max?”

“No,” Wax said. “I wanted to run some experiments, and you know how those get.”

“Explody?” the dog — MeLaan — asked. “Well, damn. I kept this body on for no good reason.”

“Do you actually like playing fetch?” Wax asked, disposing of the moldy meat bun. “From what I can gather, most of you hate nonhuman bodies.”

“Yeah, they’re demeaning,” MeLaan said, settling down on her haunches. “Except a body … influences you. It’s hard to explain to mortals. Think of it like an outfit. If you’re dressed up all fancy in a glittering gown, you want to dance and twirl. If you’re wearing trousers with an axe over your shoulder, well, you’re going to want to smash something. I only put bodies like this on when a mission requires it. But once I’ve got it on…” She shrugged, a gesture that looked distinctly odd in the dog’s body. “But no fetch for me today. I’ll go change.”

She wandered off toward the room where Wax let her store her other bodies: bones, hair, nails. Most of the bones weren’t real, fortunately. She much preferred what the kandra called True Bodies, made of stone, crystal, or metal.

He had joined Steris in the sitting room and was halfway through the latest broadsheet — a boy delivered some each day for Allik — when he heard Marasi and Wayne tromp into the foyer. Loud as a freight train, those two could be. He shook his head, sipping his tea.

“In here!” Steris called, and Wayne burst in a moment later. “Wayne. Could you sometime remember to brush your feet off before you track mud in? This isn’t the Roughs.”

“Be glad it’s just mud,” he said. “We been through the bowels of the earth today, Steris, and it was full o’ stuff what’s normally in bowels.”

“A perfectly awful description,” she said.

“Oh, stop complainin’ at me,” he said, hopping from one foot to the other. “We got news. We got news!”

Marasi strode up and pulled something long and thin from her pouch. A single delicate spike, like a long nail with a needle point. The otherwise silvery metal had reddish patches to it, especially visible when it caught the light.

Wax breathed in sharply. “You got one. How?”

“Remember that lead in the sewers I told you about?” Marasi said. “Found a member of the Set there, augmented with Hemalurgy, heading up a gang of ruffians.”

“Fortunately,” Wayne said, “he didn’t have any use for the spike once Marasi was finished with him.”

“Technically, he did still have a use for it,” she said. “Which is why I had to remove it. Wax, he had four spikes. Isn’t that supposed to give Harmony control over a person?”

“Supposedly,” he said. That had been the whole issue with Lessie. Though the numbers varied by species, the principle was the same: spike yourself too many times, and Harmony could control you. It was an exploit to Hemalurgy that went back to the ancient days, when Ruin had directly controlled the Inquisitors, like Death himself.

But lately, Marasi had begun to encounter members of the Set with too many powers. Wax hadn’t believed at first, but if she’d confirmed it …

“The limitation has been circumvented somehow,” Wax said, inspecting the trellium spike. “Perhaps it has to do with the placement of this spike, as a linchpin?”

“Wax,” Marasi said, “this group was packing supplies for Bilming. Weapons and field rations.”

He shared a look with Steris. Rusts … the Outer Cities apparently thought war was inevitable. And with the vote today, it very well might be.

Still, to have another trellium spike after all these years … It reminded him of what had happened to Lessie, but he forced himself to hold it anyway. This wasn’t from her body. They didn’t know if her strange trellium spikes had influenced her madness. The kandra all said the spikes hadn’t been to blame, but something had turned her against Harmony, sent her down a paranoid path. Something had taken the woman he loved and turned her into Bleeder. He refused to accept that she’d been fully in control of herself.

Those old pains were dead and buried these days, so he was able to pick up the spike and inspect it. This metal was a manifestation — presumably — of the body of a god. Much like harmonium, also called ettmetal. What could he learn from this new sample?

The door swung open, revealing MeLaan wearing stylish blue trousers and a buttoned shirt. She’d been going for an androgynous look these days, with very short blonde hair and almost no hint of breasts. For her friends, she often maintained relatively similar features. This face, for example, looked like her — just thinner, less overtly feminine.

As usual she had picked a tall, limber body — this one was at least six foot four. She was toweling off her hair — she liked to wash it after putting on a new body, to better style it and make sure she’d got the grain right.

“Hey!” she said, seeing the spike in Wax’s fingers. “Is that what I think it is?”

“Yup,” Wayne said. “Marasi turned some bloke into hamburger to get it.”

“Nice!” MeLaan said.

“I did not turn anyone into hamburger,” Marasi said.

“She’s more a fan of liver,” Wayne said, and earned a glare.

“Speaking of meat,” Wax said, “did you leave a meat bun in the pocket of my mistcoat?”

“Uh…” Wayne said. “It was … um…”

“You realize I’ll have to get that thing laundered,” Wax said. “And you’re going to pay.”

“Hey,” Wayne said. “You don’t got no proof I did that.”

Wax gave him a flat stare.

“You can’t convict me on a hunch,” Wayne said, folding his arms. “I know my rights. Marasi’s always quoting them to people once we finish beating them up. I get a trial by my peers, I do.”

“Yes,” Steris said, “but where would we find so many slugs on short notice?”

Wayne spun toward her, then — after just a brief pause — grinned widely. Those two were getting along better these days, which Wax enjoyed seeing. For now, he kept inspecting the spike. What were its properties? Could it be melted? Could it …

He paused, then reached to his back pocket. There, nearly forgotten, was the envelope he’d found on his desk earlier. He opened it again and slid out the iron earring, a traditional accoutrement of the Pathian religion — and a means of communing with Harmony. Piercing your body with metal was a way to connect to God and give him some measure of influence over you.

He read the note again: You’ll need to make a second, once the proper metal arrives.

Rusts. Why would Harmony tell him to make a second earring, presumably out of Trell’s metal?

There was no explanation in the envelope, of course. Harmony knew Wax far too well. A mystery was a better way to get his attention than an explanation.

Damn him.

He tucked that envelope away again. “Nice work,” he said to Marasi. “Very nice work.”

“Thank you,” she said. “We should have a chance at some more members of the Set soon. I’m planning a sting.”

She turned toward MeLaan, who was leaning against the wall, arms folded. For someone who spent her life in subterfuge — imitating others and doing missions for God himself — she certainly did like to stand out. Today she had left her cheeks faintly transparent to allow the emerald of her skeleton to show through.

“I could use your help, MeLaan,” Marasi said. “I have a corpse that needs to get up and walk around — just long enough to trick the Set.”

MeLaan grimaced. “I would love to, but … I’ve got a thing…”

“We could work around your schedule,” Marasi said.

“That might be hard,” MeLaan said. “Since it’s kind of on another planet…”

“Another planet?” Marasi said.

“Well, maybe between planets?” MeLaan said. “I’m not entirely sure. Harmony wants some of us to strike out, begin exploring, learning about the cosmere. It’s become evident that the cosmere knows about us.” She nodded toward the spike pinched between Wax’s fingers.

“What’s it like?” Marasi asked MeLaan, with a certain … hunger in her eyes. “Traveling out there. How … do you even do it?”

“It’s difficult,” she said. “Both to get to the other side — which is an inversion of the real world — and to travel while there. I’ll be leaving soon, I’m afraid, but finding out what’s happening with the Set is a priority for Harmony. I’ll ask him to get you one of us to help on your mission, Marasi.”

Wax glanced at Wayne. MeLaan was leaving. Soon? He’d have to corner his friend and ask how he felt about that.

At that moment however, Allik burst through the door bearing a tray full of steaming pastries. “Aha!” he said, mask up to show off his grin. “A full room. Who wants cinnamon puffs with hot chocolate for dipping! You are obviously planning to save the world again, with those concerned faces. This is an action that requires much choc, yah?”

Wax smiled, enjoying Allik’s enthusiasm. He’d bounced back from the tragedy of losing so many friends to the Set years ago — tortured for information about airships. People are elastic, Wax thought. We can keep reshaping ourselves. And if we’re not quite the same as before, well, that’s good. It means we can grow.

Allik handed Marasi a mug of hot chocolate — almost comically large — with a wink. She took his hand and smiled, squeezing it. Four years of flirting and two years of formal dating, and those two still acted like schoolkids sometimes. Wax knew more about it than he really cared to, because Steris tended to take notes, then ask if she should be acting in equally ridiculous ways.

“There’s one other thing, Wax,” Marasi said. “I took a notebook from the Cycle I killed today. What do you make of this page?”

She handed it over and Wax settled back in his seat, Steris peeking over his shoulder as he read through dated entries in the notebook. “Looks like…” he said. “Annotated shipping records, into Elendel? ‘Box one yard square, stamped with foodstuff labels, inspected four out of six times. Larger crate with warning labels, inspected and quarantined. Crate, two yards across, detained every time…’”

Steris frowned. “It looks like they’re recording what gets inspected when shipped into the city.”

“Which is odd, right?” Marasi said. “It’s not hard to get shipments into Elendel. Only outgoing shipments are taxed for using our railway stations. That’s the entire problem; the Outer Cities are tired of paying us to ship their goods to one another.”

“Right,” Wax said. “Why is the Set so interested in what they can get into the city?”

“Maybe they’re planning to supply a rebel force inside it?” Steris said.

“But the whole point of their smuggling operation,” Marasi said, “is to get weapons out of Elendel. They don’t have any trouble giving weapons to the people inside Elendel.”

They sat in silence, considering. Wax glanced at Steris, who shook her head. No thoughts at the moment. Finally, he returned the book to Marasi. As Allik continued distributing pastries, Wax went over to Wayne, who had uncharacteristically passed up a mug of chocolate. Allik handed it to Wax instead.

“Hey,” Wax said to Wayne. “How much health do you have stored up? I might need your help with some experiments today.”

“Sorry, mate,” he said. “I gots an appointment.”

“You’re not going to get into trouble, are you?”

“The reverse,” Wayne proclaimed, then checked his pocket watch. Which was one of Wax’s. “Actually, I gotta get moving. I don’t wanna get shot for arriving late.”

“A moment, Wayne?” MeLaan said.

“I really—” he began.

“It’s important. Very important.”

Wayne wilted, then nodded, his eyes sorrowful. Wax gripped his shoulder, as if to impart some strength. This had been coming. MeLaan was a wanderer.

Wayne and MeLaan left, and Wax tried to focus on the wonderful gift Marasi had brought him. A whole trellium spike.

“I,” he said, “am going to need my goggles.”

12

Wayne sometimes pretended he was a hero. Some rusting old figure from the stories, off on some nonsense quest about slaying a monster or traveling to Death’s domain.

Lately it was hard to wear that hat. Especially when the truth stared him in the face every time he looked in a mirror. He’d made a whole career out of pretending. People just thought it was a talent. They never asked what he was hiding from.

Today, he’d have given almost anything to be someone else. MeLaan, wearing that fetching body — they were all fetching, honestly — led him through the entry hall to a small private sitting room on the other side. He made a swipe for his lucky hat, hanging on the wall outside the room, as they passed. But he missed it.

Inside, she sat him down in an overstuffed chair that made him feel like a child. Didn’t help that she was as tall as Wax was, in that body. Then she took his hand and crouched down, meeting his eyes.

“I’m sorry, Wayne,” she said softly. “I need to leave you. Today. It’s over. I tried to prepare you for this … but it was probably more painful to string it out, wasn’t it?”

“Dunno,” he said. “Never had my heart broke before. So I ain’t got no experience.”

She winced. “Wayne…”

“Sorry,” he said. “You gotta do your thing. I know that. A fellow doesn’t date an immortal agent of God himself without suspectin’ that one day he’ll take second place to the fellow what glows.” Wayne frowned. “Does he glow?”

“I thought,” she said, squeezing his hand, “that there would be fewer attachments with you.”

“Where’d you get that idea?” he asked. “I get so attached, I wind up with all sorts of things what don’t belong to me.”

She grimaced.

“Was it … nothing to you, then?” he asked. “Six years?”

“It wasn’t nothing,” she said. “Just … not what it was to you. I know I should have expected that. TenSoon warned me, Ulaam warned me. Mortals see time differently. They told me. I’m sorry, Wayne.”

“You ain’t gotta apologize for somethin’ you don’t feel, MeLaan,” Wayne said. “It ain’t your fault.”

It’s mine.

“I … asked for this mission,” she admitted. “Because I realized I was leading you on, and I knew the longer it went, the more painful it would be to break off. That’s why I can’t stay and help. I’ve got to go now. Before I lose my nerve.”

“Would that … be so bad?”

“Yes,” she said. “Because it’s a lie, Wayne. I’d be staying because I didn’t want to hurt you. Not because I actually wanted to stay.”

He shouldn’t want her to stay in those circumstances. But he did. Damn him, he did.

Still, he held his tongue. Sometimes you just had to stand there and get shot.

“It is an exciting mission,” she said. “I get to cross the misted unknown, the dark vastness that Harmony calls ‘Shadesmar.’ I’ll be the first kandra to go out there long-term, with an official mission.

“I get to explore the cosmere, Wayne. I get to go and see everything there is — worlds we can only imagine. I get to help those who need it — not one or two people, but entire peoples.”

He nodded dully.

She stood, then leaned in to kiss him. He wanted to pull away, but … well, he would have regretted that. One long, last kiss, as could be delivered only by someone with a tongue that didn’t confine itself to normal bounds of physiology.

“I did want to tell you something important,” she whispered as she pulled away. “Something meaningful.”

“Yeah?”

“You,” she said, squeezing his hand one last time, “were a really good lay, Wayne.”

“Really?”

“Really. To be honest, you were the best I’ve known.”

“You’re seven hundred years old,” he said. “And I was the best?”

She nodded.

Well now, that was something. Something indeed.

“Thanks,” he said. “That was sweet of you to tell me. It … helps.”

“I thought it might,” she said. “Goodbye, Wayne.”

She let go of his hand and walked out. Knowing her, she’d send someone to box up the rest of her bodies. She’d picked the emerald today because it was one of her favorites — she’d probably take it and the aluminum one on her mission and leave the rest.

He sat staring at the door for a long time. He wasn’t wearing a hat, which meant he had to just be himself. The true him, the one that knew this pain. They’d ridden together on many a dusty path. This pain had been his invisible friend since childhood.

The pain of knowing what he really was.

The pain of being worthless.

13

Wax led the way down to the basement, feet thumping on steps behind him as he was followed by Steris and Marasi. While the upper floors of the mansion were dedicated to Steris’s hobbies and the various needs of his friends, the basement belonged to Wax. And he’d made some modifications.

He’d begun pursuing metallurgy in the Roughs, where the mining towns often had equipment to test metal purities and the like. He’d been surprised at how useful the hobby had turned out to be. For example, few criminals realized you could track their suppliers by testing bullet casings.

In Elendel, he’d expanded his curiosity tenfold. A basement full of metal samples, acids and solvents, burners, microscopes, and even a room with a forge and an anvil. It all reminded him of the Roughs in a good way. Of Lessie laughing when he made a breakthrough. Of evenings spent folding metal like he was some ancient warrior making a knife meant to kill a god — rather than a novice trying to make a dining implement.

Lately, he’d found electrolysis and plating fascinating, and his new electricity-powered spectrometer was absolutely brilliant. Together with the graphs representing the spectroscopic colors of various elements, it let him identify practically anything. How would trellium react to that? Or to his acids, or to the magnets?

The questions energized him. It was a kind of excitement he’d lost during his middle years. It was too pure. He hadn’t been able to feel excitement about something so simple and enriching at a time when his life had been falling apart.

He strapped on his goggles. Steris followed, putting on her own, then got out her clipboard. She handed him an apron, and he relented — he was wearing one of his nicer vests, though he’d tossed the cravat aside somewhere. Her own apron was more enveloping and thick, almost a flak jacket. He’d only recently persuaded her that maybe she didn’t need two pairs of goggles at once; she could just order an extra-thick pair.

They set up at one of the tables, where Wax inserted the spike into a clamp to hold it steady.

Marasi stopped in the doorway, then grinned. “You two,” she said, “are adorable.”

Wax shared a look with Steris. “I don’t believe I’ve been called adorable since I was Max’s age.”

“She should get her eyesight checked,” Steris said. “Marasi, dear? I have goggles with corrective lenses, arranged in the drawers to your right.”

“I’m fine,” Marasi said, stepping in.

Steris clicked her tongue and pointed at the sign just above the doorway. GOGGLES REQUIRED. It had an asterisk and a scrawled handwritten note below — in crayon — that said, “’Cept Wayne.”

“It’s a good rule,” Wax said. “You know how things happen around us.”

“Things?” Marasi said, selecting a pair of goggles. “You mean explosions?”

“Not just explosions,” Steris said. “Acid spills. Fires. Accidental weapon discharges. Though I suppose that one is technically a subset of explosion. How’s the hardness?”

“Hard,” Wax said as he tested the spike with various substances. “Scratched by diamond, but barely marks corundum. Just above a nine.”

“Noted,” she said.

“It’s brittle too,” Wax said, carefully chiseling. “Not like harmonium at all, which is nearly as pliable as gold. Would you get one of the burners going?”

Steris lit a gas nozzle. Wax got a chip of trellium off and brought it over in a tungsten alloy bowl, then set it under the flame and watched carefully. The chip soon heated to white-hot, but did not liquefy.

“Melting point is extremely high,” he said. “Over twenty-five hundred degrees.”

“Similar to harmonium,” Steris said. “Try the electric melter?”

He nodded. The melter ran a powerful electric current through the metal in order to heat it beyond what the burner could manage. He’d had some luck with harmonium using this process. Unfortunately, although the little bit of trellium again turned white-hot, it wouldn’t even bend or stretch.

“Rusts,” Wax said softly, using tinted goggles to stare at the glowing bit of metal. “This stuff is hard.” How was he going to make an earring out of it?

Was he actually considering that? At the thought, he realized he didn’t know the envelope was from Him. Anyone could drop off something like that. He should talk to Harmony before doing anything foolish.

“TenSoon says that the metals are the bodies of divinities,” Steris said. “So-called God Metals were the source of the mists back in anteverdant days.”

“So why weren’t everyone’s lungs burned?” Wax said. “If I can heat this to over three thousand degrees without it liquefying, then it must be extremely hot when vaporized.”

“Perhaps,” Steris said, “these metals — unlike common ones — don’t change states based on temperature, but on other factors.”

Wax nodded in thought. Marasi leaned down beside the table, looking at the spike. “It’s full of power,” she said. “It’s a Hemalurgic spike, so it’s…”

“‘Invested’ is the term the kandra use,” Wax said. “It has taken a part of a person’s soul, through Hemalurgy, and stored it. Like a kind of … battery for life energy.”

Marasi shivered visibly. “It’s kind of like a corpse, then?”

“A murder weapon, at least,” Steris agreed, turning off the burner.

“Wax,” Marasi said, sounding reluctant, “when I was pulling this out of the Cycle, he started ranting. The way Miles did when he died.”

Wax looked up from his experiment. “What did he say?”

“He talked about men of gold and red,” Marasi said. “Like Miles. And then … he talked about starting the ashfalls again, as in the Catacendre. Restoring the days of darkness and ash.”

“Impossible,” Wax said. “The land just isn’t set up that way anymore. The Ashmounts are either nonexistent or stilled. There isn’t the tectonic activity to cause another ashfall.”

“Are you sure?” Marasi asked.

He hesitated, then shook his head. “When Harmony showed me Trell’s influence enveloping our planet, even he seemed baffled. Our world, and our god, are basically three and a half centuries old. There are things out there that are far, far more ancient. Far, far more crafty.”

The lab fell silent, save for the hum of the electric current machine, which Wax flipped off.

“So we catch up,” Steris said, rapping her pencil against the clipboard. “What’s next?” Admittedly, she did look adorable in her oversized goggles and military-caliber vest over her tea gown. He also noticed his cravat sticking out of the pocket of her dress.

“Spectroscopy,” Wax said in response to her question. “Let’s burn some flakes.”

“Wait,” Marasi said. “You couldn’t get it to melt — how are you going to burn it?”

He took a file to the clamped spike, catching the shavings on a piece of thick cardstock. “Most metals will burn, Marasi, if you can get the pieces small enough and can apply enough oxygen. We’ve managed it with harmonium, even though we couldn’t melt it fully.”

“That’s … strange, isn’t it?” she asked.

“Indeed,” Wax said. “But we are, as has been noted, talking about the bodies of gods.”

He set up the spectroscope and managed to burn some flakes, using the oxygen line, to take some readings. Then he heated a piece again to get it to emit light waves and took readings on that. The machine made a pen move on a piece of paper, like a seismograph — only here, the highs and lows represented frequencies of light. Those patterns of light corresponded to different elements.

In this case, strangely, he got a straight-across line — a full spectrum. Though at the end of the spectrum, in the red, the machine tried to send the line higher than the maximum. Which shouldn’t have been possible, for all that he’d seen it once before.

He unscrewed the pin holding the arm in place on the paper and reran the machine. Again a full spectrum at maximum — into the red, where the pin on the arm swung out and off the paper with a jerk.

Wax breathed out. “Seems proof it’s a God Metal.”

“Indeed,” Steris said, scribbling notes in the darkness.

“Someone tell the dumb conner what’s happening,” Marasi said. “How is this proof of anything?”

“It’s complicated,” Wax said. “Each element has a kind of signature, represented by the wavelengths it releases when heated. It’s basically a way to identify elements and compounds. Like using fingerprints to identify a person.”

“And this metal,” Steris said, “somehow projects a full spectrum, as if it were made of pure white light. But it also has something strange happening in the red, as if it has a light beyond what the machine can calculate or read.”

“I’ve only seen something like this once before,” Wax said.

“From harmonium?” Marasi guessed.

“Yes.” He tapped the table, then shook his head. “In dealing with these metals, so many things seem to break the laws of physics. I feel like I’m experimenting with something dangerously beyond our understanding.”

“Should we move to the safe box?” Steris asked.

“Probably wise,” Wax said. “Particularly since the next step is to put some of these shavings into acids.”

The “safe box” was Steris’s name for the small reinforced box they’d built into the back wall. Three feet square and three feet deep, it was made out of aluminum and steel, with a large safe-like door on the front. That door had a small plate of very thick glass at the top, so you could look in. This contraption could take a grenade without trouble, and had handled an ettmetal-water explosion before.

Harmonium — ettmetal — was highly unstable. You needed to keep it in oil, as it tended to react even to the air. Since they couldn’t know how trellium would respond to his acids, Wax set everything up inside the box, then latched it closed. From there, he could use some thin arms on gears inside to tip a little bit of trellium into each of the ten flasks of acid — and two flasks of a base.

Harmonium wasn’t affected by acids, but maybe this metal would be. Anything to give him more of a foothold, help him understand. As he worked, Marasi walked over to the wall where Steris and he had pinned ideas, experiments, and thoughts regarding harmonium. Rusts … the oldest of those were over five years old now. Wax found it depressing to realize how little progress they’d made.

“All of this,” Marasi said, reading the notes. “I don’t think I’ve looked at it closely before … You’re trying to split it.” She spun toward him. “You’ve been trying to divide harmonium into its base metals? You’re trying to create atium!”

He looked back into his viewer, continuing to dump flakes into the acid.

“Not just atium…” Marasi said. “Lerasium too? That’s the metal that … It created Mistborn! It’s explained in the records left by Harmony. Allomancy entered the world because the Lord Ruler gave lerasium to some of his followers, who burned it and were changed. Those first mythical Mistborn — they held incredible power. You’re trying to replicate that.”

“No,” Wax said. “I’m trying to see if it can be replicated.”

“All these years,” Marasi said, “and you never told me why you kept needing ettmetal? I thought you were trying to figure out how to make airships, like everyone else!”

“We’ve barely made any progress,” Wax said, finishing with the acids and turning away from the safe box. “But Marasi, don’t you see? The Set is devoted to restoring the ancient powers to people — they’ll use eugenics, Hemalurgy, anything. So if it’s possible to make lerasium again, we need to know about it.”

“You still could have told me,” she said.

“I wanted to have something useful to show first,” Wax said. He walked over to join her, passing Steris, who was fiddling with the trellium spike. Beside Marasi, he looked up at the wall of pinned ideas again. Remembered how thrilling it had been when first working on harmonium.

Getting some trellium to play with had awakened that again. But now, staring at this board, he remembered the rest of the experience. The slow, steady realization that he wasn’t going to crack this particular puzzle. He’d worked on enough hopeless cases to realize when one was growing cold.

He was a hobbyist, not an expert. He’d shared his notes with the people at the university, and they’d thanked him — but had plainly already made the same observations. If a breakthrough with ettmetal was going to happen, it would come from those dedicated scientists working to build Elendel its own airships, Allomantic grenades, and Feruchemical medallions.

He would probably have to turn the trellium spike over to them. He’d have his fun for a few days, but this was too important to keep from the real experts.

“Waxillium?” Steris said from behind. “You should come look at this.”

“What?” he asked, turning.

“The trellium spike,” she said, “is reacting to the harmonium.”

14

Wayne ducked into the alley just in time. Those two fellows with the bowler hats passed by on the sidewalk a moment later. Wayne crouched there, heart pounding, and counted to a hundred before letting himself relax. Close call.

He’d mostly recovered from the meeting with MeLaan. In fact, he figured he’d handled it quite well. Nothing was broken, nobody was broken but him, and he’d only needed three shots of whiskey to get moving after. Plus, he’d realized what his day was going to be.

It was a rusting funeral.

You could take quests and flush them away. He was having a funeral today, and that was that. He had worn his nice jacket and a matching hat, all fancy and proper. He even had a flower in the lapel, which he’d paid for. With actual money. Fancy is as fancy does.

He rejoined the procession on the street outside. Yes, they all seemed to know it was a funeral day, they did. So many heads down rather than looking up at the sun. So many dull faces, like they were the dead, still up and moving because … well, in the city, there were jobs to do.

Did dead people think funerals were celebrations? Initiation parties? Reverse birthdays?

He kept his head down, acting like a member of the masses on the sidewalk. This city, it just had so many people. Floods of them on the streets in this part of the octant, the financial district, all in their funeral finest. It should have been easy for anyone to fit in since there was basically every sort of person you might want to meet. But somehow the financial district mashed people up into a similar ball of cravats and heels. You could almost not notice that some were Terris and others were koloss-blooded.

Hard to miss that rusting airship dominating the sky, but keeping your head down helped. Maybe today’s funeral was for the city itself. Or at least its naiveté.

The Drunken Spur was on Feder Way, right on the corner of Seventy-Third. You couldn’t miss it, what with the swinging wooden sign outside and the mannequins in Roughs gear in the window. Not a lot of upscale cafés used mannequins, but this place was special. Kind of like how a kid who ate mud was special. But Jaxy liked it, so one made accommodations. Wayne was an accommodating kind of person, he was.

He stepped inside and tried not to cringe too hard at what the serving staff was wearing. Roughs hats. Bright red shirts. Chaps? Oh, Ruin. He was going to gag. At least the greeter at the host’s stand was in a proper suit.

“Your hat, sir?” the man said, and Wayne handed it over, then swiped the bell off the stand.

“Um, sir?” the greeter asked, looking at the bell.

“You’ll get it back when you return my hat,” Wayne said. “A man gots to have insurance.”

“Uh…”

“Where’s my table? It’s got two pretty women at it, and one of them’s nice, but the other probably threatened to shoot you when she was bein’ seated.”

The host pointed. Ah, there they were. Wayne nodded and stalked that direction. Rusting terrible attire for them to all wear on a day like this. You didn’t go to a funeral in chaps unless you rode there on a horse. Or unless you were old Three-Tooth Dag, who liked that sort of thing.

Ranette was Ranette: curvaceous — though he wasn’t supposed to talk about it — and wearing slacks. Jaxy was in a fine white dress, with short white-blonde hair in very tight curls, accented by diamond barrettes. She liked sparkles. He didn’t blame her. Far too few sparkles in life. Adults was supposed to be able to wear what they wanted, so why did so few choose sparkles?

He sat down with Ranette and Jaxy, then thumped his forehead down on the table, making the silverware rattle.

“Oh, delightful,” Ranette said in a dry voice. “Drama.”

“Wayne?” Jaxy asked. “You all right?”

“Mumble mumble,” he said into the tablecloth. “Mumble.”

“Don’t humor him,” Ranette said.

“Yes, humor him,” Wayne grumbled. “He needs it right now.”

“What happened?” Jaxy asked.

“I am officially dumped,” he said. “And my whiskey is wearing off. Stupid body. Metabolizing and neutralizing poisons as if I didn’t dump ’em in there on purpose.” He looked up. “You think I could cut out my liver and stay drunk forever?”

“I’ll humor him on that one,” Ranette said.

“I’m sorry, Wayne,” Jaxy said, patting him on the hand.

“’S all right,” he said. “At least you dressed up fer the funeral.”

“The…?” Jaxy asked.

“Ignore him,” Ranette said. But then she softened her voice. “Hey. You’ll live, Wayne. I’ve seen you get through worse.”

“When?”

“That one time you literally got a cannonball through the stomach.”

He looked up. “Oh yeah. That was something else.”

Jaxy had gone pale. “Did it hurt?”

“Not as much as you’d think,” he said. “Like, yeah, I got torn in half. But I think my body was just kinda confused, you know? Not every day you’re in two pieces.”

“Fortunately,” Ranette said, “his metalminds were on the piece with his head. Otherwise…”

He forced himself to sit up, then sighed and put the bell on the table, then rang it. Then rang it again. Seriously, what was the point of these things if people didn’t pay attention? The third ring finally got a server to step over.

“Vodka,” Wayne said to her. “Worst you got. Closer to piss it tastes, the better.”

“Wayne,” Ranette said, “this is an upscale restaurant.”

“Right,” he said. “Putta olive in it or somethin’.”

“Was that even our server?” Jaxy asked as the woman moved off.

“I try not to look too closely,” Ranette said. “Given the awful outfits.”

“I hear you,” Wayne said. “Who thought a Roughs-themed restaurant was a good idea? Like, to be authentic you’d have to have only stew on the menu. Then when people ordered it, you’d be out of stew and just give them beans.”

“I like it,” Jaxy said. “It’s amusing.”

“It’s insulting,” Ranette said.

“Can we talk more about me?” Wayne said. “Because I’m still over here feeling like what’s left of the grapes after the wine’s been made.”

“Poor dear,” Jaxy said.

“You’re too good to him, Jax,” Ranette said.

“He’s one of your oldest friends.”

“Only because he can’t die.”

“Ranette…” Jaxy said.

“Fine,” Ranette said, then put her hand on Wayne’s shoulder. “You’re strong, Wayne. You can get through this.” She took the glass from the tray when the server came back, and handed it to him. “Look, here’s your alcohol.”

“Thanks, Ranette,” he said, accepting it. “You really know how to make a fellow feel better.”

“To be honest,” she said, “I’m proud of you, Wayne. How you’re handling this. It’s relatively mature.”

“This is mature?” he asked, then downed the vodka.

“Relatively.”

“Suppose you gotta be an adult to get booze,” Wayne admitted. “But … it’s just…” He sighed and sat back. “I didn’t think I’d ever meet someone who understood what it was like to have to be another person most of the time. And she did. She did, Ranette.”

“You’ll … uh, find someone else?” Ranette said. “Someone better? That’s what I’m supposed to say, right? Even if it’s probably not true, since I doubt there are many people who are better than a Faceless Immortal. And—”

“Oh, Ranette,” Jaxy said, shaking her head.

“What?” she said. “I don’t do comforting, all right?”

“Wayne,” Jaxy said, “it will hurt. That’s okay. Pain is just your body and your mind acknowledging that this is awful.”

“Thanks,” he mumbled. “You’re a good friend, Jaxy. Even if you have terrible taste in women.”

“Hey!” Ranette said. “You chased me for the better part of fifteen years.”

“Yeah? And how’s my taste, on average?”

“I…” Ranette said. “Damn. Stop aiming for the vital bits, Wayne. This is supposed to be a friendly meal.”

“Sorry,” he said, then put his elbows on the table, holding his head in his hands. They still hadn’t seen their actual server, which made sense. This was a seriously fancy place; you could tell by their contempt for their customers.

“I meant it though, about being proud of you,” Ranette told him. “You’ve grown, Wayne. A lot. We’ve been going to dinner for years now, and you haven’t hit on me once.”

“I promised. Besides, you’re taken. I ain’t a poacher.” He slumped back in his seat. “This wouldn’t be so bad if that day weren’t coming up.”

“The day…” Ranette said. “When you have to deliver payment to that girl?”

Wayne nodded. “Allriandre,” he said. “She and her sisters don’t have a daddy because of me.” His day of trials was the worst day of the month, where he had to go face her. And admit what he’d done: murdering her daddy over twenty years ago.

You know you aren’t forgiven.

I know.

You will never be forgiven.

I … I know.

Ranette leaned forward, tapping on the saltshaker with her fingernail. It was in the shape of a Roughs-style boot. So fancy that the awful decor somehow wrapped around to being tasteful.

“What if,” Ranette said to him, “you didn’t see her this month?”

“I’ve gotta,” Wayne said.

“Why?”

“It’s my punishment.”

“Says who?”

“The cosmere,” Wayne said. “I took her daddy from her, Ranette. I gotta remember. What I am. I gotta look her in the eyes and let her know I ain’t forgotten.”

The two women shared a look.

“Wayne,” Jaxy said, “I’ve … wanted to talk to you about that. The way you treat that girl. I realize today might not be the best day…”

“Nah,” he said. “Hit me, Jaxy. I’m mostly numb already. It’s a good day to get punched.”

“Why do you insist,” Jaxy said, “on seeing her in person?”

“So she can punish me.”

“Does she want to punish you?”

“She seems to enjoy it when it happens.”

“Does she? Does she really, Wayne? Because the way you tell it, sounds like she asks you not to come see her.”

“Because she’s bein’ too nice,” Wayne explained. “But I don’t deserve anyone bein’ nice to me.”

“I told you, Jax,” Ranette said. “He’s got the self-awareness of a half-eaten sandwich.”

Wayne frowned. What was she on about?

“I’ve never met anyone,” Jaxy said, “who can get inside the heads of other people as well as Wayne can. He’ll understand.”

“He gets in their heads when it suits him,” Ranette said. “Not when it means seeing things he doesn’t want to see.”

Wayne looked away. Ranette said a lot of mean things, but they weren’t … well, they weren’t actually mean. He joked, and she joked. And sure, sometimes there was an edge of truth to it, but that’s what friends was about. Making you look a little silly when you were together, so that you didn’t look really stupid when you were apart.

But the way she said that last bit … it stung. He understood people, didn’t he? Wax and Marasi, they were great at the investigating part. But they needed someone like Wayne who really knew the people who lived in the dirt — and counted themselves lucky, because at least it wasn’t mud. Currently.

“Wayne,” Jaxy said, “what do you imagine that girl wants? Can you think like her? Does she really want you to come remind her of her pain each month?”

“I … I want her to be happy. And beating up a fellow like me who made her unhappy … well, that’s the best way.”

“Is it?” Jaxy asked softly. “Or is it about you? Doing some kind of penance? Wayne, each time you ignore what that girl asks of you, you take a little joy from her and turn it into your own suffering.”

He squeezed his eyes shut.

“You can see it,” Jaxy said, patting his hand. “I know you can.”

“I’ve lost my appetite,” he said, shoving back from the table and stalking off through the restaurant.

From behind, Ranette’s voice chased him. “I told you. He might not be as bad as I pretend, Jax. But he’s not as good as you want to pretend either.”

He traded the bell for his hat back, and only took one of the fellow’s cufflinks in the exchange — a fair trade for them keeping his hat over some stupid bell that barely even worked. Outside, unfortunately, he all but collided with two men in bowler hats and vests.

Rust and Ruin! They’d found him.

“Sir,” the taller of the two bean counters said, “we need to talk about your finances.”

“Whataboutem?” Wayne said, shoving his hands in his pockets.

“You have far too much money,” the shorter one said. “Please, sir. We have to talk about your investment strategy! Your current lack of diversification is a crime.”

Well, to ashes with him, then. This day had actually found a way to get worse. He let them shove him into their hearse of a car, off to the mortuary. Or, well, the accounting firm that kept track of his wealth. Same difference.

In either case Wayne, as everybody knew him, was dead.

15

The trellium was moving.

Steris had been getting out a harmonium sample for study in conjunction with the trellium spike. And the trellium did not seem to like it.

Wax moved the small bead of harmonium — suspended in a vial of oil — toward the trellium. It again rolled away.

“Curious,” Wax said. Then, on a hunch, he burned a little steel inside of him.

The trellium spike rolled away from him again. “I didn’t Push,” he said. “It responded to me burning steel.”

“That’s a result!” Steris said, scribbling furiously. “Wax, that’s actually useful.”

And … yes, it was, wasn’t it? A way to test if someone was burning their metals? Seekers could do that, but having a mechanical way to accomplish it …

“Oh!” Marasi said. “I should have mentioned. That spike had a similar reaction to the other spikes I harvested.”

“It’s like Allomancy,” Steris said. “Like the trellium spike is using Allomancy to Push.”

“No,” Wax said. “It’s more like magnetism. The trellium spike responds to other sources of Investiture in the way one magnet responds to another one.”

“It wants to stay apart from them,” Steris said.

“More like it has the same charge,” Wax said. “I doubt that it ‘wants’ anything.” Though, as this was part of a god, who knew? Particularly since, so far as he was aware, other Invested items with a similar charge didn’t repel one another.

A little experimenting showed him that the two metals — harmonium and trellium — repelled each other with increasing strength the more he tried to push them together. Again, like magnets. The response to harmonium was stronger than the response to him burning his metals.

Wax consulted a large chart on the wall; it displayed an extrapolation from a notebook that Death had given Marasi. Once upon a time, that event had been one of the most surreal Wax had ever heard described. These days it seemed almost commonplace.

The book detailed how to use Hemalurgy. He’d studied the notes in depth, and had created a chart of all the points on the body where spikes could be placed. A detailed list of the ways they worked, requiring linchpin spikes to coordinate and keep the network functioning.

The Set was experimenting further with Hemalurgy. And his sister, Telsin, was out there somewhere, high up in the leadership of the Set. Seven years ago, he’d thought she’d been kidnapped … but he should have seen. Telsin’s incredible ambition fit perfectly with the Set’s goals.

It had led her to spiking herself. Pinning pieces of souls to her own. It nauseated him to think of the people murdered for that purpose — to realize what Telsin and the Set were doing. In his fingers, he held not only a relic from a long-forgotten god; he held a tattered symbol of his sister’s rejected humanity.

Rusts. He really was going to have to talk to Harmony, wasn’t he? As little as Wax liked it, he was a part of this. He needed to finish what he’d begun all those years ago, when he’d fled Elendel — leaving his house to the machinations of his sister and uncle.

Footsteps on the stairs announced Allik, arriving with refreshments. Wax wasn’t certain if the former airman did that so assiduously because he thought of this mansion as his home and wanted to entertain, or if he just enjoyed having people around to try his baking. Nevertheless, the sight of him — mask up, grinning widely and bearing two plates of chocolate biscuits — did lighten Wax’s mood.

“You are being careful,” Allik said to Wax, “never to put too much ettmetal in one place, yah?”

“I don’t think I have enough to worry about.”

“Still, always good to remember,” Allik said. “One of the basic rules of handling it.”

They had all kinds of odd rules about the metal, and Wax had trouble separating the superstitions from the science. Supposedly, you couldn’t put a large concentration of ettmetal in one place, otherwise it caused strange reactions — though Allik didn’t know specifics.

The perky Southerner marched up to Marasi with his offerings and held them out.

“Oh!” Marasi said, snatching a biscuit. “My favorite.”

Wax took one too. He was accustomed to biscuits that could block a bullet in a pinch. It was the Basin way. Yet these were moist, even gooey. It was odd, but not unwelcome.

Marasi in particular seemed to be infatuated by the way Allik put sweetened chocolate in everything. “They’re best when warm,” she said, munching as Allik sat across from her. Wax had wiped off that lab table, hadn’t he? “You know, you look more handsome when I’m eating choc. How curious.”

“You just say that,” Allik replied, “because you want me to make more.”

“Of course that’s why I say it,” she replied, seizing a second biscuit.

Wax sat back on his stool, enjoying his biscuit, thinking about the metals laid out on the table in front of him. Harmonium and trellium. They repelled each other. More and more violently, the closer together they were …

I wonder …

He gathered up the materials and was setting up a new experiment in the safe box as another set of footsteps started down the steps. This made them all pause. Wax carefully slipped some bullets from his pouch, ready to Push them. Though when the door opened, it revealed a prim man in a brown suit. He had stark blond hair — perfectly styled — and spectacles with wire frames. The type of person whose entire bearing screamed, “I fact-check people’s jokes.”

“VenDell?” Wax guessed, putting his bullets away. The kandra was wearing a new body, but the creature’s air was distinctive.

“Indeed, Lord Ladrian,” VenDell said, entering the room and undoing his satchel. “You’ll forgive me for letting myself in.” He set a piece of paper on the table beside Marasi. “This is for you, Miss Colms.”

“What is it?” she asked, wiping her fingers on a napkin that Steris materialized as if from nowhere.

“A note recovered from the site of your engagement with the Set,” VenDell said. “LeeMar recovered it before the other investigating constables could notice it.”

“Wait,” Marasi said. “You have kandra among the constables I don’t know about?”

“Several,” VenDell said.

“Who?”

“Cassileux, for one. LeeMar took over her life about sixteen months ago, after the real woman died in that raid on the Nomad Gang.”

Marasi’s jaw dropped. “But … Cassileux and I had lunch last week!”

“Yes, she keeps an eye on you,” VenDell said.

“She didn’t tell me!”

“Should she have?” he asked absently, then sniffed at the biscuits that Allik offered him. “How horrible.”

“Aw,” Allik said, his shoulders slumping.

“I’ve told you, Master Allik,” VenDell said. “I am a carrion feeder, and strictly carnivorous. These … creations … would not suit me. But if you are interested, I’ve been considering putting up good money for one of your masks.”

“What?” Allik said, hand going to his mask, which was still up on the top of his head. “My mask?”

“There has been discussion among the kandra lately,” he said, “about your masks. Many of us think they are as integral to your natures as hair or nails — virtually a part of your skeleton. As such, I have decided to start collecting them for future bodies. Do you have any for sale?”

“Uh…” Allik said. “You’re an odd man, yah?”

“I’m not a man at all,” VenDell said. “I’ll leave you with an offer; let me know if you’d entertain some negotiations. I would only require the mask after your death, of course. If you persist in spending time with this group of people, that might not be far off.”

He walked toward Wax next, then held out his hand. “May I see it, please?”

Wax sighed, then turned to the safe box where he’d been setting up his experiment. He took out the trellium spike and presented it to VenDell, who held it up toward the light.

“I thought you couldn’t touch those,” Steris said from the table beside Marasi.

“You are mistaken, Lady Ladrian,” VenDell said. “This is not a kandra’s spike, so touching it is not taboo.”

“I’m not going to let you take this one,” Wax warned. “It needs to be studied.”

“Unfortunately,” VenDell said, “I have no intention of recovering it, so we won’t get to see if you could actually prevent me or not.”

“You don’t want it,” Wax said, “because it’s not a kandra spike? Unlike the ones that belonged to Lessie, which you stole from us.”

“You gave those up willingly.”

“I was not in an emotional state to do anything willingly,” Wax said. “I still want to know how much that metal — trellium — had to do with what happened to her.”

“The way Paalm … acted was a direct result of her decision to remove one of her spikes,” VenDell said. “The trellium spikes may have exacerbated her ailment, but were not the root cause.”

“Harmony implied otherwise to me.”

VenDell turned the spike over in his fingers and didn’t reply. Instead he nodded toward the safe box. “What are you doing here?”

“Electric current to soften some harmonium,” Wax said, pointing at the equipment he’d set up: a system to deliver a powerful current through a tiny nugget of harmonium held at the center, coated in oil to prevent it from corroding. “That’s the closest we ever came to dividing it.”

“It cannot be divided,” VenDell said. “Not so long as Harmony remains Harmony. I’ve explained this.”

Steris trailed over with her clipboard, and they shared a look. It was true; harmonium wasn’t actually an alloy. Yet Harmony held both Ruin and Preservation — so somehow this metal was both atium and lerasium, blended in a way that defied ordinary scientific explanation.

It seemed reasonable there would be a way to split it. Yet, acids for selective dissolution had failed. Different heating methods to get the components to self-separate while fluid had failed. Electrolysis had failed.

A dozen other ideas had failed as well. There was a reason he’d lost momentum on the project. But of all they’d tried, electric currents seemed to have come the closest. He activated the machine, and didn’t bother closing the front of the safe box. He’d run this experiment often enough that he was comfortable doing it in the open.

The tiny bit of harmonium heated up. Marasi and Allik walked over, watching it glow with a powerful internal light. Then Wax activated the other component of the machine — which pulled the nugget apart.

Harmonium was pliable, more so when heated. When softened like this, it seemed to react differently to the air — no longer as volatile. As if … as if it were becoming something else.

This specialized machine continued to deliver electric current through the grips at the sides — but now those moved apart and stretched the metal. If he continued, he could divide it cleanly, making two pieces of harmonium. That itself wasn’t remarkable. But the machine was set to pull only a few sixteenths of an inch, then stop. The result was two globs of harmonium at the sides, with a narrower stringy bit between.

“What is this supposed to do?” VenDell asked.

“Watch,” Wax said. With his tinted goggles, it was probably easier to see — but after a few moments the metals started to rearrange. The glob of harmonium on the left side began to glow a blue-white. The one on the right adopted a stranger air, growing silvery and reflective. It almost seemed liquid, like mercury — the surface incredibly smooth.

“Is that…?” Marasi asked.

“No,” Wax said. “If you cut it in half right now, when the metals cool you’ll just have two bits of harmonium. Yet in this state, the metals almost separate. You can see the left bit taking on aspects of lerasium. The bead on the right … that’s how atium was described.”

“It always looks like it wants to divide,” Steris said. “That it’s arranging itself to do so.”

“Ruin and Preservation,” Marasi whispered. “Atium and lerasium.”

“I think that’s the reason harmonium is so unstable,” Wax explained. “Harmony has trouble acting, right? He’s mentioned it before: his two aspects work against one another, leaving him indecisive, impotent.”

“He’s merely in equilibrium,” VenDell said. “Equal parts the need to protect and the need to let things decay.”

“Well,” Wax said, “I’m increasingly certain we face a god who isn’t hindered by that kind of equilibrium. I was skeptical at first, but Marasi convinced me.”

“Trell is dangerous, VenDell,” Marasi said, squinting against the bright light. “We have to do something. We can’t wait for Harmony.”

“Almost I am persuaded,” VenDell said. “What did you think of the note?”

“It’s confusing,” Marasi said. “And vague.”

Wax shot her a glance.

“I’ll explain,” she promised. “But first … are we going further with this?” She nodded toward the safe box they were all crowded around.

“Well,” Wax said, taking the trellium spike back from VenDell, “we noticed that this metal repels all forms of Investiture — and it repels harmonium even harder. I thought … what if I stretched a nugget apart like this, then used trellium to try to split it? Might that repel the two sides harder, and actually separate out some atium and lerasium?”

He looked to the others in turn.

“What … are the chances that blows things up?” Allik asked.

“Considering harmonium is involved?” Steris said. “I’d say it’s incredibly likely. But worth a try.”

“That’s why we have the safe box, right?” Wax said. “Plus, that’s a very small bit of harmonium. How much energy could one piece of metal contain?”

The words hung in the air.

“So…” Allik said. “I think we should all go next door and be very far away when he does this, yah?”

“Yah,” Marasi agreed.

Wax took a deep breath, then nodded. “I’ll rig a timer,” he said. “This basement is reinforced with enough concrete to pave a highway, so we should be fine upstairs.”

“We could make the kandra do it,” Marasi said. “They’re basically indestructible.”

“Basically,” VenDell said, “is infinitely distant from ‘completely,’ Miss Colms. I have been instructed to help you with your little infiltration — I believe you have a corpse for me? — not to risk my life trying to accomplish the impossible.”

“Timer it is,” Wax said.

“I’ll get a tiny sliver of trellium,” Steris said, “so we don’t have to use the entire spike.”

“Good idea,” Wax said. He should be able to repurpose his hydraulic punch …

It took a good half hour to set the whole thing up. All the while, Wax wondered. What if he did split harmonium? He’d have two metals, the bodies of gods, each capable of incredible things from ancient lore, like manipulating time or creating beings with mythological Mistborn abilities. What if he had that power? What would that change about him?

Nothing, he thought to himself. I’ve held that power. And when I had it, I used it to save my friends.

He finished the calibrations, leaving a machine on a timer set for five minutes. Once the time was up, it would press the tiny trellium shard forward into the center of the heated and stretched harmonium bead.

He closed the safe box tight, and together they all fled up the stairs and secured the thick metal door at the top. And then … Wax realized five minutes had probably been excessive.

“So…” he said as he pulled out his watch, “what about that note?”

“It was in one of the boxes in the cavern,” VenDell explained. “One of the few that weren’t destroyed in the explosions.”

“During the mission earlier,” Marasi said, “I spotted a masked figure in dark clothing. I had a slowness bubble up at the time, and she approached as a blur. I got barely a glance at her before she left, but I think this must be from her.”

She turned the paper toward Wax, showing a simple message.

We are watching, Marasi, it read. And we are impressed.

It had a small symbol at the bottom, with three interlocking diamonds. It looked vaguely familiar to Wax, though he didn’t think he’d ever seen the symbol before. More, the pattern reminded him of something.

“You ever seen this?” Wax asked VenDell.

“Uh…” he said, “that is a question I’m forbidden to answer. My apologies, Lord Ladrian.”

“Forbidden?” Steris asked. “By whom?”

“Harmony himself, Lady Ladrian,” VenDell said. For the first time that Wax could remember, the creature looked uncomfortable. “I suggest you speak to him directly.”

“Great,” Marasi said. “Nice to know we’re working for the defense of the planet itself while God is acting like a child with a secret crush.”

“False gods are like that,” Allik said, and earned glares from all around the room. He just shrugged.

They all fell silent. Why, Wax thought, does a few minutes feel like forever when you’re waiting?

“So,” VenDell said. “Your bones, Lord Ladrian. Have you reconsidered—”

“Not for sale.”

“But—”

“Not for sale.”

“Ah well, then,” VenDell said. “Can’t blame a person for inquiring. Such a fine skeleton, and for it to go to waste…”

A sudden blast shook the entire building. Chandeliers rattled, the window to Wax’s right cracked, and he heard dishes fall somewhere in the kitchen.

“Rusts,” Marasi said. “They probably felt that in the next octant over. You … think the safe box held?”

“One way to find out,” Wax said, walking toward the door to the basement.

“At least,” Allik said to the others, “we planned for it this time, yah?”

“Always plan for an explosion around Wax,” Steris said. “It saves a ton of effort.”

Wax pulled the door open, then started down the steps.

16

Call and Son and Daughters Accounting and Estate might not have looked like a mortuary, but Wayne was absolutely certain it was one. Because you’d have to be dead to enjoy working in such a place.

Tall Boring Guy and Short Boring Guy sat him down and started embalming him right away. Not with the good stuff either. He’d have taken basically any kind of drink, but no, they had to use ink.

They dried his body out good first though.

“Your investments,” Tall Boring Guy said, “are too high-risk, Master Wayne. We recommend a more balanced portfolio.”

“How much money have I got?” he asked, sullen.

“Over twenty million at this point.”

Well, damn. “I told you,” he said, “to give it to people what don’t have any houses!”

“Yes, and your affordable housing project was wildly successful,” Short Boring Guy said, perking up and reaching for a ledger. “How you anticipated the impending subsidies is quite a stroke of—”

“And that girl?” Wayne said. “With the plugs in the walls?”

Tall Boring Guy smiled. “The revolutionary electric devices developed by Miss Tarcsel are at the forefront of your financial empire, Master Wayne! Profits are astronomical.”

“Your real estate investments were wise,” Short Boring Guy said, “but we need to liquidate some of your ownership in Tarcsel Electric and invest in other, newer companies, to provide a buffer against competition — which is beginning to pop up now that the initial patents are lapsing.”

“You guys,” Wayne said, “really need to get girlfriends or somethin’.”

“Oh, we both are dating, Master Wayne,” Short Boring Guy said. “Garisel is quite popular, I must say. And you have no idea how wild lady accountants can be! Why, the other night—”

“Shut it,” Wayne grumbled. “Don’t rub it in.” Well, no use resisting. A man couldn’t run from his own funeral. Mostly because his legs don’t work when he’s dead. “Fine. Give me one of those damn hats.”

They looked at one another, but Wayne waved impatiently, so Tall Boring Guy finally took his bowler from the peg by the door and handed it over.

Wayne pulled it on, and his death was right and truly accomplished. Rust him all the way down to the bones. He eyed the ledgers, rubbing his thumb against the bottom of his chin. But that wasn’t enough, so he absently took Short Boring Guy’s spectacles from the man’s vest pocket, then tucked them into his own pocket.

Still not enough. “Kindly fetch me,” he said, “some honey tea with some lemon on the side and one tiny sprig of mint. Not too much, mind you, but enough to add some perk. You understand, don’t you, Garisel? Good man, good man.”

Soon he had it in hand while he surveyed the ledgers. They gave his last name as “Terrisborn,” since he had no proper family name. He kept reading.

Yes, yes. Numbers. That was plenty of numbers, all right. Of the high sort, which accountants like him liked to see. Hardly any red to the ledger. Yes, hmm. Not enough honey in this tea.

There was no denying what the ledgers said. Wayne was dead. And in his place lived a fellow who was fancy. No, who was downright opulent.

“You at least,” he said, “have my bendalloy?”

An aide fetched an enormous sack of it. Enough to buy two or three cars, if he’d wanted.

“Right, then,” Wayne said. “Here’s what we’re going to do. You see this here?” He unfolded something from his inside pocket — a flyer recruiting boys for a local noseball league. “We shall give these chaps funding for equipment and will build for them a location in which to enjoy their engagements.”

“Sir?” Short Boring Guy asked. “Why?”

“We’ll include seating,” Wayne explained, “and allow everyone to watch. See, right now everyone wants someone to yell at. And we, my friends, shall provide it for them. We shall create a large-scale noseball league, with a team from each octant. I’ve thought, gentlemen, for some time that the city needs a way to become drunken in a proper and controlled manner.”

“I don’t understand, sir,” Tall Boring Guy said.

“A bar exists for a reason,” Wayne said. “It is a controlled environment in which to drink. People are going to seek to partake in spirits, you see, and it is better for society that we plan for this.

“Currently, the octants are tense. The people are angry. The Outer Cities, why, they are riotous! We must allow rage to be experienced in a similar way to drunkenness — with a controlled outlet, with someone for everyone to dislike.”

They looked at him blankly.

“We’re gonna get a bunch of chaps to beat on one another,” Wayne said in a lower-class accent. “Playin’ for teams representin’ the octants, so everyone can pick their favorite and hate all the other teams. In a right proper way.”

“Ah!” Short Boring Guy said.

People these days, and their lowborn vernacular. Why, he suspected this pair didn’t even know how to properly burnish a golden toilet! For fear!

“Yes…” Tall Boring Guy said. “I see. So, like the local clubs, but on a citywide scale.”

“People love their local teams,” Wayne explained. “We can do something good with that.”

“Building arenas of the proper size will be expensive,” Short Boring Guy said. “Even for you.”

“We could charge people a bit to get in the door, then,” Wayne said. “Everyone enjoys something more when they have a monetary stake in it.”

“Yes…” Tall Boring Guy said. “Yes, this is interesting. Monetization of the rivalries — and the personal coding of interest — will be a seminal part of this activity…”

“That is my favorite part of most activities,” Wayne noted.

Tall Boring Guy nodded. “This is excellent. We shall put our best people on it.”

“Nah,” Wayne said, “put your worst ones on it. They’ll know more about loafing — the rapscallions — which shall serve me better in this particular situation. Now, let us discuss the beating of servants and how it’s not really so bad for them.”

Rusts, this hat. He pulled it off and wiped his brow. Stupid money and stupid rich hats. This one even had aluminum foil on the inside to protect from emotional Allomancy.

Well, surely this idea with the noseball would finally bankrupt him. It was, after all, his very worst idea — and he was an absolute idiot. He spun the hat on his finger and thought about it. What if Wax — or worse, Marasi — figured out he was rich? He’d never hear the rusting end of it.

Tall Boring Guy tugged at his collar. “Do you … actually want us to investigate using more corporal punishment on, um, some of your staff?”

“Nah,” Wayne said. “Bein’ in the army stinks.”

“Sir,” Short Boring Guy said, “what about the provisions in your trust? We’d like to talk about the more unusual ones you’ve made.”

“Nope. Next.”

“Your current housing situation—”

“Nope. Next.”

“Have you yet confirmed with Waxillium that he understands he signed away likeness rights to you in that deal—”

“Nope. Next.”

“Your fleet of cars?”

Those he liked. “What about them?”

“There’s a new Victori,” Short Boring Guy said, getting out a picture of it. It had no top. Like, so you could drive and spit into the wind, if you wanted.

“Damn, that’s nice,” Wayne said. “Get me one.”

“Absolutely, sir,” Short Boring Guy said. “How many shares in the company shall we buy?”

Wayne narrowed his eyes at him. “I see what you’re doing.”

They looked at him innocently.

“No more than a five percent stake,” Wayne said, “and once these guys what play noseball get famous, have them drive the cars around so they get more popular and whatnot. Oh, and let’s call it something other than noseball. Maybe change the long runner positions to let those two be Metalborn. Same with the goalie. That’ll make things more interesting.”

“As you wish, Master Wayne.”

He spun the hat on his finger. I’ve never met anyone who can get inside the heads of other people as well as Wayne can. He could even get inside the heads of accountants.

Could he get inside the head of a girl who hated him?

To start, he had to remember what he’d done. He deserved that hurt.

Did she? He closed his eyes, thinking what it must be like to see him come slinking in each month. That man. That horrible man. Couldn’t he just let her move on?

He’ll understand …

What if he didn’t want to?

Damn. Too late.

“Hey, Call,” he said, opening his eyes and looking to Short Boring Guy. “I need you to set up a delivery for me. Some money to be paid to a young woman and her family. Um, every month. She has her own kid now, and needs the cash on time. It’s a meeting I’m supposed to do in person, but I’m … getting so busy. Yes, too busy, you see…”

“Many of our clients have similar needs, Master Wayne,” Short Boring Guy said. “Give us the address and we’ll see it is handled with discretion.”

Why’d they say it that way? Well, regardless, Jaxy had been right. If he was going to be dead, he could at least be the polite kind what didn’t try to crawl out of the forest and eat you during thunderstorms.

Even corpses needed standards.

17

Steris had been doing a good job lately, she thought, of understanding other people. Once, she’d assumed they had the same worries she did, but hid their anxiety extremely well. As she’d grown older, she’d come to understand something more incredible. They just didn’t feel that anxiety.

They didn’t have a constant, hovering worry in the back of their brain, whispering they’d forgotten something important. They didn’t spend hours thinking about the mistakes they’d made, and how they could have planned better. They lived in a perpetual state between blessed contentment and frightening ignorance.

Then she’d grown even older. She’d married Waxillium. She’d made friends — real ones — and had come to see more clearly. Everyone saw the world differently, and the Survivor had made people to complement one another. Metal and alloy. A Push for every Pull.

The others responded to the explosion below with a strange excitement and eagerness, practically racing one another to the door. But what if the steps were destabilized? Steris had a whole list of protocols to follow if there was an explosion in the lab — she’d spent three nights developing it.

She loved them. And so she wanted to cry out a warning, hold them back safe, forbid them from risking themselves. She also knew how extreme she got sometimes. That was the biggest revelation of recent years — helped by discussions with the women of her book group. Some of her preparations went beyond helpful. Understanding that line was vital to understanding herself.

And she had to admit, today the others showed some wisdom. They let VenDell go first, at her suggestion, since a fall wouldn’t hurt him. Wax went next, since he could more or less fly if the steps collapsed. They hesitated at the bottom of the stairs — in case anything further was going to blow — before they opened the reinforced door.

“Wait!” Steris said, then dug in her handbag. “Masks.”

She distributed the cloth masks to everyone, even Allik, since a wooden one wouldn’t filter the air for him. They took the masks absently, or maybe even with a bit of an eye roll. All except Wax, who smiled at her as he put his on.

He liked her preparations. He found it endearing. But beyond that, he appreciated it. He thought she was useful, not persnickety.

“Anything on your watch list for explosions?” he asked.

She felt warm as she dug out her book of home emergencies. Yes, she knew she could be extreme. At the same time, making these was therapeutic. Her fears eased once she wrote them down. If she’d thought of something, catalogued it and considered it, then it stopped having power over her — she had power over it.

“Acids on the floor,” she noted. “Those could mix to produce poisonous fumes. Glass shards. Secondary explosions — particularly from exposed harmonium. Those are my big fears.”

He considered. “Marasi,” he said as she pushed open the door, “I was testing with hydrochloric and hypochlorous acids.”

“Which means?”

“Chlorine gas,” he said.

VenDell grabbed Marasi’s arm. Kandra had a thing about acids.

To Steris’s surprise, they listened to her. Since the powerful ventilators installed in the basement weren’t working, they let her fetch a room fan and set it up. Then they all returned up the steps and stood outside the mansion to allow the place to ventilate. When they went back down, everyone wore their masks without complaint and let her test the air with a kit. From there, they were careful where they stepped as they inspected the room.

The door to the safe box had taken a little jaunt across the room, and was now embedded deep into the thick concrete of the far wall. The steel of the box itself had been mangled beyond repair. And the rest of the room …

Well, it appeared that she’d have to put in an order for a new spectroscope. And a centrifuge. And some more flasks. And … um … new walls …

She resisted her urge to begin sweeping the glass to avert the hazard of stepping on it. Instead she stuck near to Waxillium. He might discover something interesting.

“Rusts,” he said, walking over to the remnants of the safe box. “This thing survived harmonium detonations of up to three ounces. I used less than a tenth of that in this experiment.”

He reached for the top of what remained of the box.

Steris wagged a glove in front of him.

“Right,” he said, slipping it on, then feeling around the top of the broken steel box. His hand came away dusted with some black shavings — a fine metal powder. VenDell walked up beside them. Marasi was inspecting the safe box’s door, while Allik had fetched a broom from above and was sweeping up the glass.

Steris had already liked him, of course, primarily because of how he treated her sister. But in that moment, her estimation of him went up another notch.

“We need to test these shavings,” Wax said. “But … I don’t think this is either atium or lerasium. It looks like remnants of iron from the equipment.”

Steris gathered them in some specimen pouches anyway. Waxillium leaned into the broken box on the wall, then used a small file from his pocket to harvest something smoldering inside.

“Harmonium,” he said as Steris dug out an extra vial of oil for him to put it into. “Plastered across the back of the box. I … think the experiment failed. It didn’t divide.”

“Actually,” VenDell said, “I think you managed something far, far more dangerous.” He took out a little notebook. “How much harmonium did you use in here? A few grams?”

“Around half a gram.”

“This explosive force…” VenDell said. “This level of destruction … from such a small sample. It’s possible, but only if…”

“What?” Wax said.

“This explosion was not caused by the division of the metals,” VenDell said. “This level of energy release could happen only if some of the Investiture or the matter itself was transformed into energy.”

He seemed to notice their confusion, so he continued. “I believe I’ve lectured you at length about the nature of Investiture. It is a particular study of mine. Along with my foremost expertise on skulls…”

“Not for sale,” Wax reminded him.

“Mine is,” Steris said.

Both looked at her.

“Why would I need it when I’m dead?” she asked. “Seems much better to have the money now.”

“As I always say,” VenDell replied. “Your impermanence is outlived by the beautiful internal shells you create — like sand medallions from the ocean, so are the bones of the human being. A lasting testimony of your presence on Scadrial. We shall discuss the terms of your sale at a later date, Lady Ladrian.

“For now, let me be brief. Everything in the cosmere is made up of one of three essences. The first is matter: the physical substances around you. Formed of axi, the smallest possible thing we know.”

“There are things that … aren’t matter?” Steris asked.

“Of course,” he said. “There’s energy.” He waved to the ceiling, where two of the room’s recessed and reinforced lights were still working. “Electricity, heat, light … Your kind has been harnessing it quite well lately. Good for you. Very modern.”

“And the third?” Wax asked.

“Investiture,” VenDell said. “The essence of the gods. Everything has an Invested component, normally inaccessible without certain abilities. When you burn metals, Lord Ladrian, you pull Investiture directly from the Spiritual Realm and use it to do work. Much like energy does work in those lights. But here is the key idea: Investiture, matter, and energy are all the same, fundamentally.”

“I … felt that, once,” Waxillium said, expression distant. “When I held the Bands. That all things were one substance.”

“Indeed!” VenDell replied. “And states can change from one to the other. Energy can become Investiture. This is the soul of Feruchemy. Investiture can become matter. That is where harmonium comes from. And matter can become energy.”

“And an example of that is…” Steris said.

VenDell nodded to the destroyed room. “We just witnessed it, I believe. There is an incredible amount of energy trapped inside matter. You managed to release some of it — only a small amount of what you put in that box, but still. If you found a way to release its full potential … Well, Harmony says the destructive power of it frightens him. Deeply.”

“It should,” Waxillium said. “Because this was easy to accomplish. Far too easy.”

“Well,” VenDell said, “it does require two very rare substances. And a great deal of energy, correct?”

“A great deal,” he admitted. “For so small a sample. It would take quite a bit of electricity to scale this up. But the destructive potential…”

“Agreed.” VenDell’s skin had gone … not just pale, but actually translucent. “I … should report this. If you don’t mind, I’ll be upstairs communing with Harmony. Excuse me.”

Waxillium shot Steris a look. “Worst case?” he asked.

She considered. What was the worst thing that could happen? It seemed obvious to her.

“What if the Set already knows about this?” she asked. “Marasi said the dying man mentioned returning ash to the Basin. Maybe they plan to use bombs?”

Wax nodded, grim. He’d considered the same thing.

“If the Set has discovered this interaction,” she said, “then it was likely by accident — or through an experiment like ours. There might be a record of it.”

“We could search for unexplained explosions in the Outer Cities,” Wax said. “Smart. Ashes … What if an explosive like this were placed in one of the old Ashmounts? Could they be restarted?”

“That sounds appropriately terrifying,” Steris said, feeling a deep nausea. How had she never considered that possibility? Looked like she had some planning to worry about. But first things first. “I’ll order broadsheets from the Outer Cities from the library and have them delivered to the penthouse. We can start there.”

Wax nodded. “With Marasi’s authority, you should be able to access the constabulary records too.”

It was an excellent suggestion. Steris walked to the back of the room, passing Allik — who had found some remnants of his biscuits splattered on the wall — and stepped up to Marasi. It had been … pleasant spending more time with her lately. Their childhood hadn’t always encouraged sisterly affection. Their father — who was now retired to a country estate — had been embarrassed by Marasi’s illegitimate status. Steris had always worried Marasi would see it as a flaw in herself rather than in their father.

Marasi seemed lost in thought, though what she found fascinating about the broken door was beyond Steris. However, she stayed quiet, not wishing to interrupt. Silence didn’t bother Steris. It was a purely neutral experience.

“The world is changing so fast,” Marasi finally whispered. “I’m barely accustomed to electric lights, let alone the airships. Then there’s this god … from another world. Now an explosive, a pinch of which can destroy a room…”

“I’m worried too,” Steris said. “I wish recent events had been possible to anticipate.”

“Makes me wonder,” Marasi said, “why I’m spending my time on murder cases and basic crimes. I realize they are important … but there are people out there, Steris, who know about it all. Who are making moves that change the fates of planets. They have no oversight, so far as I can tell. They’re probably happy to see us chasing down ordinary criminals and leaving them alone.”

“That’s why you hunt the Set,” Steris said, nodding. “Why you’ve devoted so much to them, when most in the precinct think you’re going a little overboard.”

Marasi chuckled. “Runs in the family, I guess.”

Steris smiled, then felt foolish, as Marasi wouldn’t be able to see it behind her face mask. Before Steris could say something, however, Waxillium blew himself up.

It was a much smaller detonation, fortunately, but it was forceful enough to throw him back and drop him to the ground. Steris ran over, worried — and found him dazed, but relatively unharmed. He took her arm as he sat up, shaking his head, his nice vest — a Versuli, no less — ripped and charred. The apron she’d provided had protected it somewhat.

He brushed himself off. Though he didn’t like to admit it, he was getting older. Being exploded when you were twenty was far different from being exploded when you were fifty.

“So,” he said to her, “you mentioned something about secondary explosions?”

“It was on my list,” she whispered.

“It’s all right,” he said, patting her hand. “I feel fine. I just did something stupid. I was gathering that harmonium plastered against the back of the safe box. It’s too valuable to leave, and it must have reacted to the air or some liquid left from an earlier experiment—”

He sneezed, then smiled at her reassuringly. His mask was nowhere to be seen; it must have blown free in the explosion.

She hid her worry for him. Upon marrying Waxillium Ladrian, there was one thing she had vowed to herself: She wouldn’t stop fretting about him, but she would not prevent him from being the person he wanted to be.

Each time he decided on an investigation, it terrified her. She did not let that control how she treated him. She would not be an obstacle. She loved him too much for that. Instead she did her best to be part of his world. It was far less frightening to be shot at than to sit at home wondering if he was being shot at.

It was to her eternal gratification that he, in turn, tried to be part of her world. Taking more interest in politics. Spending time with her doing the finances. They fit together, better than she’d ever dreamed they would. And she still felt warm every time they touched.

“Let’s get some tea,” Wax said, climbing to his feet with her help, “and talk this over.”

18

Marasi settled into the couch, her ears ringing from the second explosion. Allik sat beside her, mask down — he tended to lower it when he chewed gum, as he was doing now. Chewing visibly was a cultural taboo for him. Odd. If there was one thing it should be normal to lift a mask for, it was eating.

Still, she wrapped her arm around his and let him rest his head on her shoulder. Rusts, it was nice to have him around full-time these days. The early years of their relationship had been sixteen different varieties of frustrating.

While they waited for VenDell to finish his report to Harmony, Wax talked about meeting the airship — and the new ambassador. She felt Allik grow tense at the description.

“This is Daal the Primary,” he explained to the rest of them. “He … is very well respected by the Hosts.”

“I could tell he was important politically,” Wax said.

“No, Wax,” Marasi said. “Respected by the Hosts means he was successful in war.”

“So his arrival is a threat,” Steris said, nestled against Wax with her notebook out, shoes off, her stockinged feet up to the side in a posture that actually seemed relaxed.

She’s changed so much, Marasi thought. She could remember a time when Steris wouldn’t have dared take her shoes off in company. She’d have sat with perfect posture, trying to ensure she was holding her tea and saucer level.

Marasi had always loved her sister, even when resentment or forced distance had interfered, but she’d never considered Steris pleasant. Not until these recent years. Part of that had been Steris changing, but another part had been realizing that she and Steris had always felt the same burdens — that sense of entrapment.

“I wouldn’t say it’s a threat, Steris,” Allik said. “Not specifically. But if it is true, and the Consortium has finally been achieved — the five nations agreeing to put a common face northward — then this is … a symbol? They send you their best. They want you to know it.”

“Their best,” Wax said, “and most stern, I assume? He is certainly more unyielding than his predecessor.”

“Yes, Adjective Waxillium,” Allik said, nodding. “They want you to know that they will not be bullied.”

“He said,” Wax told them, “that one of his goals was to bring the Bands of Mourning back to his people. Is that still a sore issue?”

“You have no idea,” Allik said. “Us agreeing to leave the Bands here, it’s like … like we left you with the body of our dead father, yah? A body that is also a powerful weapon. Nobody liked that decision.

“Sending him here, having him say he’ll get the Bands back … this is a symbol, yah? A statement? They have been too lax with your people, and wish to indicate this laxness will end.” He shifted in place, then lifted his mask. “Sorry.”

“You didn’t choose this, Allik.”

“No,” he said. “But I didn’t not choose it.”

“Dear, yes you did.” Marasi squeezed his arm. “You don’t have to take responsibility for everything.”

He smiled at her, then put his mask down. Footsteps announced what she thought was VenDell returning, but then Wayne burst into the sitting room instead.

“Hey!” he said. “You all got blowed up, and you didn’t wait for me?”

“Waxillium got blowed up,” Steris said. “The rest of us merely witnessed it. I think he did it on purpose to annoy you.”

“I’m rusting sure,” Wayne said, narrowing his eyes at Wax. “You okay, mate?”

“My ears are ringing,” Wax said, “and I’ve been reminded — quite profoundly — that I’m at least two decades past prime exploding age. But I should be fine.”

“Glad you’re back, Wayne,” Marasi said, leaning forward. “Because we need to plan.”

“Yup, glad to be back,” he muttered. “Bein’ the fifth in a room is what every feller wants, yes indeed.” He stomped over to the small serving table and poured a cup of tea — then left the cup on the table and settled down in an easy chair with the entire teapot. “What?” he said to everyone’s stares. “It’s almost gone, an’ I like the spigot part. Fun to drink outta.”

He demonstrated, which made Steris put her hand to her face. Marasi sighed, but didn’t say anything. If he was sitting then he was less likely to steal something. She did check her pocketbook just in case.

“All right,” she said to the group. “I have the bones of a plan — imitating the Cycle to lead a local gang with a delivery scheduled to Bilming.”

Wax leaned forward. “Are we sure that interrogating the current captives won’t be enough?”

“They seemed like local flunkies,” Marasi said.

“Who will barely know anything,” Wax agreed. “So you’ll want some constables on your sting, ready to capture any Metalborn.”

“I keep telling Reddi we need a specialist team,” Marasi said. “A squad just for dealing with Metalborn. He keeps resisting. I think … he considers us that squad.”

As those words hung in the air, VenDell finally strode in, shaking his head. “I have,” he said, “been re-ordered to avail myself to you, with much urgency, in your current plans.”

“What did he say?” Marasi asked. “Does he know anything about the explosion?”

“Harmony is … worried.” VenDell paused. “Trellium has a repulsing effect on other forms of Investiture. Merely touching it to harmonium is dangerous — but doing as you did, heating and stretching the harmonium first, created what he called ‘an Invested matter-energy transference.’ That’s … very bad.”

“Did the news surprise him?” Wax asked. “Did Harmony seem shocked we were able to do this? Or did he expect it?”

“I couldn’t tell,” VenDell said. “He only said what I’ve relayed. More than that … well, Harmony can be difficult to read. I suppose I don’t need to tell you that. Did he send you a note, Lord Waxillium?”

“Yes,” Wax said. “I think he implied that I should make an earring out of trellium.”

“Whatever for?” Marasi said, frowning.

“I don’t know,” Wax replied. “I think he’s trying to get me interested, since I’ve ignored his last couple of invitations to commune with him.”

“This time it’s different, Waxillium,” VenDell said softly. “This time … Harmony is frightened.”

The room fell silent, aside from Wayne slurping his tea through the nozzle of the teapot. Marasi thought she saw him adding something from his flask to it, and she tried not to let that make her nauseous. Who spiked tea?

He’s hurting, she thought. The breakup is final. Rusts, despite everything else going on, she decided to find time to take him out to that noodle place he loved. Bring along a few of the other constables that he liked; remind him he had friends.

“My sting needs to happen soon,” she said to the room. “The book says the next shipment to Bilming is to go out in three days, and I want to be ready.”

“It’s a good plan, Marasi,” Wax said. “Steris and I have something we can work on while you’re planning.”

“Talking to Harmony?” she asked.

“Maybe,” he said, seeming distant. “I haven’t decided if I’m going to respond to him yet.”

Curiously, he didn’t indicate he wanted to be part of her mission. She’d have let him in, but she couldn’t quite get a handle on Wax these days. The way he’d hung those Roughs coats in the entryway had an air of finality, like a shrine to his old life. That said, when his deputized status had come up for renewal last year, he’d asked Reddi to maintain his position.

Wax glanced at Steris, who was leaning against him as she scribbled notes. “We thought of something earlier,” he said to Marasi. “It’s vital that we know if the Set has discovered the explosive potential of mixing harmonium and trellium. We’re going to do research to see what we can find.”

“Sounds good,” Marasi said, nodding.

Well, that confirmed it. A few years ago, she might have been happy to hear he was staying out of her investigation, but she’d quashed that feeling. She was proud of not letting his shadow — long though it was — blot out her accomplishments. Besides, she’d had her chance to become the hero in Wax’s place — she’d held the Bands of Mourning herself before turning them over to Wax. That simply wasn’t who she was.

So today, she was sad to hear he wouldn’t join her. Even worried, as she realized she’d assumed he would be there on this one. If she actually had a chance at high-level members of the Set … well, this could finally break the case open. And lead to answers.

But … she couldn’t force him. Shouldn’t force him. If he wasn’t feeling as spry as he once had, then who was she to object?

“I’ll go do some more listenin’ to those fellows in prison,” Wayne said. “VenDell, you want to come with? Maybe I could give you tips on your accent?”

“Master Wayne,” he said, “I am an immortal kandra with hundreds of years’ experience doing impersonations.”

“And you always sound snide and upper class,” Wayne said, “in every body I’ve seen you use. So … want some tips or not, mate?”

“I…” He sighed. “Harmony did directly order me to be about this. Ugh. Field work is so distasteful. But I suppose I can’t say no.”

Marasi glanced at Wax, who had settled back on the couch, thoughtful. Holding the envelope that Harmony had sent him.

“All right then,” she said. “Let’s get to it.”

19

Three days later, Wax stood in his penthouse study, looking west toward Bilming. There was no mist tonight. Seemed like weeks since he’d seen any.

Preparations had gone well for Marasi’s sting. The notebook had clear instructions on how to deliver the goods. Using intel from interrogations, Marasi had located the very trucks the captives had been planning to use. She had the exact outfits of the captives, and VenDell was playing the role of their leader. Wayne, in one of his finest disguises, was at his side to help sell the role. Even the boxes of goods were real.

They would leave sometime tonight. Wax wouldn’t go to see them off, of course. He could be conspicuous, and Marasi had taken every conceivable step to make sure the enemy didn’t spot the subterfuge.

They’ll be safe, he told himself. Their disguises are excellent, and she’s extremely capable.

This was the Basin, not some wayward town in the Roughs. Marasi had access to the finest constables in the city, along with resources in abundance. She didn’t need an old Coinshot with an unloaded pistol who still felt the ache of having foolishly exploded his laboratory a few days ago.

Still, Wax lingered, looking through the wide picture windows of his small penthouse study. It had been exciting, these last years, watching the city grow electrified. He had evanotypes of the process, taken every few months from this high perspective. A grid of lights and streets, homes glowing with the calm light of progress, each adding another shimmering star to the Elendel constellation. Would the lights spread so far that eventually there wouldn’t be any darkness at all?

Steris slipped over, then handed him a cup of tea. “With willow powder,” she whispered. “For your aches.”

“You think of everything,” he said, taking a sip. “How are the kids?”

“Sleeping,” she said. “We should be fine to go back to work.”

Together they walked back into the living room, where practically every surface had been commandeered to hold stacks of broadsheets. They could have hired researchers to pick through it all, but why give someone else the fun?

And it was fun. Not of the sort that Wax would once have enjoyed, but fun was as much about the company as the activity. They settled down together on the floor — all of the seats had papers on them — and continued reading. Searching for any mentions of explosions in cities across the Basin.

To pass the time, they also looked for anything amusing.

“‘Pickled Pachyderm Plays Piano,’” Steris said, holding one up. “Why do they always pick ‘pachyderm’ for these alliterative sentences?”

“Because it’s a funny word?” Wax said, with a smile. “What’s it pickled in?”

“Apparently it was sitting in a small swimming pool,” Steris said. “I think that’s a stretch.”

He held up his own headline. “‘Child Eats Tar. Mother Feeds Rat As Antidote.’”

“Oh, that can’t be real,” she said, taking the broadsheet from him. But it was a real story — and in a reputable paper as well. Turned out even the most highbrow of sources weren’t above using a zinger to move copies on a slow news day. She grinned, setting it on her stack of amusing headlines.

For their true hunt, Steris had a system — because of course she did. They read only headlines at first, quickly skimming sheets for certain words in bold or large print. Anything that looked promising went into its own pile. But you didn’t read the story, not yet. You’d want to read all of those together, to compare one against another and further winnow.

They were almost done with the most recent batch of broadsheets, delivered today. Wax enjoyed it, mostly for the time with his wife — though he seemed to still be suffering the aftereffects of the explosion. His vision kept behaving oddly, distorting at times for just a second or two. And his mind kept playing tricks on him, making him think he glimpsed blue Allomantic lines without burning metals.

He set aside worries over his health, and certainly did not say anything. He didn’t want to concern Steris. He’d survived explosions before. His hand still ached from the mine detonation back in Dust’s Beach …

“Here’s one,” Steris said, showing him a serious headline. “Explosion at a railway station.”

Wax rubbed his chin as he read. “Sounds like a boiler malfunction. Not terribly suspicious.”

“Perhaps it’s covering something up?”

He shook his head. Seemed like an odd place to be running metallurgic experiments. Too many people nearby — but then again, he’d done his experiments in the basement of a mansion. So who knew?

Steris set it in the “maybe” pile, while he moved his current broadsheet — an account of a fire that was pretty obviously a lightning strike — into the “unlikely” pile. None of these felt right to him, which should have made him happy. Perhaps their enemies hadn’t discovered the explosive interaction between harmonium and trellium.

Unfortunately, this sort of investigation could be frustrating for just that reason. He didn’t want to find proof, because it would confirm his fears. Yet if they turned up nothing, they’d never know if it was because no proof existed, or because they had missed it.

“‘Snake Sneaks Snoring Snails’?” Steris said, showing him one from her amusing pile. “I have to admire them for committing to the gimmick.”

“Do snakes eat snails?” he asked.

“This one did, apparently.” She smiled, and Preservation, he loved that smile. He found himself wishing this hunt were for lower stakes.

Ashes falling again, he thought, shivering. He’d often imagined what it would have been like to live in the mythical days before the Catacendre. When the Ascendant Warrior and Wax’s own distant ancestor, the Counselor of Gods, had walked the land. When people had moved through stories like the sun behind clouds on a mostly overcast day.

In those days, the world had been dying. Ash had been its skin, flaking off as it disintegrated …

He sighed, rubbing his eyes — seeing those odd flashes of blue. Fortunately, the tea was beginning to work and his headache was at last retreating.

“Wax?” Steris asked softly. “Do you wish you’d gone with Marasi and Wayne?”

“They’ll be fine,” he said. “They don’t need me.”

“That isn’t what I asked, love,” she said softly.

He thought for a moment. Then shook his head. “I don’t, Steris. I genuinely don’t. I realized it the other day. I’m … past that stage of my life. I really feel like I’m done.”

Except for one thing. The fact that his sister was involved. Still out there. Dangerous.

Most families had skeletons in the closet. And most of those were sensible enough to stay dead. His might be threatening the entire Basin.

Ash falling again …

But he did feel done. Ready to move on. So, he showed Steris an account of a series of broken windows in the city of Demoux. It seemed to be the result of a small twister — a smaller cousin to the more terrifying ones that struck the Roughs. But maybe it was an indication of a sharp pressure change, like an explosion?

They put it in the “unlikely” pile. Unfortunately, after an hour of this, they neared the end of the stacks with no solid leads. Just a lot of very unlikely possibilities.

Steris watched him as she moved another broadsheet to the unlikely pile. He knew what she was thinking, but she didn’t prod him.

“There is one thing,” he admitted to her. “My sister. I should be the one to deal with her. But I have important work to do here in Elendel. Besides, I’m not that man anymore.”

“Do you have to be that man or this man?” she asked.

“I have to make choices. Everyone does.”

“And what about when you initially came back to Elendel?” she asked. “When you decided to hang up your guns the first time?”

“This is different,” he explained. “Back then I was running from myself. I stopped running six years ago, in the mountains, Steris. This is what I want. This is who I want to be. I’m happy here.”

She leaned into him, a steady warmth at his side. “So long as you know,” she whispered, “that you don’t have to be one or the other. You don’t have to see yourself as two men, Wax, with two different lives. Those men are the same person. And he’s the one I love.”

He thought on that, considering those days when he’d come back to Elendel — determined to put his past in the Roughs behind him. Because it was what he thought he should do. And … well, because a part of him had been broken. A gouge that had eventually been ripped back open by Lessie’s return.

Lying near death on a frozen mountaintop to the south had changed his perspective. When he’d returned to Elendel, he’d been able to live again. Growing, changing. And yet … did that mean the past him was no longer him? Were the inner rings in a tree less a part of it just because they were no longer exposed to the air?

“I’m worried about them,” he admitted to Steris. “And … I’m worried about the safety of the Basin. I don’t want to act like I don’t trust Marasi and Wayne. But…” He reached into his pocket and took out the envelope with the earring. Which he still hadn’t used. “Last year, when VenDell offered me a mission, it didn’t have the same urgency. The same disquiet about it. I’m afraid that whatever is happening now has grown too big to ignore. Too dangerous to be stopped by detective work or police intervention, no matter how competent.”

“Another god,” Steris whispered.

He took out a second envelope. “I had this made,” he said, shaking something out of it. Another earring. With a red tinge to the metal. It was nothing more than a stud, with the only trellium portion the bar in the middle, as the metal couldn’t be melted to be forged.

“When I gave the trellium spike to the university for study,” he explained, “I asked them to fabricate this for me. Because Harmony suggested I’d need it.”

“Do you believe what Marasi said? About another ashfall? The return of those … dark days?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “But VenDell says Harmony is afraid. And that has me terrified.”

Steris tapped her finger on the stack of broadsheets in her lap. “Let’s identify our worst-case scenario. Consider: What’s the worst thing you can imagine, in regards to our current hunt?”

“My worst fear?” he said, thinking. “It’s that we’re years behind. That the Set has known about this interaction between harmonium and trellium for a great deal longer than we assume — maybe since that first Malwish airship crashed here. My fear is that the Set is not beginning a plan. My fear is that we’re in the end stages of said plan.”

“Is there anything we could search for to prove this?” Steris asked.

Wax stood up, surveying the room full of broadsheets, each stack from a different city. “Rusts,” he said. “We shouldn’t be searching for accidental explosions. We should be searching for proof of intentional ones. And we’re looking at too recent a batch of papers — if it happened, it could be five or six years old by now.” He paused. “They’d want to test. It wouldn’t be one explosion long ago. It would be a series of them … hidden somehow … because if they have this weapon, they’ll want to develop it. Improve it.”

“How?” Steris asked. “Should we search for records of harmonium busts?”

“I doubt that would show up in the broadsheets,” Wax said, turning around the room. “The Set is good at hiding its resource movement, especially of contraband. Marasi’s investigation proves that.”

So what? Was there any way to find what he wanted? Evidence of tests … of explosions they’d keep hidden …

“Earthquakes,” Wax whispered.

“What was that?”

“Earthquakes,” he said, kneeling beside Steris. “They would test explosions underground, in the caverns. Where they’d be contained and hidden. But they can’t fool the seismographs.”

They dug into the headlines again — but this time with a different set of criteria. And admittedly, Wax broke format a little, peeking at the contents of the stories rather than just looking for headlines. Steris poked him in the side if he spent too long doing this, but he was curious. And excited.

The answers had to be in here somewhere.

The search took a solid three hours of work. But as midnight passed, Wax found it. A series of articles from an Elendel broadsheet about something happening in Bilming.

“A subway?” Steris asked, frowning.

“Reports,” Wax explained, “of odd earthquakes in the city, starting years ago. Officials quickly explained that Bilming had decided to build a subterranean rail line like Elendel.”

“That could be valid,” Steris said, reading another broadsheet expanding on the story. “We used explosives to blast away rock and build the subway.”

“But why would Bilming need a subway? They have that elevated rail they’re so proud of. They love showing it off. Plus, these explosions have been going for four and a half years — and they don’t have a single subway line up and running.”

“Suspicious,” Steris said, scanning the next article. “Very suspicious. A new initiative started seven months ago … Reports of buildings being rattled by large-scale detonations … They were detected all the way here in Elendel.”

“They’re calling it a financial scandal, with construction companies leeching away funds. But it’s obviously more.”

Steris nodded vigorously. The broadsheet that had uncovered this wasn’t the most reputable source — it was the latest one to carry that fool Jak’s outlandish stories — but there was something here, as confirmed by several other broadsheets, now that they knew what they were looking for.

Rusts, he thought. The Set were testing beneath populated areas? Why? Was that just where they could find the cavern space? This might be even bigger than he’d feared. Hadn’t Bilming been building a navy?

Yes. Other articles talked about it. Ostensibly, the Bilming shipyards were creating a defense force for the Basin, in case of attack from the South. But they’d started before the arrival of the first Malwish airships — and they certainly liked to show off the capabilities of their guns.

Supposedly these ships were under Elendel’s control. No one actually believed that though.

“Wax…” Steris said. “That list of shipments in Marasi’s book. Where they were checking to see how tight customs was. How hard it would be to smuggle something into Elendel…”

A chill washed through Wax. What would they want to smuggle into Elendel?

A bomb.

“It looked like they were checking different cargo sizes,” he said. “And how likely they were to be inspected when brought in via train or truck.”

“And how big would this bomb be?” Steris said. “Theoretically.”

“It’s the generator that would be big,” Wax explained. “If it works according to the mechanics we discovered, then they’d need a great deal of power. More than the simple lines to homes can carry, or even the lines to industrial locations. They’d likely have to build a very large housing for the device.”

“Which explains why they were checking which sizes arouse suspicion and which don’t. Wax, if you’re right, then the broadsheets indicate they’ve been testing this for more than four years. Successfully. They might have the bomb already. They’re just…”

“… looking for a way to get it into the city.”

Rusts. He looked to the side table, and the envelopes. Then, finally, he slipped the first earring out — the one Harmony had sent him. It had been six years. He’d grown increasingly reticent to have anything to do with Harmony. He no longer hated God, but still …

He looked to Steris, who nodded. So he put the earring in.

And was suddenly in another place.

Floating, seeing the entire world before him, and the dark vastness beyond. He spent a moment disoriented, though his feet felt like they were on solid ground. It was unnerving.

This didn’t normally happen when he used an earring. But he had been here once before. On that frozen mountaintop.

Harmony stood in the distance. A serene figure in traditional Terris robes. Kindly eyes. Hesitant at first, Wax walked across the invisible floor toward Harmony. If he let his eyes unfocus, Harmony seemed as vast as the cosmere — two sweeping wings. One white, one black. Spinning together in the middle, the edges extending to infinity.

At the heart of it was that figure. Terris. Head shaved smooth. Rounded features, with an elongated face. The face of a legend, standing with hands clasped behind his back. Looking worried.

“Last time I was here,” Wax noted, “I was dead.”

“Dying,” Harmony said. “On the very cusp of death. Sometimes I think that’s where I reside. Always there, like a coin balanced on edge … a gulf on either side…”

“Where is the redness I saw last time?” Wax asked, nodding to the planet. Six years ago a red haze had been coming over the planet, as if to swallow it. “Did you drive it off?”

“No,” Harmony said softly. “It Invested the planet. Invested … me. What you saw was a shroud, Waxillium. I responded too slowly. It is … a failing that grows more dangerous in me. By the time I realized what was happening, that shroud had come over me. It doesn’t hurt, it merely dampens my ability to see.”

“You mean…”

“I don’t know what’s happening,” Harmony said softly, staring down at the planet. “What is Trell doing? What are they planning? They put that haze up as a kind of smoke screen. When I attacked it, the haze infected my ability to see the future. Temporarily. I will be rid of it in a few years. That’s nothing on the timescale of gods. And yet…”

“And yet, the danger is right now.”

“Yes,” Harmony said. “Like a nearsighted person, I can see the danger now that it has come very close.” He hesitated, then looked to Wax. “I can see you, hear you. We are Connected. And so, I know what you’ve discovered. I thought I had more time. I realize only now that I have been moving too slowly. Yet again, too slowly…”

Wax considered that, gave it due weight. These weren’t matters or concepts one took lightly. God blinded. All of them years behind the enemy. A bomb being developed and a search for a way into the heart of his city.

One question rose to the surface. An old lawman’s adage. If you wanted to stop a man, you needed to know what he wanted. Who he was.

“Harmony,” he said, “who is Trell?”

“Trell is the god Autonomy,” Harmony replied. “What we call a Shard of Adonalsium. Autonomy carries power like my own, a dangerous force for manipulating the very nature of reality and existence. Though Autonomy is held by a woman named Bavadin, her many different faces — or avatars — act with independence. Trell, a male god from the ancient records, can be considered one of these.”

Wax blinked.

“You were not expecting so straightforward an answer?” Harmony asked.

“I’ve not always gotten them in the past.”

“I’m trying to do better.”

That was … somehow as unnerving as hearing that Harmony had been blinded. God should not have to get better.

“You rarely get to speak to Autonomy herself,” Harmony continued. “As I’ve come to find, she speaks through avatars. Sometimes pieces of herself that she’s allowed to gain a semblance of self-awareness, sometimes through chosen people she has given a portion of her power.

“Autonomy decided to destroy our world, as it is a dangerous threat to her. But I believe she has been persuaded to let it persist, so long as it can be … controlled. Autonomy offered me an ultimatum last year, as my blinding was taking effect and when she assumed I would be the most desperate. She demanded I give this world to her, then move to another.

“I rejected the demand — and one of the last things I saw was the person Autonomy has chosen. The same one who persuaded her that this world had value, and who presented a plan for its domination.”

“My sister?”

Harmony nodded. “The leader of the Set. Invested by Autonomy. Avatar of a god on this world.”

Wax exhaled softly. Telsin.

Thinking of her brought an immediate stab of betrayal. He remembered exactly how it had felt to realize, in one terrible moment, that she would shoot him. Despite his love, his attempts to help her, she’d been working against him all along.

That pain was acute, despite the years. And he realized that he hadn’t left everything about his past behind. A thread lingered, a raw nerve exposed to the air.

Thinking of Telsin with the power of a deity in her hands … Rusts.

She’d spent her youth manipulating people. Getting her way. Telsin always got her way. It had been bad enough when she’d been able to persuade the adults she was sweet, obedient, and perfect — all the while sneaking out with her friends. It had become dangerous when she’d begun playing much higher-stakes games with the city’s elite. And it had become deadly when she’d discovered the Set and started shaping world politics.

What would she do with this?

“You’re only now telling me?” Wax demanded.

“I contacted you a year ago,” Harmony said, “when I was first blinded. You … still did not want to speak with me. And I was trying to respect that.”

Damn.

“But Wax,” Harmony said softly, “it is time again. I need a sword.”

A sword. That was what he’d been when he’d killed Lessie the second time. Cleaning up God’s mess. Executing his rogue kandra driven mad by lack of spikes.

“I know you’ve changed,” Harmony said. “I heard you earlier. I know you’re happy. I know you want nothing more to do with my works.”

“But my sister,” Wax said, “has the power of a god. Rusts. Marasi and Wayne — does she know what they’re planning with this sting? Are my friends in danger?”

“I wish I could say,” Harmony replied. “So far as I know, the enemy knows nothing of their plan. But … I’m blind, and your sister is extremely dangerous. Wax, I have tried to handle this in other ways. I have failed. And so, I come back to the one weapon I’ve always been able to rely upon.”

Wax took a deep breath. “Tell me what you know.”

“Are you agreeing?”

“First tell me what you know. About my sister’s plans, about this god. Anything relevant.”

“I’ve shared most of it,” Harmony said. “You should know, perhaps, that each of these powers — these Shards — has what we call an Intent. A driving motivation. I bear two: one driving me to preserve and protect, the other driving me to destroy.

“Autonomy is driven to divide off from the rest of us, go her own way. She pushes her followers to prove themselves, and she rewards those who are bold, who survive against the odds. She respects big plans and big accomplishments. I presume this is why your sister has persuaded Autonomy not to destroy our planet outright. Or at least to delay doing so.”

“Telsin is still planning something catastrophic,” Wax said. “She’s trying to destroy Elendel. But what does that get her? The other cities will revolt against such a terrible act of destruction; she can’t think they’ll follow her if she kills so many.”

“She’s desperate,” Harmony said. “Your sister has set up in Bilming. You’ll find her there, building a new empire. She must know that her god is still eager to wage war on our people and annihilate them. So, she is trying what she can. If Telsin destroys Elendel, she can try to take control of the Basin and prove to Trell that she is capable of ruling this planet. I do not know if this is her true motive, but it is what seems most likely.” Harmony glanced to him. “I’m sorry. I had not realized she would go this far.”

Wax looked away, but it was difficult to blame Harmony. Wax himself had been blind to Telsin for years — and he didn’t have the excuse of a divine shroud. He’d always assumed that he of all people knew the real her. Until he’d found himself just another pawn in her games, shown a false face. Made to feel an idiot. Why had he thought she would play everyone except him?

Because a part of him had loved his sister. Right up until the moment when she’d pulled the trigger and he’d known the truth. Family was nothing to her but a powerful cord with which to bind and manipulate.

“If what you have discovered is true,” Harmony said, “we might not have much time for me to free myself from my shroud. Autonomy mobilizes an army from offworld to invade and destroy everyone on this planet. Telsin moves to circumvent that. Both plans are catastrophic to us, and both are in motion.”

Damn. Wax took a deep breath. “You had me make a second earring. That’s what finally convinced me to talk to you. Why?”

“I hoped that would work,” Harmony said, a hint of a smile on his lips. “A good mystery is the best invitation.”

“And? What do I do with it?”

“When Vin, the Ascendant Warrior, was resisting Ruin, she didn’t realize that the little earring she wore linked her to him. It let him get inside her head, speak with her. Connect to her.” He nodded to Wax’s earring. “With a trellium spike, you will be Connected to Trell’s avatar — much as you now are to me. She will be able to sense you, and you her.”

“I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” Wax said, shaking his head. “Whenever the two of us meet, she gets the better of me. I shouldn’t try to play her games.”

Harmony smiled. A faint smile, from one too burdened to be eager about the emotion. He actually seemed to do it on purpose, with effort. “As you wish. It is a tool for you to use. I’ve lost games over and over against Autonomy, but I still have help I can send you. Some do not realize I was behind their mobilization. Yet I did not know the urgency of our task. I did not know their bomb might be ready. I am caught flat-footed. That was their goal, I think. So I must ask. Will you be my sword again, Waxillium?”

“It is absolutely necessary?”

“That depends,” he said, “on how you feel about the prospect of your sister taking my place as this planet’s steward.”

“That’s … actually a possibility?”

“Yes.”

“Damn.”

“Disrupt Telsin’s plan, and Autonomy will abandon her. That is our best bet.”

“And the army Autonomy is bringing?”

“We will have to hope we have time to stop them after your sister’s plan is subverted.”

It didn’t sound like much of a strategy. He looked to Harmony, and saw something different this time. Not the vastness of the powers, or even the figure of legend. But a man. Thrust into a war that none of them had been ready for, playing catch-up to learn powers that others had presumably spent millennia mastering.

He’s doing his best, Wax thought. And struggling to avoid being crushed by the opposing powers he holds. He needs help, and I’m all there is.

When Wax had run to the Roughs, it had been to escape — but he’d stayed because people needed him.

He’d found peace in Elendel. He wouldn’t return to the field because he wanted it or needed it. This time, he would go because he was needed.

“Final time?” Wax said.

“I promise,” Harmony said. “Final time.”

“All right,” Wax said, and felt a weight settle onto him. “I’ll stop Telsin. But you’re going to have to deal with this Autonomy.”

“Buy me time,” Harmony said. “Time to recover. Time to build greater alliances in the years to come, so we can face her as a unified planet.”

“I still don’t know how bombing Elendel gets Telsin what she wants,” he said. “It’s too extreme. She’s more rational than that. She’s got to be planning to threaten us with it until we bend. Maybe she intends to … I don’t know, detonate one in an Ashmount to cow us?”

“Perhaps. I do not know her ultimate plan. I’m sorry.”

A mystery then. With terrible stakes. Wax met Harmony’s eyes. “Is there anything you’re not telling me?”

“Many things,” Harmony admitted.

“Will any of them hurt, like what happened with Lessie?”

“Not on purpose,” Harmony said. “But I cannot promise you will survive this. Or that if you do, it will be without pain. I can’t promise much these days.”

Wax made a fist.

“Do you trust me, Waxillium?” God asked.

“No,” Wax said honestly. “But I trust her less. I’ve already said that I’ll help. But I’m not only a sword, Harmony. I’m a lawman too. I’ll find out what Telsin is doing. I’ll answer the questions you cannot. I’ll stop her that way.”

“Thank you.”

In a heartbeat, Wax was back in his penthouse. He’d never left, not physically. Steris knelt beside him, worried.

“He’s been blinded,” Wax said to her. “He didn’t realize how urgent the problem was, and he’s asked me to help. To intervene, and stop my sister.” He took her by the arm. “I’m sorry. I need to go. I know you’ll worry about me.”

“Of course I will,” she said. “But do you think I won’t worry if you stay? If you’re right about all of this…” She stood up. “It’s not me or them, Wax. It’s not politics or Allomancy. It’s not me or Lessie. It’s never been either/or. That part of your life isn’t over merely because you didn’t need it for a while. You need it now. We all do.”

He stood up beside her. “I’ll need to fetch my coat and my guns from the mansion.”

“I have them here,” she said, moving some stacks of broadsheets to uncover a cleaner’s bag — from which she removed his mistcoat.

“I should have guessed that you’d have it laundered,” he said. “Thank you for—”

There was a knock at the front door. They exchanged a look. Who was coming by at this hour of night, when even the servants had been dismissed? Wax walked to check, and outside — in the small hallway that led to the elevator foyer — he found a wrapped package.

He closed the door and showed the package to Steris. When unwrapped, it revealed a row of sixteen vials with — it appeared — a solution of alcohol and metal flakes inside. The last had a red-painted cork and a note. Use the others instead of your normal vials. Use the last in an emergency only.

Wax took these solemnly. Then, from the locked cabinet by the wall, he removed his strongbox — and from that two fully aluminum pistols, among Ranette’s finest creations. Vindication II and the Steel Survivor.

The first was a powerful, large-caliber gun designed to hold hazekiller rounds in two extra chambers. Those rounds were oversized, the bullets designed with a secondary explosion for dealing with Hemalurgists. Ranette had come up with them to forcibly eject a spike from a person’s body at close range. The second gun was a sleek mid-caliber pistol with an extra-long barrel for firing precision rounds. He generally loaded it with ordinary bullets that could be Pushed.

They slid into holsters that up until recently had held his unloaded guns. There was more in the box too. A gun bag, two feet long, holding something extra special, in several pieces that could be assembled. Ranette’s most deadly design. He hesitated as he put a hand on it. Inside was a weapon not for a lawman, but for a soldier. Intent on destruction.

He put it back in the gun box. He wasn’t going to need that. He was a lawman.

Steris bustled over with his large shoulder bag, extra wide and made of thick leather, for supplies. She packed his ammunition and extra metal vials — and, knowing her, a lunch — as he hurriedly gathered a few other things he thought he might need from the study. This included a belt with a pouch lined in aluminum, for holding metal vials. He could clip it closed, and the glass vials inside would be untouchable to enemy Allomancers. Into this he loaded half of the vials Harmony had sent.

When he returned, she held out his mistcoat for him. He took it in a two-handed grip.

“Steris,” he said, “the Senate … I can’t be in two places at once. Can you talk to the governor? This is a bad time for me to leave, with the new ambassador here. Hell … it might not be bad to prepare the governor for the worst, explaining about the potential for a bomb.”

“I don’t know if he will listen,” Steris said. “The senators and the governor don’t even listen to you — they’ll outright ignore me.”

“Still, we should try.”

“We … could appoint someone to represent the house…”

“Steris,” he said, “I stepped up to lead the house because of your dreams of what we could do. Your wonderful dreams. You saw in me someone who could do what needed to be done, and you were right.” He took her gently by the shoulder. “I see in you the same person. A better one. I’ve been working on your ideas these last years. Your genius. You can lead as well as I can. Better, even.”

“I’m not good with people,” she whispered. “I’ll ruin it. I’ve thought, and I’ve planned, and I always reach the same conclusion. I can’t be trusted with something this important; we need someone more suitable.”

“What if I think otherwise?” Wax said. “What if I think you’re absolutely the best person to represent our house? War is building — and it’s going to get worse if I do uncover a conspiracy in Bilming. We need someone to stop the hotheads. Someone meticulous, who has considered all the possibilities.”

“I … I don’t know. If I can do it.”

“I believe in you, Steris. I will appoint someone else if you want. But I think you can do it best.”

She met his eyes. Then, hesitantly, she nodded.

“Thank you,” he said.

“If you really think this is best, then I will try. I am bad with people, but you are good with them. So it stands to reason that perhaps you are right. About me.” She squeezed his arms. “Go. I will see to the Senate. Somehow.”

He kissed her, still holding the mistcoat in one hand, wrapping his other arm around her. As he did, a small pair of hands gripped him and Steris around the legs.

“Max!” Steris said, breaking the embrace and looking down. “Why aren’t you in bed?”

“Because I’m in here,” he said.

She lifted him up as Wax stepped back and threw on his coat, then slung his heavy ammunition bag over his shoulder.

“You need to go fight monsters now?” Max asked.

“If I can find them,” Wax said.

“You can,” Max said. “You’re the best detector that ever lived. Uncle Wayne told me. He said you can find any treasure there ever was to be found.”

“I’ve already found the best treasures, Max,” Wax said, turning — mistcoat tassels rustling in that old familiar way. Like whispers speaking an ancient tongue. “Now I just have to keep them safe.”

He threw open the balcony doors and launched out into the sky toward the city of Bilming. Stars both above and beneath — with a highway lined in light pointing the way forward.

BELOVED EDITOR STILL MISSING

It’s been eight days since our editor’s husband and children tearfully pled for her safe return. Since then, our reporters have combed the city, pestered the mayor, and followed each lead you dear readers have submitted. Until further notice, and barring any urgent information, our daily updates will run on the back. Please continue sending tips to our offices on the corner of 109th and Stratten Way.

Vif! SPARKLE TONIC

BEWARE!

COPYCATS CLAIM TO HAVE FOUND

THE SECRET FORMULA

But these unscrupulous imitators only seek access to your pocketbook and will try to fool you into drinking less than the best. If your druggist says something else is “good enough,” tell them:

“I KNOW THE DIF GIVE ME VIF”

(Paid for by the Vif Sparkle Co.)

TUNNEL TREMORS STOP … FOR NOW

A sign the city is ready to abandon its underground rail?

It’s every Bilminger’s favorite gripe: when will construction crews finish the underground rail line? Initiated over four years ago with a bloated budget that rusts the metals of every Bilming taxpayer, the subway was to provide relief to the city’s traffic problems. While little progress has been seen on the underground rail, in the same amount of time, the Bilming Transportation Authority has added more lines to the raised rail and more lanes to the highways. At this point, do we really need an underground railway, especially when its construction coincides with the small earthquakes that rattle our nerves every few months?

More coverage on back:

Owner of Soothing Parlor Grateful for Public Agitation

ALLOMANCER JAK SETTLES WITH SIDEKICK

Allomancer Jak has reached a settlement with his former sidekick, Handerwym Terrisborn, who claims the famous media mogul skimmed Terrisborn’s stakes in the company to invest in new media ventures, like the flash-in-the-pan evanoplays of several years ago. While Jak’s adventures will continue in The Sentinel of Truth, “Handerwym Presents” will now be exclusive to our broadsheet in Bilming.

“This was my intention all along,” said Jak to a crowd of eager fans, “to train dear Handerwym in the ways of greatness and then cut the apron strings, push him from the nest, and watch him sink or swim. Besides, now that I don’t have to pay him, I can focus my time and money on writing my memoirs and exploring promising new forms of storytelling. Let me tell you what’s next: vizbooks — they’re stories you can read even if you don’t know your letters!”

When asked for comment, Terrisborn just closed his eyes and sighed.

More details on back: Why the judge let Jak keep the tiger