The Lost Metal

35

Wax nodded to Wayne, and together they dashed out of the newspaper building — Wax pulling Telsin behind him — and into the cover between two nearby apartment buildings.

Telsin sighed as they stopped, then straightened her suit jacket. “Was that necessary?”

Wax gestured, and Wayne scrambled farther along the alleyway to scout the area.

“There are no snipers,” Telsin said. “You aren’t surrounded. It’s just me.”

Wax ignored her, absently clicking the chambers on Vindication one at a time. Watching the sky, because each time he looked at her he felt pain. Betrayal. He’d told Marasi he could handle Telsin. But now he questioned that. When had he ever gotten the better of her? She’d always made a fool of him.

This is what you came here to do, he told himself. This is why you put the coat back on. Because you know she has to be dealt with somehow.

“What if I towed you to Elendel,” he said, “and threw you in prison. Would you just go along with it?”

“Of course not,” she said. “I came to talk. To persuade you.”

“Of what?”

She met his eyes. “To run, Wax. Return to the Roughs. Take your wife, your children, and leave. You have time. Step away and let me do what needs to be done. I’d rather you lived.”

“Where was that inclination six years ago?” he asked. “On that mountaintop?”

She sighed, as if at his childishness, then leaned against the wall of the alley. “I didn’t want to shoot you, Wax. I didn’t expect you to show up and undermine our plans, and I had to do what was required in the moment.

“Wax, I know you. I know you’re overwhelmed by this. It’s too big for you; it can’t be solved by barreling in, revolver in hand. Go back to a place where you can accomplish something relevant. This next part will be messy, but it’s the only way to save our planet.”

“You expect me to believe that you are interested in the safety of the planet? That you are being altruistic?”

“Hardly,” she said, her arms folded. “I live here, Wax. If the Basin goes, I go. If you can trust in one thing, trust in my sense of self-preservation. Elendel has to be destroyed. Or else.”

“Or else Autonomy destroys the entire Basin?”

“She has an army,” Telsin said, looking away. “Men of gold and red … waiting for me to fail. Breathing over my proverbial shoulder. Our best hope is for me to prove I can rule this planet for her — and I need to remove the leadership of Elendel before I can do that.” She focused on him. “We’ll be better off with her guiding us. Harmony is useless, as you’ve undoubtedly learned by now. We need someone stronger.”

“Someone who by coincidence,” he said, “wants you to represent her.”

“It is a job that needs to be done.”

“I’d rather it be done by practically anyone but you.”

“You don’t get to make that decision.” Telsin looked up toward the sky. “Once I’m fully Invested — once I’m a Sliver of Autonomy — you’ll see. I’ll rebuild the Basin. Make it as modern and efficient as Bilming. You realize that Harmony has crippled us? Life is too easy in the Basin, too lush. There’s no conflict or strife, so we don’t innovate, don’t grow. That’s what Autonomy has taught me.”

Wax, feeling cold, stepped toward her. “So the solution is to annihilate Elendel? Nearly half our entire population?”

She continued staring at the sky.

“Telsin,” he said, “this insane plan won’t work. The South will invade the moment we’re perceived as weak. The Outer Cities will rebel in horror at what you’ve done. I know the mayors of those cities. They’re frustrated, but they’re not monsters.

“By destroying Elendel, you’d throw us into chaos. And yes, you’ll have strife. But it will end us, as surely as if Autonomy had attacked. This won’t give you what you want. Autonomy is playing you. Have you considered that? Maybe she wants you to destroy the Basin so she doesn’t have to bother.”

Again, Telsin didn’t look at him. And rusts, he felt like he’d put together another piece. Harmony had talked about Autonomy and the way she pushed people to survive, to prove themselves. A destroyed city might seem like a ruthless enough move to accomplish that, which was why Telsin was pursuing it.

But what about the letter indicating the involvement of Elendel senators? he thought. This is wrong. I’m making guesses based on incomplete information.

“Come on,” Telsin said, turning to climb up a fire escape. “I hate the smell of alleys.”

Wax raised the gun at her and chambered a hazekiller round. An aluminum bullet with a secondary explosive that would blast after it lodged into her — a brutal shell capable of ripping off limbs. Ranette had designed it for him after he’d discovered the Bands of Mourning and had expressed interest in ways to forcibly remove spikes from bodies.

Telsin continued up the fire escape, indifferent. She paused at the first landing and glanced at Wax. “Come on.” Then she kept climbing.

Rusts. Wax raised Vindication beside his head, then dropped a bullet with the other hand and used it to launch himself up past Telsin onto the roof. She joined him a short time later, and they both looked out over the city.

“Life really would have been far simpler,” she said, “if you’d stayed in the Roughs, Wax.”

“Then you and Edwarn shouldn’t have vanished.”

“We had to go into hiding,” she said. “Did Harmony tell you what happened to our parents?”

“It was … an accident…”

“It was agents of Harmony, trying to get to me. Did Harmony ever admit that to you?” She strolled past him. “No, I expect not, based on your expression.”

Don’t let her play you, Wax. Get information. “I know your bomb’s delivery mechanism doesn’t work, Telsin. I am going to track it down and stop it. Maybe you should be the one planning to hide in the Roughs. Better, maybe you should be asking me for help. If Autonomy has an army ready to strike, then we should be figuring out how to fight it together.”

Telsin stopped at the edge of the building, elbows on the stone railing, contemplative. “It’s pretty, don’t you think? A city of the future. All symmetrical, like a perfect face. A beauty without blemish.”

“Telsin,” Wax said, stepping up to her.

“Oh, stop with the gritty constable growl, Wax,” she said. “You see this city? Six years under my direction, and it’s doing far better than Elendel. You have to admit we’ve been too sheltered. The Malwish are beyond us, and you haven’t even seen what other planets are capable of doing. We’re so far behind. We’re vulnerable.”

“I don’t see how blowing up the capital is going to change that, Telsin.”

“Because you’ve always lacked vision, Wax,” she said. “When something truly expansive lies before you, instead of comprehending it, you run.”

Wax kept his distance. “Why did you come to see me, Telsin?” he asked. “What is this really about?”

“Sibling affection?” she said. Then smiled as he gave her a flat glance in response. “I simply want you gone. Out of the equation. You interfering is bad. Even when you inevitably fail.”

Her brother showing up to ruin things is bad, he thought. Telsin glanced away again, but he sensed a tension in her posture. She was legitimately worried that her plans wouldn’t come together — that Autonomy would simply send in her armies.

Can’t have your own family ruining your masterful plans. It makes you look bad in front of the dark god deciding whether or not to destroy you.

“You can’t actually think,” he said, “that you can bully me into leaving a case.”

“I suppose not,” she said softly. “But I wanted to try.”

Yeah, she’s worried. Telsin knew him, but he knew her equally well. Perhaps Harmony was right in suggesting Wax talk to her. The sharpened sword cut cleanest, and Wax had spent a lifetime sharpening this particular blade.

“Do you remember back in the Village,” he said to her, “when you wanted your own room?”

“Father always said it was appropriate for us,” she said, “because of our lineage. We shouldn’t have to share.”

“You planted stolen cash on your own cousin to achieve it. And even that wasn’t your end goal — you wanted to live alone so that you could sneak out. Everything is a power play for you.”

“Because I’m willing to step up,” she said. “And take charge. Like I took over our house when our parents died. Like I’m taking over this planet. It will happen, Wax. I’m merely sad that I’ll have to cut through you to accomplish it.”

Wax met her gaze. And he realized something profound.

He couldn’t see anything familial in this person.

Familiar, yes. But whatever he had loved was long gone, ripped out and replaced with expansions of the parts of her he’d always hated.

“Last chance, Wax,” she said, holding his eyes. “Go back to the Roughs. With Elendel gone, those people out there are going to need someone to help guide and protect them. You can be that person. This is too big for you. You know it is.”

Wax opened his mouth to object. To explain that yes, he had run once. He’d been overwhelmed by politics, society, expectations. He’d wanted adventure, dreamed of it in the Roughs — but more, he’d wanted a place where one man could make an easy difference. Where things felt simpler.

He cut himself off, realizing something crucial. She was wrong about him.

He’d changed. He’d become someone new, someone who had grown beyond his fears. But she didn’t realize it. She didn’t know about Lessie. Didn’t understand the depth of his friendship with Wayne. Didn’t know of his love for Steris, the reason he’d taken Harmony’s offer to return from death and try again.

She didn’t know him. But she thought she did.

Rusts. For the first time in his life, he had an advantage over her. Telsin, by marinating in her own ambitions for years, had become an extreme version of the woman he knew. She’d continued on exactly the path he’d worried about since her youth. But he’d deviated. He’d grown. He’d changed.

“I might not be able to fix things in Elendel,” he found himself saying. “I might not grasp everything that’s happening with you and Autonomy. But stopping a bomb is something I can solve. Something I will solve.”

She sighed, seeing only the dogged lawman. Her little brother and his fantasies.

“You have no idea…” she whispered, looking away. “You can’t stop this, Wax. Even if you did find the bomb, there are redundancies upon redundancies to make sure that Autonomy gets what she wants. We need to prove ourselves. And I’m going to do that.”

Redundancies. What did she mean by that? It didn’t sound like the army Autonomy was supposedly sending. Were there other, internal pressures? Rivals? He took a guess.

“Gave Entrone,” he said, “is trying to overtake you. Seize your position.”

“Entrone is a coward,” she said. “He won’t move against me. Wax, you’re not half as smart as you think you are.”

He might not see it all, true — but if Entrone was a coward, then maybe Wax was interrogating the wrong person. He doubted he could break Telsin. But clearly there was someone else who knew these plans.

So, I get Entrone to break, he thought.

“You ever stand up someplace high,” Telsin said, “and feel the irresistible urge to throw yourself off?”

“No,” Wax said, frowning. “If I want to, I jump. If I don’t, I don’t.”

“The curse of Steelpushing,” she said, staring out over the city. “You can’t feel it. The call to do something dramatic, drastic, impressive.”

“The urge to kill yourself on a whim?” Wax asked, baffled.

“The opportunity to be afraid,” she whispered. “To do something thrilling and new. You know, I resisted getting the spikes for Steelpushing and Ironpulling? I didn’t want to lose my nervousness around heights. Then I found new fears, new challenges, new ambitions.”

Wax nodded slowly. That was his Telsin. The woman who always pushed recklessly for more. More power. But also more experiences. More novelty. More control over others.

“There’s an entire cosmere out there,” she said to him. “Few ever see or know it. But I have a chance to. A real chance. I’m not going to let you take that from me. I’m telling you, Wax, I’m not going to pull my punches. I’ll do whatever it takes.”

“And I’ll stop you. Whatever it takes.”

“Ever the moralist,” she said, glancing at him. “Standing so tall, pretending you see so high, when in reality you can barely grasp the problems you’re trying to fix. I’ve already solved them. Do you want to hear of Trell? Autonomy? What it means to be her avatar?”

A part of him did. But if she wanted to tell him about it … if she was offering …

Rusts, then she was stalling.

She was desperate, trying to buy as much time as she could. That piece clicked into place. She was talking to him because she had to keep him distracted. The trick wasn’t to realize that she was stalling, it was to recognize that as long as he let her tease him with information, she held all the cards.

There was only one way to win this particular game. And that was to leave the table.

“She’s going to destroy us?” he said, strolling across the top of the roof behind her.

“Unless I prove to her that we’re worth saving,” she explained, turning to survey the city. As before, she didn’t seem to care that she had her back to him. “Autonomy is … odd. She respects those who are bold, strong, able to survive on their own. But she also wants them to obey her. I suppose that is the irony of godhood. Half the time, being ‘autonomous’ means following her plan. And there’s no Whimsy to her — that’s a different god.

“Autonomy is rugged individualism filtered through the lens of a god who thinks she knows best. And in that context, individualism is a virtue best applied to finding ways to carry out the plans she has outlined. You get to be individual in your chosen path to do what she says…”

Wax missed the next part, as he had quietly slipped over the side of the roof. With luck, she’d keep right on talking, giving him time to get away.

36

Marasi and Moonlight hurriedly finished up in the basement — Moonlight grabbing a last few rubbings of the wall plates and tucking them away in her case. Together they then climbed to the main floor, where they found the grey-haired editor Maraga standing in the center of a cluttered room, holding an overstuffed travel bag and looking frazzled.

“On his way out,” she said to Marasi, “Dawnshot told me to go to family in the countryside. But all of my family is either here or in Elendel. Should I … go to them?”

“Probably not wise,” Marasi said. Any family in Bilming would be easily tracked down by the Set, and Elendel … well, it had a massive bomb pointed at it.

That thought filled Marasi with worry. But she needed to focus on preventing the disaster. She had to leave helping Elendel to her sister.

“Moonlight,” Marasi said, “surely there’s a place in the city you could send Maraga? A place of safety for someone who did us such great service?”

Moonlight considered for a moment. She wasn’t the type to rush into things, it seemed. Careful. Calculating. Finally she slipped a small card from her sleeve, marked with the interlocking diamond symbol. “Do you know the Knightbridge district?”

“Yes,” Maraga said, hesitantly taking the card.

“Go to Thirty-Third and Finete, house number one eighty-seven. Knock, show them this, and tell them Moonlight said you could ask for asylum as recompense for services rendered. They’ll take you in. Even the Set will have trouble assaulting that place.”

“Thank you,” the woman said, clutching the card to her chest.

“I’ll send someone to collect your research,” Moonlight said. “Though I have the plates all copied. You need to go. Quickly.”

“I’m going to fetch my sister too,” Maraga said. “Please?”

“If you must,” Moonlight said. “But be warned, since the Set knows we’re here, each moment you waste endangers your life.”

Maraga rushed to the door. She paused to look over what she was leaving, then steeled herself and hurried out.

“What about us?” Moonlight asked.

“We need to determine a likely entry point to the underground caverns,” Marasi said. “Do you have maps of enemy movements? Lists of places you think might be owned by the Set?”

“Not on me,” Moonlight said. “Perhaps we could return to the records office and do some research.”

“I think I have a better idea,” Marasi said, leading the way out the front door. “Riskier, but hopefully faster.”

“I’m intrigued,” Moonlight said, joining her as they walked to a busier street where — with some effort — Marasi managed to flag down a cab. She found it amazing how quickly coachmen had made the swap between horse-drawn carriages and motorcabs.

They settled in the rear of the motorcar, and the cabbie — a woman with dark hair in a ponytail — glanced back at them. “Where to?”

“Knightbridge district,” Marasi said. “Thirty-Third and Finete.”

The cabbie nodded, pulling out into the flow of traffic and taking them westward.

“Clever,” Moonlight said to Marasi. “I’m going to have to watch myself around you. But what makes you think our safehouse will have the maps you want?”

“You found me in the caverns beneath Elendel,” Marasi said. “Plus, a moment ago you implied such maps existed — you didn’t have them ‘on you.’ Ergo, I assumed this was a good path forward. Your people will have the information we need.”

“They might not let you in,” Moonlight said. “What then? You’ll have wasted time.”

“Wasted time,” Marasi snapped.

“Wasted time?”

She glanced toward the cabbie, uncertain what she should say.

“Darkwater, dear,” Moonlight said to the cabbie, “give us a little privacy.”

“Sure thing, Moonlight,” the cabbie said, shutting the window separating the front of the car from the back.

Marasi gaped. Then she looked at Moonlight, who shrugged.

“Moonlight,” Marasi said, focusing her thoughts, “what kind of game do you think we’re playing? Didn’t you say your entire purpose was protecting this planet? Now you imply you’d keep me locked out of your safehouse, and the vital information it contains?”

Moonlight settled in her seat, thoughtful. “My organization,” she eventually said, “was created to protect and advance the needs of the planet Scadrial. It’s not my homeland, but I am committed to seeing it remain stable. There are terrible forces moving in the cosmere; my people are going to need allies.”

“So why are you so resistant to helping me?”

“To be honest,” Moonlight said, “I’m worried we’re being played. Autonomy is adept at misdirection, at false leads and confusing shadows of half-truths. Restarting the ashfalls? That seems … outrageous. Impossible even for her. Something is off about all this. A shade too red to be natural.”

“So help me find the truth, Moonlight,” Marasi said. “Stop toying with me.”

“I’m not toying with you,” Moonlight said. “This is an audition.”

Marasi blinked. What?

“Until a little while ago,” Moonlight continued, “I assumed we had months to unravel the Set’s plan.” She tapped her armrest with a fingernail, then looked at her bag, where the rubbings she’d taken were peeking out.

During their short time working together, Marasi had started to see Moonlight as all-knowing — someone mysterious, alien. But that concern in her eyes, the way she was fighting uncertainty … that was all too human.

“I’ll let you into the safehouse,” Moonlight finally said. “And deal with the ramifications later, if this proves to all be another of Autonomy’s shadow games. But I’m not sure I can give you everything you want.

“We don’t have the caverns in the city mapped, but we do watch their agents.” She patted her bag, and the rubbings. “This lists coordinates of the explosions. So if we compare where the blasts have been happening with the places where Set agents appear and vanish…”

“… We might be able to find a way into their testing facility,” Marasi said. “I did something similar to locate that cavern under Elendel.”

“I remember when all this started to hit me,” Moonlight said softly. “When my world expanded, and my personal squabbles — even the ones that influenced the fates of empires — suddenly became so small. You’re doing remarkably well.”

“My life,” Marasi said, “has mostly been expanses of quiet humdrum punctuated by sudden explosions — usually literal ones — of activity. I’m used to working under pressure.”

“And dealing with gods?” Moonlight said. “Fighting their influence?”

“Well, we have one on our own side, after all.”

“Kind of,” Moonlight said. “Harmony isn’t terribly reliable these days. At least not in the ways my mentor would prefer. It’s less like having a god on your side — and more like having a powerful referee who only sometimes pays attention to your fight.”

“Or an observer,” Marasi said, “who you’re sure could do more to help, but doesn’t for some baffling reason.”

“Yes, like…” Moonlight narrowed her eyes. “Point made. Here, we’re approaching the safehouse. Hopefully the Survivor hasn’t returned unexpectedly. My mentor isn’t always reasonable when it comes to people he sees as Harmony’s agents, and might respond … poorly.”

37

Wayne had read a real interesting book once about a fellow what went back in time. It had happened because he’d turned on too many electric switches at once. That was ridiculous, but the book had been written when electricity had been new — so it was forgivable. People had thought some funny stuff about electricity back then. Wayne himself had tried to fill a bucket with it once.

He found himself thinking of that story as he scoured the nearby alleys for signs of the Set’s agents. See, the book had been all about how changing the past was this dangerous thing. The fellow in it had broken some branches off a tree, and when he’d returned to the future, his father had liked eating butter on his sandwiches instead of mayo. Also, sapient lions had ruled the city.

Wayne had thought there was something … off about the story. When he’d mentioned it to friends, Nod had told him of another one with the same idea, where a fellow was sent back in time through the intricacies of indoor plumbing and an unfortunately large flush. And he had changed things by eating a bagel, then returned to discover that everybody spoke backward and no one wore shirts anymore.

This book had been better than the first one on account of it having more cussing — plus the no-shirts part being universally applied and very descriptively relayed — but still, Wayne found the idea uncomfortable.

He traded a beggar — unbeknownst to the fellow — a stack of cash for a dirty handkerchief; Wayne liked it on account of it havin’ a little bunny sewn in the corner. He was starting to figure out why those stories bothered him. They had this sense that changing the future was frightening and dangerous.

But didn’t people change it every day?

Wayne wondered regarding the choices people made. Rushing through their lives eating bagels, breaking twigs. Each of them changing the future. Shouldn’t they all … worry about that a little more? Worry how they were changing the future right now, rather than writing books about people doing it in the past? Even if they couldn’t know some things, there was a lot they could anticipate. They might not make that future have talking lions or whatnot — but they might make it have angrier, sadder people.

Maybe stories about fellows quietly making the world better were just too dull. Sounded boring, actually. Maybe if the people in them wore no shirts …

A hand wrapped around Wayne’s mouth from behind. He almost killed the fellow — but it smelled like Wax, so …

Yup, it was Wax. The man eased Wayne back into an alleyway, then pulled him down beside some rubbish as someone passed on the street. Telsin, searching around, annoyed.

After she was gone, Wax removed his hand.

“You let her go?” Wayne whispered.

“Call me crazy—”

“You’re crazy.”

“—but it feels more like I escaped.” Wax nodded his head in the other direction and they snuck away.

“I have to say,” Wayne muttered, “that there are better methods of gettin’ my attention. You’re not supposed to take friends captive, Wax, unless it involves a safeword and stretchy ropes.”

“Stretchy ropes?”

“More fun if you can move a little,” Wayne said. “I got to test them, since I had to be the one getting tied up. You know, on account of the fact that my girlfriend could turn into a puddle of jelly on command. Kind of undermines the point of bondage.”

Wax groaned softly as they slipped out onto the street. “I did not need to know any of that, Wayne. Could you maybe avoid being crass on the missions Harmony specifically sent us on?”

“Hey now,” Wayne said. “That’s not crass. MeLaan is a divine being. Chosen by Harmony. I figure, dating her was basically like going to church, you know?”

“And the stretchy ropes?”

“A, uh, metaphor for us all being bound by God’s will?”

They shared a look, then Wax actually grinned as he shook his head. Good. Guy was too uptight these days, what with parenthood, bein’ a senator, and having to save the whole damn city now and then.

Hoid pulled up in the car to get them, per Wayne’s earlier request — but Telsin was still lurking around. So Wax and Wayne slipped out another way and entered a busy street of bustling people. Full of Bilming idiots what had no idea how difficult they was making life. Though he supposed that was too much of a generalization. There were plenty of people in Bilming that weren’t idiots — they came from out of town to gawk at all the idiots.

“Did you get a lead out of Telsin?” Wayne asked as they blended into the crowd.

“Maybe,” Wax said.

“Well, I’ve definitely got a lead.”

“You do? Thank Harmony.”

“Yup. There’s a shining good pub three streets over. Two different bums swore by it.”

Wayne earned a real good glare out of that one. Made him feel all proud of himself. Smiles, then glares, then smiles, then glares. They pulled at a person like taffy, keeping them limber.

“I had to get away from Telsin,” Wax said. “I’m sure she was stalling, trying to keep me occupied.”

“Seems like she’s worried we can stop her.”

“Agreed. Which is encouraging. But I won’t get anything useful from her. Not in time. We need someone else to interrogate, and she gave me a lead: I think the lord mayor deserves a visit.”

“Here now,” Wayne said. “Now that’s an idea.”

They stopped on the street, people giving them a wide berth. The folks here seemed to dress with a lot more variety than in Elendel, but nobody wore guns. Wax stood out like a big ol’ wart on a fellow’s face. The type that you really wanted to pop to see what oozed out.

“We don’t exactly blend in, do we?” Wax said.

“Mate, you’re wearing a rusting mistcoat.”

“They’re comfy.”

“They draw attention.”

“You like attention!”

“Depends on who’s looking.” He eyed Wax. “Never have figured out how to go up stairs in one of those things without tripping over my own feet.”

“I’ve never had any trouble.”

Figured. Mistcoats appeared like a regular piece of clothing, but Wayne was sure they was secretly something else. Made of mist or such — and since Harmony liked Wax, the coat didn’t trip him.

Wasn’t fair that God liked Wax better. Wayne didn’t mean to blaspheme when he got drunk, it just slipped out. And really, if the blasphemy leaked out, didn’t that mean he was more pious afterward? That was why he got drunk so often. That, and absolutely no other reason.

The two of them moved to the side of the street, in the mouth of an alleyway, to plan. Wax glared right smartly at anyone who gawked, sending them on their way.

“So,” Wax said, “we should choose our next course soon. Because if I somehow actually managed to lose the Set when slipping away from Telsin, they’ll surely spot us before too long.”

“’Cuz you stand out like pink shoes on a pallbearer.”

“’Cuz I stand out like pink shoes on a pallbearer.”

“I like the idea of shakin’ down Entrone,” Wayne said. “On principle, at least. But I worry about how much attention that would draw. So maybe we don’t need to interrogate him specifically. After all, we do know where he lives.”

Wayne pointed across the city, up the road, to the silvery-white building sitting at the end. It wasn’t the highest building in town. The central spire, dominating the very middle of the city, was the highest by a lot. And they were even adding to it at the top, it seemed, with new construction.

Still, there was a certain majesty about the mayor’s mansion. The kind that said, “Oi, mate! Don’t use words like ‘oi, mate’ ’round here.”

“Entrone,” Wayne said, “is obviously involved in all this. He’s the type to have secrets written down somewhere, maybe give us a lead on where that bomb is being kept. He’s probably got a safe or something full of answers.”

“You just said shaking him down would create another incident,” Wax said, his hands on his hips, holstered guns jutting out and making basically everybody nearby nervous. “Now you’re suggesting we ransack his mansion?”

“I’m suggesting,” Wayne said, giving it a nice upper-class, Fifth Octant, old-money accent, “that once we have completed our radio communication, we give the esteemed lord mayor an evening turn-down service with mints on his pillow, folded towels in the shape of a monkey, and a light despoiling of his intimate affairs. Done with only the most delicate attention, mind you. A courteous looting. An … upper-class plundering.”

“Is that so?” Wax said.

Wayne leaned in. “I mean, we’ll still break all his stuff and steal his secrets. I just won’t fart on his chair before we go. You know. To keep things classy.”

Wax took a deep breath. “Well, I suppose that does walk the line between accosting the man himself and doing something that has a good chance of success. Let’s do it.”

Wayne grinned.

“But I’ll do the ransacking,” Wax said. “You handle the distraction.”

38

Steris threw open the door to the governor’s chamber, where he was holding his private council on what to do about Bilming. Then held that door open for Constable-General Reddi. He’d been invited to the meeting along with his staff. Today that included two other people: Constable Gorglen as record keeper. And Steris.

The governor sat at the head of the meeting table. Adawathwyn immediately glared at Steris through dark brown eyes. The three senators — Lord Cett, Lady Hammondess, and Lady Gardre — were in attendance, as well as Ambassador Daal, his expression unreadable behind his bloodred mask. The shorter man hadn’t taken a seat at the table, but instead stood by the wall, his posture prim and sharp.

“Ah, finally,” the governor said, looking up from the broadsheets. “Reddi. You … Wait. What is she doing here?”

“Lady Ladrian?” Reddi said. “Subject matter expert, on my payroll.”

As of fifteen minutes ago, at least. Steris had insisted he actually pay her, and she clutched the single coin in her fist as she shut the door behind Reddi. Then she stepped forward and sat down at the table beside him.

“Did she tell you,” the governor said, “that I specifically excluded her from this council?”

“Yes, she did,” Reddi replied. “And frankly, Your Grace, I thought that an unwise move. She’s the wife of the man who alerted us to this crisis. When Lady Ladrian approached me and explained why I should employ her, I realized she’d undoubtedly have information this council needs.”

The vice governor folded her arms on the table, scowling. But the governor … he nodded. Steris always hesitated to read too much into people’s expressions, but now she wondered. Was there a rift between these two? She’d always assumed Varlance was entirely in Adawathwyn’s pocket.

But then, no person ever fit comfortably in a pocket.

“Very well,” the governor said. “I’m afraid we started without you. As the information has come in and we’ve gauged the feelings of Outer Cities governments, we’ve come to see that our path is inevitable. It looks like war.”

“War?” Reddi said.

“It’s the necessary course of action,” Lady Hammondess said. She had a small gap between her front teeth, of the sort men often described as cute — as if it were the reason for her beauty rather than her flawless skin, delicate features, and long lashes. Curious, how minor flaws became cute when their bearer also happened to be conventionally attractive. “The Outer Cities are building up for war.”

“Warships in Bilming,” Lord Cett agreed. He was a striking man, if you liked the smooth and well-dressed sort. Steris wondered how much work it took to keep one’s rough edges so contained behind powders and soft clothing. “Railroad blockades to the south. Recruitment flyers in the Roughs, offering jobs for ‘security forces.’”

“Which is why,” Constable Reddi said, “we need to work so hard to soothe the situation and reconcile!”

“Better,” Lady Hammondess said, “we should strike first. We’ve been ignoring the warning signs for too long. If we don’t move soon, we will not be able to win.”

Steris glanced at Lady Gardre, the third of the nobles in the room. The plump woman was much less of a war hawk than the others, far more reasonable. But even she nodded, reluctantly. And it did make sense. Every day that Elendel dithered gave the other cities time to build power. Elendel had the advantage of infrastructure, manufacturing, and coordination. But that wouldn’t remain an edge for long.

Striking first made sense if you thought war was inevitable. But it wasn’t. It didn’t have to be.

This was the enemy’s plan. She was increasingly certain that saber-rattling in the Outer Cities was a cover for whatever weapon was being prepared in Bilming.

Reddi began sputtering. “War with what army? Elendel has barely ten thousand troops, and that’s counting our navy protecting shipping to the South!”

“We have conscription plans in place,” Adawathwyn said smoothly. “And we have a very capably trained constabulary.”

Reddi seemed horrified by that statement. Steris had something to add, but she hesitated. Was this the part where she spoke? She could rarely figure that out.

“My people,” Reddi said, “are not soldiers.”

“Pardon, constable,” Lord Cett said, leaning across the table. “But no one is a soldier until they’re trained to be.”

“We’re needed,” Reddi explained. “Law—”

“We’ll be under martial law,” the governor explained. “Policing crime in the city will get a lot easier with curfews. You can put excess constables into the military force.”

Maybe this was the part where she should speak. Steris opened her mouth and made a noise to that effect, but they kept talking straight over her.

“I won’t stand for this!” Reddi said, throwing himself — paradoxically — to his feet. “This is not the oath my constables swore!”

“You don’t get to choose, constable,” the governor said. “I hold your commission, and that of every constable in this city. They ultimately answer to me.”

“We can quit, Varlance,” Reddi said, leaning forward, his hands on the table. “You can’t force us to fight.”

“I—” Steris started.

“Actually,” Adawathwyn said lightly, “that’s precisely what a draft is, Constable Reddi.”

“I would—” Steris tried again.

“Yeah?” Reddi snapped. “And who exactly is going to lock us up?”

“Everyone shut up and listen!” Steris snapped. “Or I will barf on the table to get your attention!”

The entire room stared at her.

“I’ll do it,” she warned. “I keep medication in my handbag to produce the effect. You’d be surprised at how often the option is relevant.”

Well, now she had their attention.

“If we are worried about war,” she said, “we should immediately begin an evacuation of the city.”

“No good,” Cett said. “If there is war, we need workers to facilitate industry — and to ramp up production of munitions.”

Rusts. That was the correct answer. She’d hoped he wouldn’t have thought that far forward. She glanced at the silent Malwish ambassador. What did he think of all of this? Had he anticipated it? She had always kept her focus on members of the Set in the Basin. But who was to say there weren’t members among the Malwish as well? Rusts.

“War is not the answer,” she said, turning back to the group. “It serves our enemies, not us. Look, I made a list here, to prove the logic of what I say. I’m increasingly convinced that the leaders of the Outer Cities want us to be passing legislation that restricts and insults them. They want us interfering.

“They have built gunships and militaries, but they have not attacked. They caught Waxillium in their midst, shooting up a warehouse, but what haven’t they done? They haven’t expelled our constables or officials from the city. They’ve shouted about it, they’ve drawn up editorials. But they haven’t attacked. Why not?”

“Because they need us to do it,” Reddi said. “They need us to give them a reason to go to war.”

“The common people of the Basin don’t want to fight,” Steris said. “Certainly not against Elendel — where they undoubtedly have family.”

“Or because they don’t think they can win,” Lord Cett said.

Steris looked down at her notes. “That’s … unfortunately a real possibility.”

“Why is that unfortunate?” Reddi asked.

“Because,” Steris said, “if they know they can’t defeat us in open war they might do something desperate. Like unleash a weapon of cataclysmic relevance.”

“Returning to your real point,” Adawathwyn said. “This bomb you keep harping on.”

But Governor Varlance was watching her. He was listening.

“My husband,” Steris said, “is in Bilming investigating it as we speak. He produced a terribly dangerous explosion in our laboratory, using rare materials we know the enemy has. We have traced a set of test explosions in caverns underneath Bilming. Something is happening.”

She met the governor’s eyes. “And if our fears about a bomb are true,” she said softly, “then the posturing — manipulating us into the position of a bully and tyrant who needs to be resisted — might be intended to give the leaders of the Outer Cities a justification. A way to explain why they had to take such extreme measures. Like destroying us all.”

The room quieted, but then Lady Gardre shook her head. “Are we really entertaining these fancies? Doomsday weapons? The real politics of the situation aren’t enough?”

She, Steris realized, looking at the quiet woman, must be the member of the Set. She’d assumed there would be at least one moving among the political elite of Elendel. For a while she’d worried it was the governor or Adawathwyn, but they were both too obvious. The Set liked to move beneath layers of obscurity.

The governor was far too prominent, and Adawathwyn too actively working for things the Set wanted. She was a decoy; she likely assumed she was the mastermind of her own designs. In actuality, she was just another puppet. Encouraged, but left clean so that her eventual downfall wouldn’t lead to real conspirators. Who included, smartly, the woman who was seen as the most reasonable. The most rational.

Steris felt far more comfortable upon identifying her. It was like … finding a snake in your intimates drawer. Yes, it was alarming. But at least you could close the drawer and know where it was.

But how to steer the conversation in defiance of that woman? Ah. Perhaps that?

She turned to the constables. “This might be the right time to reveal yourself,” she said.

“Huh?” Reddi asked.

“Not you, Constable-General,” she said, looking past him toward the lanky Constable Gorglen — the younger man with a long neck and freckles. So unassuming. He met her eyes.

“How did you know?” he asked in a grinding, rough voice that didn’t match his frame.

“Process of elimination,” she said. “We were promised help, and MeLaan said there were multiple kandra among the constables, but gave only one name. Plus, you walk awkwardly when you have to use a two-legged body.”

“Damn,” Gorglen — TenSoon — said. “But I suppose you’re right about the timing.” He stood up before the room of surprised people and made his skin transparent. “Harmony would like me to impress upon you the importance of our current debate — and to confirm what Lady Ladrian is saying. The Set is real. They are planning to annihilate Elendel.”

The governor gasped.

Adawathwyn drew back.

Reddi gaped, then spun on Steris. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I wasn’t a hundred percent certain until earlier today,” Steris admitted. “I actually wondered if you were also kandra, Reddi. I decided against it, as I don’t think Harmony likes his kandra impersonating important officials. Except that once. Well, and that other time. But those were exceptions.” She flipped open one of her notebooks. “I’ve been tracking who might have been replaced for weeks now. See? Kandra attendant to the constable-general. Second most likely placement in the city for one of the Immortals.”

“And the first?” Adawathwyn asked.

“You,” Steris said, flipping back a page. “But I was working with outdated information. A kandra in your place would take far more care not to be an utterly worthless piece of slime.” She made a notation. The room was quiet. “Oh, did I say something awkward again? I do make that mistake sometimes, don’t I?”

Reddi slumped back into his seat. “I can’t believe this…”

“It was all but inevitable that they would be among your staff, Constable-General Reddi,” Steris said.

“No,” he said. “It’s not that he’s kandra. It’s that … rusts, Wayne was right…”

“I am TenSoon,” the kandra said to the room, eliciting another series of gasps. He growled softly. “I hate it when people do that. Harmony is worried. And so you should be worried. Especially as Harmony is … unable to see certain things lately. We are working blind.”

“What can blind a god?” the governor asked.

“Another god,” Steris mumbled.

“So what do we do?” Reddi asked. “We can’t go to war, not if that’s what they want. But—”

He was interrupted by a knock at the door. There were no attendants in the room, just senators and the like, so Reddi answered it himself: revealing a young woman, a radio technician by her uniform, holding a folded piece of paper.

“What is it?” Reddi demanded.

“Communication from Dawnshot,” she said, “for Lady Ladrian. I … um … thought it was worth interrupting you, even though the people outside said—”

“You did the right thing,” Reddi said, taking it.

The poor woman was pale and trembling.

“You read it?” Steris asked.

“I had to transcribe it for you,” she said. “That’s how it works…”

Reddi handed Steris the letter, and she unfolded it. The opening words, bold and dominant, leaped off the page.

39

Marasi stood before an unassuming townhome, one in a long row of structures along the street, each a different color with a slightly different building shape. Each lawn held a different variety of tree. Bilming ideal: mass-produced individuality.

Marasi hesitated on the threshold. Ruin. Was she ready to meet the Survivor himself? A man she had been taught since childhood to worship, a man who had transcended even the grave. Who had briefly held the mantle of Preservation before releasing it to the Ascendant Warrior. And who had then protected the people of the Southern Continent for years after the world was remade.

Moonlight was confident that her mentor really was him. So how would it feel to meet him?

You’ve chatted with Death, Marasi thought. Is this so different?

Judging by her nerves: Yes. Yes it was.

Moonlight touched her finger to a piece of metal on the door, and the thing unlocked. “Identity lock,” she noted, then pushed open the door. The small foyer inside was all hardwood and polish, and there were no paintings or other ornamentations of note. Moonlight headed to the left, into a large room with thick drapes covering the windows.

The walls were lined with maps, illuminated by electric lights. Moonlight slid her bag onto a table by the far wall, where a woman in her twenties — somewhat plump, with a stark blonde bob — was peering at a paper covered in strange writing. She had a small terrier in her lap.

“Moonlight,” the woman said after a glance. “You have to read this. Travel to Bjendal has been completely upset. That’s four primary systems we can’t visit without extreme danger, if you count Roshar. I’ve said it for years: The perpendicularities are no longer viable. They never were good for mass transportation or commerce, no matter how hard those fools on Nalthis try. We need a different…” The woman trailed off, then turned in her seat, perhaps hearing Marasi stepping into the room. “Hey! You brought a local!”

“Marasi, meet Codenames,” Moonlight said. “Codenames, meet Marasi. We’re working on a mission together.”

“Wow,” Codenames said, thrusting the sheet of paper at Moonlight, then hopping to her feet, the small dog under her arm. “You must trust her.”

“Hardly.”

“You brought her to the safehouse!”

“She forced me.”

“No one forces you to do anything,” Codenames said, then bounced over and thrust her free hand toward Marasi. “Hi! I’m Codenames Are Stupid. Long story.”

The woman had a faint accent, wholly unlike that of Allik or anyone Marasi had met from the Southern Continent. That, plus the way she’d spoken of “locals,” indicated … another traveler? The presence of an accent indicated she might not be as good at languages as Moonlight was, maybe?

Marasi shook her hand. “Is … um … the Survivor here?”

“Kell?” Codenames said. “Nah. Haven’t seen him in a week or so.” She spun toward Moonlight. “What do you think of the report? Worrisome, right?”

Moonlight held the paper pinched between two fingers. “Codenames,” she said, “what language is this even in?”

“Thaylen,” Codenames said. “Oh! It’s a fascinating one, Moonlight. You should learn it! Look how the letters interlock in—”

“I’ll stick to using Connection tricks for languages, thank you,” Moonlight said, spreading out the rubbings she’d taken.

“That’s cheating.”

“Another word for a clever shortcut,” Moonlight said. “Is TwinSoul here? I think we’re going to need some mathematics.”

“Lily and I will go and grab him,” Codenames said, carrying her dog and slipping away into the back rooms.

Marasi had watched the exchange with bafflement, but rather than focus on what she didn’t understand, she turned her attention to something she did. One of the maps was of Scadrial — the entire world. A more detailed map than she’d ever seen, far more extensive than the official surveys — it even included the dark parts of the unexplored islands and landmasses to the south.

If that was Scadrial, then what were these other maps? Rusts. How many worlds were out there?

There’s always another secret, she thought, remembering her catechism as a child studying the life of the Survivor.

A short time later, Codenames walked back into the room with an elderly man. He looked … well, ancient, judging by the long powder-white mustache and the liver-spotted skin, which was a deep tan. He wore a formal suit in the Bilming fashion, so … maybe he was from her land? But he also had a short beard with mustaches — a style she’d never seen a man wear in Elendel. Though he stood tall, not the least bit bowed by age, he did seem a little unsteady on his feet — since he gripped the doorframe as he stepped through it.

“Ah,” he said, pressing his palms together. “A guest! Welcome to our home, honored guest. Let me get you something to drink.”

“TwinSoul,” Moonlight said, “we are on a deadline to—”

“Deadlines are no excuse for rudeness,” TwinSoul said. “I am TwinSoul, and you are…?”

“Marasi,” she said.

“Lady Marasi!” he said. “Excellent.” He immediately turned toward what Marasi assumed was the kitchen. “How do you take your tea?”

“Um … mint tea, if you have it. With lemon?”

“Excellent!” he said again. He soon returned with a plate bearing a cup and an array of nuts and fruits. “Please enjoy.”

She felt guilty making someone so old wait on her — but at the same time there was a certain forcefulness to how he offered the refreshment. It reminded her of her aunt, who would be far more offended if you didn’t accept a drink. So Marasi took the cup and a handful of nuts.

“Now,” TwinSoul said. “What have you brought me, Moonlight? Curious, curious.” He stepped over to the table and surveyed the rubbings — stretching out his hands and resting them on the table.

Marasi stepped up, curious. There was something odd about his hands that she hadn’t noticed earlier: a line of crystal. Embedded in the skin, running along the outsides of his fingers and wrists — almost like a seam on a glove. It was pinkish-red, like rose quartz. The man leaned down, and she saw lines of similar crystal appear from beneath his collar, growing up the sides of his neck and temples. Crossing his skin like little rivers of liquid.

As she watched with amazement, these tendrils expanded from his temples, forming spectacles. Completely made of crystal, the lens parts more transparent than the rest. A second set of lenses, smaller, formed in front of the others — giving him extra magnification.

“How…” Marasi said, glancing at Moonlight. “How does he do that?”

“I fear,” TwinSoul said, pulling tight one of the rubbings, “that such information is not lightly shared with an outsider, even an honored guest. I must trust that Moonlight thinks this is acceptable for you to see, but I apologize. I will not explain without leave from our leader.”

“It’s an emergency,” Moonlight said, lounging against a bookshelf with her arms folded. “I had to risk bringing her in.” She glanced at Marasi, and seemed to be hiding a smile at Marasi’s visible wonder.

She’s not as worried about my visit as she implied, Marasi thought. She sees this as an opportunity to intrigue me.

It was working. TwinSoul arranged the various rubbings, then raised an index finger. Two lines of crystal grew up the outsides of that finger and formed into a nib, like a fountain pen. He absently unscrewed a small jar of ink, then began taking notes.

“What is the emergency, Moonlight?” he asked.

“Autonomy is moving on a much faster timetable than we believed,” she explained. “One of these charts lists explosions — once assumed to be due to railway construction. We’re hoping you could correlate that with the hotspots of enemy activity we’ve been monitoring, to find a likely entry point to the caverns.”

“Ah yes,” TwinSoul said. “Silajana says he would be happy to aid in this. Kaise, would you fetch the appropriate binder?”

“Sure thing,” Codenames said, bounding off to do as she was asked. With Marasi’s help, Moonlight pulled over a long table and arranged some of the rubbings on it. They left the circular table at the center of the room empty for now, though Marasi couldn’t guess why.

As TwinSoul took notes, he absently created a cup from the same rose-colored stone, then filled it from a water jug at the side of the room. When he was finished drinking, he set the cup on a plate — and the stone disintegrated into fine powder, which then eventually vanished. A short time later, he made a thin knife blade on one finger and cut out a specific section of the rubbing.

When Codenames returned a short time later, TwinSoul was settled at the table — on a crystal chair he had created. Marasi fidgeted and checked the wall clock. They’d spent almost half an hour here so far. She didn’t know how tight their deadline was, but given what they’d discovered, waiting was unnerving.

“Hmmm…” TwinSoul said, scribbling some more notes with his finger pen. As he wrote, a line of crystal grew off his other hand and reached the cut-out section of the rubbing. There it formed a little frame around the flimsy square of paper. A pole grew up behind it, hanging it like a picture for better inspection.

TwinSoul peered at it through his improvised spectacles, playing with his long mustaches.

“I wish my brother were here,” Codenames said from a seat nearby. “He’d do this math easily…” She looked forlorn as she said it.

“The problem is not merely one of mathematics,” TwinSoul said. He stood and walked away from the little workstation, leaving the framed piece of paper behind — and this time the stone didn’t disintegrate. He filled himself a much larger cup of water, then stepped up to the circular table and rested one hand on it while drinking.

A crystal city grew up from the table.

It started at his hand, then spread out — like frost forming on steel. His crystal reminded Marasi of a darker version of the pink saltstone Steris had once purchased for decorating the kitchen. Buildings sprouted from it, streets formed as troughs — in minutes a complete replica of the city adorned the table, the circular elevated train tracks of the partially finished high-speed rail growing in last of all.

Marasi’s breath caught, then she looked at the old man, who was smiling in a self-satisfied way. He appeared to enjoy the showmanship. Perhaps if she hadn’t been here, he’d have pulled out a mundane map. But this was oh so much more impressive.

“It’s called an aether,” Moonlight said, walking up behind her. “An ancient entity predating the creation of your world. TwinSoul can grow it, manipulate it. Would you like to know more?”

“Yes,” Marasi whispered.

Moonlight smiled. “And you shall. Once you join us.”

Marasi breathed out softly, then reached out to touch the tip of one of the buildings — which felt solid beneath her fingers, more sturdy than she’d expected. The aether was mostly smooth, with tiny pits here and there.

“I have three likely options for you,” TwinSoul said. “I’ve marked them in deeper-colored roseite.”

He pointed toward one building, a little pointer stick — the kind professors used for gesturing at chalkboards — growing between his fingers. The building indicated was indeed a deeper red. It was the central spire of the city, right at the heart of Bilming, rising high above the surrounding structures. Straight along the sides, then tapering sharply toward the unfinished upper floors.

“Independence Tower,” TwinSoul said. “This is no surprise — we’ve known that the agents of Autonomy have been using this as their base for years.”

“And there were explosions underneath?” Marasi asked.

“The detonations happened farther to the east,” TwinSoul said. “But I doubt that the entrance to those caverns will be right in the center of the detonations, for obvious reasons. Independence Tower is a central hub of activity for our esteemed antagonists, and I’d bet it has an entrance to the caverns.”

“But it will be heavily guarded,” Marasi said. “What are the other two options?”

“This office building here, my lady,” he said, pointing to a smaller structure in the city grid.

She nodded. “Note, though, I’m not a lady. I work for a living.”

“It is merely a distinction of respect, Lady Marasi,” he said. “From among my people. It … translates oddly into your language. Regardless, this office building — the Dulouis Building — is both a hotbed of Set activity and at the perimeter of one of the locations with tremors. I consider it the most likely option.”

He pointed back at the tall structure. “As you noted, Independence Tower is highly defended — a veritable fortification, a castle in the middle of the city. Breaching it has proven beyond even the arts of the Survivor himself.”

“Not for lack of trying,” Codenames added. “Their security system can spot ghosts. He hasn’t figured out a way to circumvent that.”

“And the final location?” Marasi asked.

“It seems of less import,” TwinSoul said, pointing at a structure on the perimeter of the city, beneath a section of train track. “An old tire factory.”

“Tires?” Moonlight said, stepping up beside Marasi. “Like where Tobal Copper worked?”

“TwinSoul, would I be correct to assume that factory is owned by Basin Tires?” Marasi asked.

“Indeed,” TwinSoul said. “You appear to have information beyond mine, my lady.”

“That company is involved,” Marasi said. “Did your agents notice anything odd about the factory?”

Codenames flipped through one of their files. “Uh … let’s see … Curious. The woman we had watching this location says it’s mostly shut down, because very little is ever shipped out of it.”

“But things are shipped in?” Marasi said, growing excited. “Maybe an oddly large number of deliveries, given that the factory barely seems to be doing anything?”

“Yes,” Codenames said. “Our agent didn’t put that together, but yes. From the shipping manifests here … Why are they taking in so much, if they’re not making anything?”

“Because those aren’t supplies for the factory,” Moonlight said, meeting Marasi’s eyes. “They’re stockpiles of food and arms for the cavern underneath. This is our incursion point.”

“I agree,” Marasi said. “There has to be an entrance to the caverns there, and maybe it will be less guarded than the central spire. We strike here.”

“We can get there quickly by rail,” Moonlight said. “The section leading from here to there is finished and running.”

“Wait,” TwinSoul said. “How urgent is this threat?”

“We have reason to believe,” Marasi said, “that the Set has developed a bomb capable of wiping out Elendel. Harmony is blinded, and we know the Set have been developing a device capable of delivering their bomb from a great distance.”

“They have a dark god breathing down their necks,” Moonlight added. “Demanding results. They were supposed to put their plan into motion weeks ago. And with Marasi and her friends getting close … well, they have every incentive to launch that bomb the moment they can. It could happen at any time.”

“By the first aether…” he whispered, glancing at Codenames, whose eyes had gone wide. “Moonlight. We should contact the master.”

“You’re right,” Moonlight said. “I hate delaying, but … Codenames, is your special friend nearby?”

“Upstairs,” she said, scrambling out of the room. “I’ll go grab him.”

“The master?” Marasi said. “You mean…”

“Yes,” Moonlight said. “It’s time to talk to Kelsier.”

40

Codenames’s “friend” turned out to be a glowing sphere of light the size of a child’s head — though perfectly symmetrical and marked at the center with an arcane symbol.

It floated over to Marasi, then bobbed in the air and spoke with a soft masculine voice. She didn’t understand the strange words.

“Was that … some kind of spell?” she whispered to Moonlight.

“He said he was pleased to meet you,” Codenames said. “And complimented your hair.”

“Oh,” Marasi said, transfixed by the glowing orb. Nothing held it up; it simply floated, shimmering with a pure white glow, tinged with mother-of-pearl.

Codenames spoke to the sphere in the same language, and it bobbed again, then began to shift and change. It melded into the shape of a person’s head — a man with strong, angular features. She was shocked to find that most of the paintings and statues of the Survivor were accurate. Except for the spike through his right eye — a feature that was replicated in the light, same as the rest of his head and hair.

“I’m not surprised to hear from you,” he said. “Something’s wrong, isn’t it?”

“Maybe?” Codenames said. “Honestly, we’re not certain, Kell. But TwinSoul said we should contact you.”

“Is he there?” Kelsier asked.

“Present, my lord,” TwinSoul said, bowing his head to the reproduction of the man’s face — though Kelsier didn’t seem to be able to see him. “Also present is Moonlight, and … a visitor. One Marasi Colms.”

The Survivor’s image cocked an eyebrow at that. “Marasi Colms. We’ve been watching you.”

Marasi stammered. This man was the center of her religion — she’d prayed to him as a child. And while she wasn’t as observant as Steris, it was still … daunting to meet him.

He didn’t express anger that she was there. Another indication that Moonlight had been playing up that aspect, perhaps to make Marasi feel she was getting away with something.

“Report?” Kelsier asked.

“Dawnshot is in Bilming,” Moonlight said, “and thinks the Set is moving soon. Within the day.”

“Harmony is blinded, Lord Survivor,” Marasi said, piping up. “He admitted it to Wax. He can’t see anything, but … sir … he’s frightened.”

“Damn,” Kelsier said. “I’m twelve hours away, moving quickly via airship.”

“That … may not be soon enough, Kell,” Moonlight said.

“My lord,” TwinSoul said, “Moonlight has recovered some disturbing intel. It appears that the Set has discovered the relationship between harmonium and trellium. Beyond that, they’ve been experimenting with long-range delivery devices. They’re prepared to do something stupid.”

“Not so much stupid as desperate,” Kelsier said. “They know that Autonomy has declared this entire planet anathema. The Set is fighting for survival the only way they know how: by trying to destroy Elendel, to prove to Autonomy they can rule the planet. I thought we had more time though. Why now?”

“No idea,” Moonlight said. “But there’s talk of a new ashfall. I’ve never heard that before. Plus, we have a photo here of a destroyed city. Maybe … they tried it out somewhere else, and photographed the results? At any rate, it implies something more than bombing Elendel.”

“There have always been two plans,” Codenames said. “Autonomy wants to do something catastrophic to the entire planet — the ashfalls could be their plan for that. But the Set is hoping to prove it can dominate the Basin, and that the more extreme measure isn’t needed. Like cutting off a finger to prevent the infection from spreading.”

The room fell silent, Marasi feeling overwhelmed. They spoke of the end of a planet, her planet, as if it were something that they’d known was a possibility for some time. But then again, she was literally in a conversation with the Survivor … so …

“Sir,” she said. “Um, Lord Kelsier? I believe they are close to launching this bomb. I intend to stop them, but I’m just one woman. I wouldn’t mind help. Anything you can offer.”

“I don’t have the luxury of holding back,” Kelsier said more softly. “I shouldn’t have left for the South. I thought Saze would stop it before it got this far … We need to do what he cannot. Miss Colms, you have our help. Codenames, how many full Ghostblood agents do we have in Bilming?”

“Um…” Codenames said. “Only us three. Everyone else is in Elendel or on assignment elsewhere in the field.”

“How quickly can we get the Elendel agents to Bilming?” Kelsier asked.

“Not quickly enough,” Moonlight said. “They’re all embedded, so we’d have to use dead drops. We could have them roused by early evening, maybe late afternoon, but they would still be several hours away in Elendel.”

“Send them to my sister,” Marasi said. “She’s trying to facilitate an evacuation via the Elendel government.”

Kelsier sniffed softly. He didn’t seem to have much respect for the Elendel government. “Codenames, you take Dae-oh and see to it. I doubt the field team needs a philologist for this mission. Also alert our members around the Basin. Shri Prasanva, I hate to pull you from your quiet evenings of scholarship, but I fear we’re going to need your help.”

The elderly TwinSoul stood up straight, then bowed to the floating head. “We are eager to serve, my lord. Silajana sends his regards, and wishes he could send more of his aetherbound to aid in your fight.”

“I appreciate the sentiment,” Kelsier said. “You and Moonlight are to assist Miss Colms. In fact, I think it is time to do something drastic. Take the stores of purified Dor. The Command is ‘Respect.’ Authorize the other cells to access theirs as well, and pass the Command to them.”

Codenames gasped. Marasi had no idea what purified Dor was, but even Moonlight seemed impressed.

“Do what you can,” Kelsier said. “I will try to accelerate my arrival, but the truth is that I don’t know how much I can do. I’m traveling over water, and so can’t go much faster than I currently am. Dropping things to Steelpush off doesn’t do much with an ocean underneath you.”

“We will stop this, my lord,” TwinSoul said. “Whatever is happening, we will interrupt it. You shall arrive back in Elendel to find a pristine and welcoming city.”

“I’ll settle for the normal dirty, grouchy city, TwinSoul,” Kelsier said. “Go. I’ll see if I can shake Harmony out of his stupor. At least he sent Dawnshot; that convinces me the threat is real. Anything that makes Saze take action these days is to be considered significant.”

The face melted back into the sphere, and the communication was over. The three immediately burst into motion, going in separate directions. Marasi decided to stick with Moonlight, who rushed to a different room — which required opening another mystical lock. Inside was an armory that would have made Ranette delirious with glee. Guns on the walls, vials of metals in racks, glass knives and dueling canes. A large chain-fed machine gun and some explosives.

Moonlight ignored it all, rushing straight for a safe in the corner. It had no combination or locking mechanism that Marasi could see, though as she peered over Moonlight’s shoulder the woman put her hand on the front and said, “Respect me.” Some mechanism inside clicked, and the door opened.

“Another … what was it … Identity lock?” Marasi asked.

“No, this is even more secure,” Moonlight said. “It’s a lock that is Awake, and can tell from your Intent if you’ve been given a passcode or if you’ve stolen it.”

A lock … that was awake? As in alive?

Inside were only three items: a trio of identical glowing jars, big enough that you’d have trouble carrying them in one hand. The glow was similar to the sphere that had followed Codenames, but more intense. Each jar outshone the room’s electric lights.

Moonlight took one, the light shining on her face, and turned it over. Awed.

“What is it?” Marasi whispered.

“Concentrated Investiture,” Moonlight said. “Unkeyed from any Identity. This is an energy source that can power things like your Metallic Arts.”

“Those are powered by the gods.”

“Exactly,” Moonlight said. “This power comes from a god’s corpse. Two of them actually, intermingled. It’s exceptionally difficult to recover. The things that you could do with this … well, that I could do with this. You’d only be able to use it as a hyperefficient replacement for your metals. You don’t know how good you have it here on Scadrial, being able to power your abilities with something so common.”

“And your abilities?” Marasi asked. “What are they powered by?”

Moonlight smiled. She hadn’t admitted to any abilities, but so far Marasi had seen a man who could create objects from crystal, a woman with a pet … sphere … and Moonlight, who seemed fairly high in their organization. So what was she capable of doing?

Moonlight packed the three jars in a rucksack, wrapped in some cushioning, then filled it with other supplies, including a few explosives. She threw the sack over her shoulder and took a few guns from the wall. Marasi, with permission, helped herself to a fine-looking rifle — along with an innocent-looking case to carry it in — and some aluminum ammunition. They had it in plenitude here.

“Electrolysis,” Moonlight noted. “Aluminum is actually pretty easy to make, once you know the process.”

“Wait,” Marasi said, hurrying to join her as they left the room, “you can make aluminum with electrolysis?”

“Yeah,” Moonlight said. “We’ve been using it to fund our operations for almost two decades now. I’d bet half the aluminum in the Basin came from us originally.”

“And you’re casually letting me in on the secret?”

“It’s a free sample,” Moonlight said. “Besides, Dean — he’s our chemist back in Elendel — is convinced you’ll find the secret soon, and the value will plummet. Dean thinks aluminum will soon be cheaper than tin.”

Cheaper than tin? Preservation! If every criminal could afford bullets to kill Allomancers, and every citizen could keep a band of aluminum in their hat to prevent emotional Allomancy, it …

Well, it would change the world.

“All of this,” Moonlight said, “is merely the surface, Marasi.”

“Why me?” Marasi asked. “Why not Wax?”

“He’s spoken for,” Moonlight said. “Besides, Kelsier prefers people like us. The discarded, the ignored. And Wax is a little … brazen. People watch him. Track him. Pay attention to him. Not our style, for all that Kell likes to be the center of attention.”

“Plus, I suppose,” Marasi said with some thought, “having access to a high-ranking constable is useful.”

“There’s also your uncommon connection to the Malwish,” Moonlight said.

“Allik?” Marasi said, amused. “He’s wonderful — don’t get me wrong — but I think you’d find him to be a little less … well-connected than you’re assuming.”

Rusts. She hoped he’d gotten out of the city. Her gut said that he would go if she asked. There was a certain practicality to Allik that she loved — he was wonderfully, beautifully genuine.

In her line of work, she met so many who made her question the nature of humanity. But then she’d go home and find all the reminders in the world of the best that people could be. And somehow, he was all hers.

Back in the main room, the model of the city had started to crumble. It didn’t disintegrate as quickly as the cup had; something made the stone linger sometimes but immediately vanish other times. The chair, for example, still seemed fully sturdy.

Moonlight waved for Marasi to follow her out into the foyer. Here, TwinSoul walked down the steps, gripping the banister tightly for support, wearing a backpack that she thought — from the way it moved, and from the hose draped over his shoulder — might be filled entirely with water.

He’d changed outfits, and now wore some kind of loose-fitting uniform with a bright yellow sash around his waist. He’d strapped on a sword — a slightly curved one in an ornate golden sheath. As he reached the ground floor, he nodded to Moonlight. “Codenames is going to send some messages,” he said, “and so can wait for that other woman you sent to reach safety here. I think it is time for the three of us to be about the job. You retrieved the Dor?”

Moonlight tapped her rucksack.

“Excellent,” he said, turning to Marasi. “I have been commanded to follow your lead, my lady. With Silajana’s blessing and yours, we strike forward. If there is danger, I vow that I shall fight to protect you.”

“This … could be dangerous,” Marasi said, glancing at his ornate sword, noting how unstable on his feet he was. “I’m sure we could use your help, TwinSoul, but … I don’t know that you should be doing any fighting. Perhaps we two could strike ahead, and call for you when we need your specialized skills?”

“I promise I will not slow you down, my lady,” he said. “I have been tasked with aiding you by the Survivor himself.”

He said it with calm respect, but his posture and attitude whispered something else. I’m going with you, young woman. Best not to argue the point any further.

Right, then. Marasi glanced at Moonlight, who nodded to her. Despite their knowledge and experience, this was Marasi’s mission. She was in charge. Good.

“Where’s the nearest train station?” she asked. “We need to get to that factory as quickly as possible.”

41

It was late afternoon by the time Wax got into position at the lord mayor’s mansion, the Silver House. Though nightfall was hours away, he hoped — as he did every day — that the mists would come tonight. It felt like forever since he’d been out in them. Not only did they seem to come less often these days, he also had less occasion to go out at night. The mists felt like a friend from his youth that he still knew but rarely talked to.

He’d been at this all day, having left Elendel a few hours before dawn, but fatigue felt distant regardless. As four fifteen hit, Wax burst into motion. Wayne should have his distraction going in full, which gave Wax the opportunity to bolt across the springy grass to the mayor’s mansion. He dropped a bullet and Pushed up to the second floor.

There, he grabbed the outer windowsill and gave a quick Push to the mechanism inside, which should undo the latch …

The window rattled, but didn’t unlatch. Drat. It had a full lock, one a Push couldn’t undo.

All right. He increased his weight manyfold, and a quick Push cracked the window and bent the lock, letting him force the window open and pull himself inside.

His boots thumped down on a carpeted floor. The place was messy, but not cluttered. Piles of papers occupied the desk and the nearby tables. A small bar held a collection of spirits, half the tops off, the other half put haphazardly back on the wrong bottle. Books lined a shelf, some put in spine first, others reversed, and a good third of them slumped to the side because the ones at the far end had been removed, leaving the whole thing to slouch like sleepy guards on watch duty.

It was in many ways the opposite of Copper’s flat. That had been sterile, pristine. This was lived in. It had the air of a place full of secrets — because a man as important as Gave would employ a fleet of maids and servants to keep things tidy. Except in this room.

Wax didn’t have a lot to go on. But the lord mayor was involved in whatever the Set was planning — and involvement on that level would leave traces. A bomb somewhere in this city was pointed at Elendel, and this room held the clues that would lead him to it. But where?

Wax sorted quickly through the pages on the desk. Wayne was probably doing Grandma’s Been at the Vodka, his favorite ploy for drawing attention but not gunfire. Unfortunately, the Set would be on the lookout for his tricks. They’d created a Metalborn designed specifically to face Wayne. They would know about his propensity for disguises.

The papers didn’t give him much. Some shipping manifests to a factory on the outskirts of town. A stack of broadsheets with editorials circled that were critical of Gave. And another, newer stack of them with no such problems. He opened the desk, and there found a curious number of letters from noblemen and noblewomen in Elendel.

Wax recognized several of the names, including Vennis Hasting — one of the more powerful senators. He scanned a letter from him, and it touched on nothing incriminating. Though it mentioned trade negotiations, most of it was pleasantries.

Frowning, Wax fished in his coat pocket and brought out another letter, the extremely incriminating one — also from Vennis Hasting — that Maraga had given him. He was missing pieces here. When had they moved from pleasantries to discussing the destruction of the world?

For now, he stuffed both letters into his pocket. Gave and Vennis were colluding, but he had already known that. He needed a lead on where to find the bomb. Fortunately, after a little more hunting he struck gold. Gave Entrone’s calendar.

People usually made certain to hide the most important documents and information. They’d lock up their plans and schemes, but often forgot simple things like calendars. To a trained detective, knowing where you’d been — and where you planned to be — could be incriminating. Back in the Roughs, he’d often had to piece a person’s schedule together through interviews and interrogations. But in a modern city, people tended to write it down for him.

The desk calendar was the wide and flat type that displayed an entire month, one day to a box. Previous months had been folded back behind, and were covered in notations in two hands: A sloppier one that, from the letters, Wax assumed was Gave’s. And a neater hand that likely belonged to a secretary.

Lots of visits to something called the lab, Wax thought. With tight scheduling between meetings here at the mansion. So the lab is close, or he has some direct method of getting to it …

Another spot listed trajectory and distance tests, and that was surrounded by several empty days. So he’d needed to travel some way for that. Curious. Where could they have launched delivery devices a long distance without drawing attention?

Wax looked up as he heard some muffled shouts. Wayne’s distraction was working. He kept searching, scanning for anything suspicious, and something struck him a moment later.

There were no appointments after today.

A coldness spread through Wax as he looked at the last appointment, in Gave’s own hand. It simply said, They arrive. Rusts. What did that mean?

There wasn’t the time for analysis, so he ripped off the sheets — even though that would reveal he’d been here — and moved on. Confident he’d learned what he could from the desk, he tried an old Coinshot’s trick: burning steel.

Little blue lines spread from his chest toward viable sources of metal. Most of these were faint, indicating nails in the walls and furniture. Light fixtures, doorknobs, even unseen wires for electricity. More and more, their lives were surrounded by metal — glints of it facilitating everything from the incandescent bulb to the nib in the pen on the desk. He knew some people felt that the day of the Metalborn was over, that modern advances would equalize all people and diminish the advantages of Allomancer and Feruchemist.

Yet he had trained himself — with practice — to put out the lights in a room by distorting the wires in the walls. His versatility improved with each new discovery. And as more metal outlined their lives, he was able to see more and more details of rooms.

He spotted no hidden chambers in the desk, but he did locate the room’s safe. Hidden not behind a picture or a bookshelf, but in the floor under a couch — which was a more common spot than the other two, despite popular lore.

Wax set to it quickly. For all his levity, Wayne would be in serious danger during this distraction. Wax didn’t want to leave him too long — indeed, Wax heard more cries and shouts as he shoved the couch aside. They were getting louder. The enemy might already be on to him.

The safe had an Allomantic lock. No visible keyhole or combination. It would be opened with Pushes if he was lucky, Pulls if he was unlucky. Wax squinted, judging the metal lines. There was the giant blue one leading to the safe itself, of course. Many Allomancers would stop with that, never realizing that if you peered closer — if you let the lines start to drift and separate …

One giant line became many smaller ones, all connecting him to the various mechanisms inside. Pins you could Push in a specific order to unlock the thing. He got to work as the shouts outside grew more urgent. These kinds of locks were secure against most people, and even most Allomancers. But there was a weakness. Wax carefully, subtly Pushed each pin in turn, wiggling them until he found the one that activated a tumbler.

That would be the first. He nudged it and was rewarded when it locked into place. He was in luck — this was a mechanism meant for one who could Push, not Pull. He should be able to open it, though even many Coinshots would have trouble with something this subtle.

First tumbler in place, he wiggled each remaining pin to find the second. Easy. He quickly located the third, Pushed it, and–

And the lock reset.

Wax froze, a bead of sweat trickling down his cheek. What had he done wrong? He forced himself, despite the growing noise outside, to go through it again. Again, the lock reset after he Pushed the third pin.

He pounded the floor in frustration until the answer struck him. This wasn’t a lock designed for someone who could Push or Pull. It was designed for someone who could do both. The third pin required a Pull.

In short, it was a lock designed for a Mistborn to open. Or in this case, someone using Hemalurgy to cheat.

Which meant he was out of luck. He’d never get this open, not unless he could rip it out and do his Pushes from both sides … He didn’t have time for that. And there was something more going on outside. Shouts. Alarms, and …

And was that smoke he smelled?

Rusts. Wax did a quick scan of the room for anything else he could investigate. There wasn’t …

Wait. That pattern of metal in the floor. Wooden boards in regular straight rows, nailed down in lines. Except for one square of nails underneath the rug.

Trapdoor, he thought, and shoved the rug aside, feeling about until he located the hidden latch. Entrone had the spikes to make him an Allomancer and was quite enamored with his powers, judging by that safe. But he didn’t have the experience of someone who’d grown up with their powers. A seasoned Coinshot could pick out that pattern of nails in the same way a square of new paint on an old wall would stand out.

The trapdoor led to a very narrow shaft with a wooden ladder. Probably between two walls on the first floor, down into a basement.

As smoke began to stream in around the door and he heard shouts for a fire brigade — along with feet thumping along the hallway outside — Wax decided to abandon the safe. He slipped onto the ladder, then pulled the trapdoor closed behind him. Hoping that wherever this led, it would point him in the right direction.

42

It was odd for Marasi to feel such urgency while sitting and waiting.

The elevated train of Bilming lived up to its reputation. The group of them sat in a private compartment, speeding around the city, bypassing traffic congestion. The train stopped frequently, but each time it did, it bolted back into motion with a jarring acceleration.

It felt almost like she was a Coinshot, each burst of speed from the train a fresh Push launching them ever closer to their destination. She’d read of the Ascendant Warrior’s Flight of Destiny in the Words of Founding, when she’d returned to Luthadel at the last minute to save Harmony. In the stories, Vin had traveled a miraculous distance in mere hours.

Now, Marasi likely traveled at that same speed. In cushioned comfort, with a cool breeze piped in from outside. They carried weapons hidden in cases or sacks, and Marasi still wore the simple trousers and shirt she’d donned for her sting. Moonlight was dressed as a Bilming constable, and TwinSoul had shrouded himself in a local fisherman’s raincloak. She’d initially worried that his suit and colorful sash would stand out, but he clearly knew how to be inconspicuous.

“For this to work,” Marasi said to them, “I need to understand our resources. That means, Moonlight, I really need to know what you’re capable of.”

“Art criticism,” she said. “Fighting, if needed. Wisecracks when appropriate.”

“I meant any extraordinary abilities,” Marasi said.

“Her wisecracks are extraordinary,” TwinSoul said, his eyes twinkling. “Why, they’re so remarkable that I quite often can’t see which part of them is supposed to be wise.”

Moonlight, in turn, rolled her eyes. “I have three soulstamps on me at the moment: two universal stamps, one Essence Mark. It takes time and preparation to create more — time we don’t have — so we’ll have to rely on these ones. I can use each stamp multiple times, but no use will last long, since they weren’t … Right, you have no idea what I’m talking about.”

“Moonlight,” TwinSoul explained, “has stamps that rewrite the nature of the objects she encounters. One makes a doorway appear where none previously existed. The second repairs a broken or worn object, to make it look new. Is that correct?”

Moonlight nodded. “It’s something I’m practicing still — stamps that will work on any object, I mean. Requires Invested ink, on this planet, but we’ve got the process mostly working.”

“So you can make a door appear,” Marasi said. “And you can make an object that was broken become new? How many times?”

“As often as I want,” Moonlight said. “But only for a limited period in each case.”

“Wow,” Marasi whispered. “That’s … magic?”

“Is Allomancy magic?” Moonlight asked.

“Of course not,” Marasi said.

“Neither is this,” Moonlight said. “To repair something, I merely rewrite the past, making the object think it was well-maintained or never broke. Like I said, universal stamps are a new technology. I don’t have them working perfectly yet, but they’ll do for now.”

It felt magical to Marasi regardless. Allomancy was one thing — it made perfect sense to be able to use metal to Push on other pieces of metal. But rewriting the past of an object? How was that not magical?

“You said you have three stamps,” Marasi said. “What’s the third?”

“It’s for emergencies.” Moonlight shifted in her seat. “The other two work on nonliving objects only. This one changes a person — me, specifically — in dramatic ways. I avoid using it if possible.”

Marasi glanced at TwinSoul, who shook his head in a “leave it alone” sort of way. Well, all right. She hated going into a potential fight without knowing what her options and advantages were, but at least she’d learned something.

The train slowed at a stop, causing them all to lean in their seats at the change in momentum. People piled into the corridor between compartments outside, waiting to flood out into the station.

“And you, TwinSoul?” Marasi asked. “Is there a limit to the things you can make?”

“Alas,” he said, nudging his backpack, which was on the floor, “there are indeed serious limits. I can only maintain roseite objects under certain fields of Investiture. Some planets have those naturally, but yours does not, so my roseite creations — outside of our safehouse — must be touching me, or they will disintegrate. It also requires water, drawn from my body, to fuel the creations.

“Beyond that, my ability to form objects is limited by my personal skill and understanding. I cannot make you a gun, for example. The mechanics are beyond this old mind, and the intricacies too fine. Simple tools are the extent of my abilities, though Silajana has bonded some more talented than I in that regard.”

“Sil-ah-janah,” Marasi said, trying to form the unfamiliar sounds. “That is your … god?”

“Both less and more than a god,” he explained. “Silajana is one of the primal aethers. They predate Adonalsium, you know, and exist outside of his power.”

“They predate the Shattering,” Moonlight said. “That doesn’t mean they predate Adonalsium.”

“To my people, this is a sacred tenet,” he said to Marasi, ignoring Moonlight. “The primal aethers grant some people a bud of their core.” He raised his right hand, revealing a transparent web of stone embedded in his palm, and let light from the window shine through as he held it up before the glass. She could see the bones inside, and it seemed the crystal had somehow entirely replaced his flesh and muscles in that spot.

“This bud connects me to Silajana,” he continued, “and through him to all of his other aetherbound. He is the core, and we his web. He is eternal, and we his mortal agents in the cosmere.”

That was … a lot to take in. But Marasi supposed that all that mattered was that he was willing to help. “Thank you for joining our fight,” she said. “I’m glad that Silajana could spare you.”

“There is little else for us now,” he said, looking out the window. “Until we can return home…”

“I’m willing to go with you, Pras,” Moonlight said. “If you want to try.”

“The forces in my homeland are too strong, too deadly,” he said. “Silajana says we must remain in exile. He will decide when and if we are to return. He would not risk another extermination.”

The train bolted forward again, causing them all to lean the other direction in their seats. Only three more stops until they arrived.

“Moonlight, can your door stamp help us get into the enemy base?” Marasi asked.

“It will depend on the building materials,” she said. “This stamp pretends the people who constructed the place installed a door. It’ll be touch and go for it to work on things like natural rock.”

“Then we can sneak into the factory from any direction,” Marasi said, “and then find the way down into the caverns.”

“They’ve been moving a lot of supplies,” Moonlight said. “Large crates of equipment and food. So I doubt we’re looking for some hidden stairwell.”

“You’re right,” Marasi agreed. “There will likely be a freight elevator in the main loading bay. Good assumption.”

“We could attempt,” TwinSoul said, “to pretend to be members of their organization, making a delivery. Perhaps we could hijack a supply truck on the way?”

“Tried that,” Marasi said. “It was kind of a mess. I’d rather be more stealthy.”

“I agree,” Moonlight said. “I suggest we scout the location, find an empty room at the rear, and create a door. They’ll have their security focused on entry points, which we can avoid. From there we make our way to the cargo docks and locate the elevator.”

A reasonable enough plan. Though Marasi’s anxiety increased the closer they came to their destination. Soon the train lurched to a stop, and the three of them piled off. She worried the long case she was carrying — with her borrowed rifle hidden inside — would draw attention, but no one gave her so much as a second glance. Perhaps they thought it was some kind of musical instrument. More likely, they didn’t care.

Neither of Marasi’s companions were of a Scadrian ethnicity, but Moonlight kept a hat on to shade her eyes. She was shorter than most from Marasi’s world, but there was no telling if that was a trait of her people, or an individual body shape. TwinSoul, in contrast, was tall and lanky. His darker skin tone stood out on the street, but most would just assume he had Terris blood — that people’s colorations varied far more than those of people with old Central Dominance heritage, like Marasi.

Plus, there was a lot of variety in dress in this city. People seemed to eschew the dark browns and blacks that were more common in Elendel. Vibrant colors, often clashing, were part of the style here. With other oddities too. In the train station alone, they passed a costumed mascot trying to hand out flyers for a furniture store, a couple of masked Malwish tourists, and a koloss-blooded woman in a suit.

Outside the station, atop the platform with steps leading to the streets below, they spotted their target in the near distance: an old brown-brick factory with a mottled sign out front. Even this futuristic city had less-desirable sections of town; many were hidden away beneath the tracks.

Marasi had hoped to find the building quiet, since the Ghostblood spy’s records had indicated infrequent supply drops in recent weeks. Today, unfortunately, the building was buzzing with activity — some half a dozen trucks loading up and pulling out through a large bay door at the side of the structure.

“Well,” Moonlight said, “little doubt where the loading bay is. We’ll probably find the elevator in there.”

“Inside the bay,” TwinSoul said, “that is currently full of enemy forces?”

“Yeah…”

“What if,” Marasi said, “we came into the elevator from the back? You can make a door in any wall, right? What if we made one into the elevator from behind?”

“That’s possible,” Moonlight said. “Though I’m not comfortable with how busy it looks. We were hoping to slip in during a quiet moment.”

Marasi agreed — though as she considered it, she realized that had been naive of them. The Set knew that they were in Bilming and actively trying to stop them …

Marasi hesitated as she watched several of the trucks roar away from the factory, heading toward the hill with the government offices. Then she found herself smiling.

“They’re worried about Wax,” she said. “They’re marshalling troops, gathering resources … I’ll bet they’re sending it all to deal with him.”

“Maybe,” Moonlight said.

“Trust me,” Marasi said. “Where Wax goes, fireworks follow. The Set is worried about him — and they likely know exactly where he is. Flying through the air does tend to make him conspicuous.”

“If you’re correct, my lady,” TwinSoul said, “then they might not be expecting our incursion here. Their eyes may be diverted toward Dawnshot.” More trucks pulled away, and TwinSoul pointed toward the northern side of the city, where a giant plume of dark smoke was rising. “That’s the mayor’s mansion. Perhaps Dawnshot is being … extra difficult?”

“I’ll take it,” Marasi said, leading the way down the steps. “Let’s strike while everyone is distracted.”

43

Everyone in the room — including the kandra — gathered around Steris to read the letter Wax had sent. Perhaps they didn’t trust her to deliver the information out loud, or perhaps they needed to see it with their own eyes.

Adawathwyn immediately ordered the young radio operator sequestered — along with anyone who might have heard the communication. Everyone else in the room slumped into chairs at the table, and several looked to TenSoon.

“We should believe Dawnshot,” he said. “Harmony has long thought the enemy was working on something like this. The deadline is … far more urgent than we realized. Rusts. We need to take this very seriously.”

“I am forced to agree,” Adawathwyn — of all people — said. “I don’t much like Ladrian, but … this news, with a kandra confirming it … My lord governor, it seems we have a gun to our heads.”

The governor leaned forward on the table, grim.

Finally, Steris thought, releasing a held breath. They are giving this the attention it deserves. Maybe now she could get something done.

“Time is of the essence,” the governor said, looking around the table at the three senators and his vice governor. “If there really is a bomb … we have to move fast.”

“Agreed,” Lord Cett said. “How quickly can we get out of the city?”

“That depends,” the governor said. “Ambassador Daal? Can I take that airship ride now?”

“So long as the streets aren’t packed,” Adawathwyn said, “we can theoretically be out of the city via motorcade in under an hour.”

“Will that be quickly enough?” Lady Hammondess said. “What is the destructive radius of this weapon, kandra? How far away do we have to get to be safe?”

“I’ll send for our families,” the governor said. “We have to do this quietly though, to not inspire a mass panic.”

Steris closed her eyes, feeling sick. On one hand, she understood their emotions. After all, she had sent her children away immediately.

At the same time … Rusts. They were all going to run, weren’t they? She met Constable Reddi’s eyes. He’d slumped in his chair, looking numb. Sworn to protect the people of the city, and there was nothing he could do. Nothing but sit here and dread what was coming.

She didn’t have to do that. She’d dreaded it already. That was the purpose of her lists. She realized, with shock, that her method was actually working. She didn’t feel afraid. She didn’t feel anxious.

She could function.

She had to evacuate the city.

Steris pulled out one of her thickest notebooks, thumping it down on the table. As everyone else started calling for aides to prepare their escapes, she gathered her thoughts and flipped through her notes. She had seven detailed evacuation plans for the city. Which was best in this situation?

After a few minutes though, the governor ordered the door shut again and all aides temporarily expelled. The room’s anxious occupants turned toward him.

“Um,” he said, “Adawathwyn has a suggestion.”

She had composed herself quickly and now stood up in her immaculate Terris robes, hands out invitingly. “The situation is indeed dire. But I have realized we have a solution … upon our arms, so to speak. Lord Waxillium says that there is likely some kind of device that will launch the bomb all the way to our city. But we have Metalborn at our disposal. The greatest wealth of them in all the Basin.

“We should gather Coinshots and station them to Push this weapon away. We can position them atop our highest structures, to watch for the weapon’s arrival — or, better, keep people on call in Bilming, watching. They’ll be able to tell us when it has launched.”

“Pardon me, Adawathwyn,” Steris said. “Have you ever been in a situation where modern weapons fire is discharged? Have you seen the speed at which it moves? Trust me. If this weapon is launched, when it reaches Elendel, it will impact too quickly for an Allomancer to stop.”

The vice governor wilted for a second, then her eyes widened. “What if,” she said, “we had an Allomancer with access to all the abilities and powers of the Lord Ruler?”

Several in the room gasped. Daal stood up straight, his masked eyes fixated on Adawathwyn.

“It’s an emergency,” she said. “A true emergency. The entire city is in danger! We need someone who can think the thoughts of a thousand people, someone who can move planets and raise mountains. We need … the Bands of Mourning.”

Bother.

First off, the Bands didn’t work that way. They gave a person supercharged metallic abilities — yes — but they didn’t contain “all the powers of the Lord Ruler.” Unfortunately, the mythology surrounding them and Wax’s use of them had only grown over the years.

That said, Steris had considered using the Bands — they often factored into her calculations. A powerful relic created by the Survivor — or maybe the Lord Ruler — which granted vast Metalborn powers to the holder wasn’t the sort of thing one ignored.

“We can’t use the Bands,” Steris said. “The people of Elendel made a promise. The foundation of a treaty.”

Behind them, Admiral Daal — so quiet through most of the meeting — approached the table. “The Bands of Mourning,” he said, “were entrusted to the Faceless Immortals, under the strict understanding that the Bands would never be employed by your people.”

Technically, the Bands weren’t to be employed unless the Malwish attacked Elendel. That had been the actual deal, a way of making certain that Malwish aggression didn’t go too far.

“Surely, Ambassador,” Adawathwyn said, “you can see our need for self-preservation. You wouldn’t deny us the means, in this dire emergency, to protect ourselves from this calamity?”

“Surely,” Ambassador Daal said, “you understand that any action by those in the Basin using this sacred relic — however dire the situation — must be seen as an act of aggression against my people. You don’t think we’ve suffered catastrophes that we wish we could have used the Bands to stop? We could have been using them to save lives these past six years! But our agreement was that they were too powerful for anyone to use.”

The room fell silent. He’s playing some kind of game here, Steris thought. She couldn’t fathom what.

“We…” the governor said, licking his lips. “We should fetch them. If an Allomancer with enhanced speed of thought could Push away this bomb before it lands, that gives us a chance.”

“They don’t have as much power as you think,” Steris said. “They can’t accomplish that.”

“Actually,” TenSoon said, “there’s a possibility.”

“What?” Steris asked.

“There are … things about the interactions of the powers you don’t know,” he said. “I have only hints. I think it might be possible … to send the bomb away using the Bands. But the deal we made…”

“Holy One,” the governor said, “what would Harmony say, should it come down to our survival as a city or betraying the Malwish trust. What are his wishes?”

TenSoon stood quietly for a moment, then spoke with a growling voice. “I will fetch the Bands.”

and leeched her steel reserves.

“Give me the compass,” I said, “and we’ll leave you at the next outcropping.”

Vila peered over her shoulder at the approaching stone where the Haunted Man waited.

She glanced at me, her eyes wide, no doubt realizing that without any steel, she couldn’t Coinshot away. She was trapped. In her surprise, she forgot to hold onto anything but the compass.

I had not planned on that.

“No!” I screamed, immediately dropping my parasol and reaching for Vila. I serendipitously caught her by the lace of her frilly coat.

“You saved me?” she asked. “Don’t you want me to fall?”

“Harmony no,” I said.

She clocked me in the face with the compass, which honestly was a bad move on her part. I instinctively let go of her.

As Vila fell, I keeled forward, trying to catch her again, but serendipity is a fickle thing, and my hand missed hers by a hair. Horrified, I watched the mists swallow her. The sudden shifting of my weight, however, threw me from the claw.

Suddenly weightless, I feared this might be the end.

Then I felt air pushed by large wings. A claw snatched me and dropped me on the outcropping next to the Haunted Man.

I slid to a stop just shy of the edge, my custom Miele Jedon boots sending pebbles clacking over the side. Bless those shoes and their fashionable yet grippy soles. (You can get a pair at Ardenne’s on 9th. They’re custom, yes, but drop my name, and the clerks there will be keen to help.)

Heart thumping, my breath coming in gasps, I searched the top of the outcropping. “The compass … we should scour the cliffs!”

Tabaar-KeSun landed and opened their other claw. The compass rolled out, and I snatched it up. Before I could thank them, the Haunted Man took my hand and stared at me with intense, desperate eyes. Given his usual scowl, this new expression was as foreign on him as cheap perfume would be on me.

“My dearest Nicelle,” he said, gifting me a rare smile.

“What is it?” I asked, inspecting myself for wounds. Though I’d lost a few buttons from my blouse, at least I hadn’t lost the whole shirt, which always happened to Jak at this point in his stories. “I’m fine. I promise.”

“You almost fell,” he said, cupping my cheek in one of his large, rough hands.

Heat boiled up from my heart, and I couldn’t help but smile back. How far we had come from our first meeting!

“You silly man. You’ll never get rid of me that easily,” I said. “It’s you and me exploring the cosmere together forever. Just like we promised.”

I let him pull me close, his familiar scent of hellfire and cedar filling me. With the knuckle of his finger, he lifted my chin so that I looked into his stormy eyes.

Was he going to kiss me? Did I want him to? By Harmony, yes. In that moment, I realized I’d wanted this for the last six years, every time he’d appeared and (inevitably) upended my life.

“Nicelle…” he said, his voice low and breathy.

“Yes?” I rolled up onto my toes and leaned into him.

“I am so very sorry.” He lifted the Compass of Spirits, inserted the aluminum key, and turned it. The little rings spun until they flowed with ethereal light, which inverted in on itself with a giant pop I felt in my soul more than heard with my ears.

I fell forward onto my knees, the Haunted Man’s presence no longer there to hold me up, though the afterimage of him activating the device hung in the air for a moment until it puffed away like smoke from a burnt match.

He had done it. He’d finally entered the ghostly dimension.

And he’d done it without me.

He’d bloody betrayed me. Rusting used me.

I will spare you the ugly details of my following tantrum, though I did yell some of the delicious curses I’d learned in my time with him. At the end of my fit, my immaculate makeup was smeared, my hat and its raven feathers lay in tatters, and Tabaar and KeSun were suddenly there in their human forms.

“He’s gone!” I shouted. “Along with the only way to finish the job, and now we’re stuck a thousand miles from home in the space between continents!”

I thought he’d cared for me. He knew a betrayal like this would hurt me, and he’d done it anyway. Rust and Ruin, I hope he arrived too late to save the world. He and his bloody employer could burn for all I cared.

“He’s lucky I can’t follow him.” I clenched my fist around the metal knuckles until the edges bit into my palm.

The two Faceless Immortals shared a glance before KeSun nodded as if deciding something. Then Tabaar spoke.

“Actually,” he said. “There is another way.”

A note from Handerwym:

It’s been two weeks since Nicelle’s last letter. (You know how intermittent her correspondence can be.) I can only assume she succeeded in entering the ghostly realm and, Harmony willing, we’ll soon know the end of her adventure.

— Continued next week? —

NICKI SAVAGE

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44

Marasi led the others toward their target. It proved easy to sneak around underneath the train tracks; the buildings down here in this urban twilight were cramped, the streets narrow. Almost like the stories of the old Luthadel slums.

Crowded tenements were crammed up beside factories, refineries, and warehouses. All in the shadow of the tracks — a symbol of progress and unity upon which stormed past every few minutes a tooth-rattling reminder: Wasn’t it so nice to live in such a modern city? With a beacon of advancement like the high-speed rail? It cast such a progressive shadow.

She was all for progress in general, but far too often it seemed to stratify society rather than unite it. A high-speed rail was good, but could it be afforded by those who would most benefit? Nice apartments were great, but if they drove those who couldn’t live in them to darkness under the tracks, then that made some lives worse while making others better.

She’d been forced to confront this herself as she sought for reform. Good intentions had to be coupled with a realistic look at the effects of your actions. It was entirely too easy to make things worse while trying to make them better.

Is that why I’ve focused more on the detective side of my job over the years? she wondered. I was going to change things. But the day-to-day work is so demanding, and the big problems are just so big …

Thoughts for another time. The three of them crept ever closer to the tire factory, using the back alleys. TwinSoul made good on his promise, keeping up — though they didn’t have to move quickly, and there was always a wall for him to rest his hand against to keep his balance. Marasi still worried about bringing an octogenarian to what might soon be a battle zone, but bit her tongue on the matter.

As they drew close — only one street away — Moonlight halted the group. Marasi was curious what had prompted the stop, until she noticed a bulbous black motorcar with tinted windows pulling up to the factory.

The lord mayor of Bilming climbed out — accompanied by several tough-looking bodyguards. Entrone hurried through the bay doors, shouting at the few remaining trucks there and waving for them to get moving. Marasi was almost certain she heard the name “Dawnshot” among his shouts.

He soon vanished into the structure.

“Well,” Marasi whispered, “he’s agitated.”

“Probably doesn’t appreciate his home being burned down,” TwinSoul whispered.

Marasi nodded. “Come on. His arrival seems to confirm that we’ve found the right location.”

They took the long way around, briefly dipping out of the shade cast by the railway before diving back in, swimming through shadows until they reached the back wall of the factory. Here they slunk along until they found an old window, boarded up. Marasi had hoped to be able to peek through and find an empty room, but it was boarded up on the other side as well.

“Hmmm,” TwinSoul said, resting his aged, bony hand on the bricks. Crystals grew from his palm, creeping along the surface and between boards. “Yes, they really should have sealed this with pitch…”

“What do you see?” Moonlight whispered.

“I don’t see anything,” he said. “But Silajana? Well, he senses a small room cluttered with shelves and small objects. No one is inside, and the wall to the right of the window bears no shelving.”

He broke his hand free, leaving a crust of crystals on the wall — which began disintegrating, dropping to dust that in turn burned away into rose-colored mist. Moonlight dug in her rucksack — briefly exposing the glowing jars within — and took out something made of leather. Like a very large billfold, or a toolbelt, it unclipped to reveal three stone stamps.

She selected one, dampened it with some odd glowing red ink, then raised it. “Be ready to move,” she said, then pressed it to the wall. The stamp head, remarkably, sank half an inch or so into the brick. When Moonlight pulled it back — trailing red mist — it left a glowing red stamp imprinted into the wall, marked by intricate designs and patterns.

The wall then began to shift. The bricks groaned softly, then popped and ground as they pulled to the sides — suddenly fluid — and a door emerged in the wall. Like … like someone had unzipped the stones to reveal it underneath. In seconds the structure had rearranged — many bricks simply vanishing — to create a worn old wooden door with peeling yellow paint.

Moonlight yanked it open and gestured for them to enter. Marasi ducked in first, stepping over some buckets of paint that had been piled against the wall. TwinSoul followed, then finally Moonlight. They crowded into a small chamber, lit by a single red electric bulb. Why were there so many washbasins on the counter, and all of these jugs of liquid? Was this a storage room for cleaning supplies? That didn’t explain the red light bulb, which was so dim it barely did anything.

Behind them, the doorway vanished — as if being consumed by the bricks on the sides. “That is the most unnatural thing I’ve ever seen,” Marasi whispered.

“You literally have a friend who can fly,” Moonlight said.

“And?” Marasi said, unzipping her rifle from its case. TwinSoul threw off his coat, exposing his suit and yellow sash, then rested a hand on his sword. Marasi listened at the door, and was joined by Moonlight. When they heard nothing from the next room over, Marasi eased the door open and found a pitch-black chamber beyond.

They slipped through it, passing a strangely large number of what appeared to be chairs. Yes, in rows. What in the world? At the far reaches of the room, Marasi fumbled in the darkness, searching for a door. Her hands instead brushed what felt like a series of light switches.

Since the room was clearly empty, she flipped one of the light switches. However, it wasn’t the kind of light she’d been anticipating. A streak of illumination burst from one wall and shone onto the other, projecting a brilliant image.

An image of a crumbling city, with ash falling from the sky. Then the image started moving.

45

Marasi stared at the moving image, depicting a city in full color — though those colors were mostly muted dark greys and blacks against the brilliant red sky. Ash drifted from above, sprinkling the smoldering ruins. A loud mechanical sound came from the room emitting the light.

“By the first aether,” TwinSoul said, stepping up beside her and resting his hand on the back of a nearby chair for support. “What is it? A window into the future?”

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Moonlight said from the far wall, nearest the image. She hesitantly lifted her hand into the stream of light — and displaced the image, leaving a shadow of her hand on the wall.

Fortunately, Marasi had experienced something like this once before. VenDell had shown them a way of projecting evanotype images onto a wall using light. Those had been static, and in black and white. But he’d said something then that had stuck with her: Harmony implies that if we find this wondrous, it will really burn our metals when the images start moving.

It appeared the Set had figured out that secret. And they’d found a way to create moving images of another place, using cameras? This room did have the feel of a small playhouse theater, only without the stage.

But … was this landscape of piling ash and broken cities the future, or the past? It resembled Elendel, by the architecture, but there was so much rubble she couldn’t tell for certain.

“Here, look at this,” Moonlight called from the far side of the room, where she’d opened another door.

TwinSoul and Marasi joined Moonlight in a room with a different kind of decor. An enormous table dominated it, with a tiny replica of a city on it. It was like the model that TwinSoul had created, but made out of painted wood and plaster — broken and ruined, the buildings fallen as if in some disaster.

It was Elendel; she could see that from the layout. So, not only had someone seen the future, they’d built a model of what was going to happen?

Moonlight peeked into some boxes, then pulled out a handful of fine ash from one, which she let trail through her fingers. Other shelves held tiny props — miniature versions of people lying like corpses. Dead horses made of painted plaster. Broken buildings, ruined motorcars, some large red-painted sheets with depictions of clouds and a blazing sun …

And evanotype cameras, set up to look across the table from down low. Seeing that, it all snapped together for her.

“It’s a fake,” she whispered with relief. “They didn’t travel to the future or the past. They created a model of a fallen Elendel … then used these machines to craft pictures of a future that hasn’t happened. Even that picture we found earlier … it’s a fake. A photo of this model. They’ve been deliberately constructing a hoax to make people think the world is going to end.”

“No,” Moonlight said. “They’ve been constructing a hoax to make people think it has already ended. But who are they planning to show it to, and why?”

“If there are answers,” Marasi said, “we’ll find them below.” She nodded the other direction, out through the theater room toward the larger doors on the wall near the projecting device.

They peeked out to find a hallway lit with caged industrial lights. The place felt eerily empty, considering the earlier activity. Moonlight went out first. Marasi joined her, and they found a set of doors at the end of the hallway. These doors had windows at the top, so they could observe the loading dock beyond.

A group of armed men and women patrolled here. TwinSoul crouched beside Marasi, then let a tiny — practically invisible — line of crystals sneak under the door.

“Ah,” he said. “You see that large wall that juts out to our left, just inside the room? That’s our industrial elevator as you had anticipated, my lady.”

Marasi could make out the section of wall he indicated — but the front of the elevator would be facing away from them. They’d never sneak through the open cargo bay without being spotted. Fortunately, they didn’t need to.

They moved through the hallway to the appropriate location — a blank wall, beyond which should be the elevator.

“All right,” Marasi whispered.

Moonlight created another door, then pulled it open, revealing a deep, dark shaft leading down. The elevator must be below, likely having carried the lord mayor and his bodyguards into the depths.

Now what?

“Allow me,” TwinSoul said, stepping through the door and steadying himself by grabbing a small box just inside, standing with one foot on a narrow ledge, the other dangling over the void. Marasi reached to steady him, but before she could the door vanished, the wall stretching back into place.

Moonlight hastily stamped again, then pulled open the door. They found TwinSoul hanging from a ladder constructed of roseite stone. He took a long drink from his backpack full of water and smiled. “Shall we?” he asked.

“What if someone calls the elevator back up?” Marasi asked.

“It’s an industrial elevator,” Moonlight said. “Look how wide this shaft is, how thick the cables are. It will move slowly. Worst case, we can climb on top and ride it up. There’s enough space above us here that we won’t be crushed.”

Marasi nodded, and TwinSoul began climbing down, new rungs forming beneath him as he did so. Marasi stepped onto the ladder, testing its strength. TwinSoul was, it turned out, exceptionally handy to have along. She climbed down a little to let Moonlight on too. The doorway vanished again, but Moonlight cracked open her rucksack to let some light leak out, painting the shaft with a pale white glow.

They started descending toward the caverns. And, hopefully, answers.

46

Wax climbed down the hidden passage in the mayor’s mansion. Yes, it did seem to be squeezed between two walls; he’d climbed far enough to pass the first floor and reach the basement. Here his ladder emerged into a small room with iron walls and ceiling.

It had supplies on the shelves: dry rations, jugs of water. Looked like some kind of small emergency bunker. Not intended for long-term occupancy, but a safe bolt-hole in case of … what? Riots in the streets? Or something more nefarious, like an accidental weapon detonation?

Chilled, Wax inspected the room and found scrapes on the floor indicating a hidden door on one wall. He opened it without much difficulty — though it was made of thick reinforced metal — and found a path into the storm drain. Light peeked in through the grates above, and the scent — though unpleasant — wasn’t terrible. Not a true sewer, just a place for washing rainwater out of the streets and toward the ocean.

And a nice emergency exit from the mayor’s mansion, he thought, noting numerous footprints in the sludge and dried muddy ones in the concrete tunnel up ahead. A little farther along, he found a small motorized cart, open roofed, perfect to drive in these tight confines. The wheels were covered in sludge, and there were numerous tire tracks in the mud beyond.

There were no keys in the cart, and though supposedly there was a way to start one without them, that was a feat of thievery he’d never studied. Instead Wax pulled the folded-up calendar from his coat pocket and noted again the numerous appointments at the “lab.” Back and forth, sometimes a couple of times a day. If Wax had been visiting a secret installation that frequently, he would most certainly have wanted a covert way to travel.

Wax started into the tunnel on foot, but then phantoms from long ago rose around him. For the briefest moment, he wasn’t in a drainage sewer in the most modern city of the Basin. He was in a dirty mine adit, haunted by twisted “artwork” made by a terrible mind. Golden light sifting down from above. A meeting with destiny.

Someone else moves us.

A deep breath and a moment of peace banished the phantoms. They’d be with him forever, but they didn’t haunt him any longer. They were more like echoes than ghosts. Reminders of the man he’d been, the life he’d led, and the people he’d loved. They were remembered, but today he had work to do. He found a service ladder to the street above, and climbed up to go find Wayne. Hopefully he wasn’t on fire.

Blessedly, he found Wayne alive and only slightly singed, waiting at the prearranged rally point. A bar, because of course it was. Wayne had picked the spot.

Wax slid into the seat beside his friend, and Wayne passed him a shot of whiskey, which Wax downed with a hiss of satisfaction. They left money on the counter, then slipped out the back.

“You find anythin’?” Wayne asked as they reached the end of the alley behind the bar.

“Some writings that might be relevant,” Wax said. “Calendar. Letters. More importantly, a secret tunnel — hopefully leading somewhere useful.”

“Nice,” Wayne said.

“What happened to you?”

“Eh,” Wayne said. “Nothin’ that interesting.”

Wax looked at him, then at the burn marks on his trousers.

“Couldn’t do Grandma’s Been at the Vodka,” Wayne explained. “Couldn’t find a wig in time. So I did Flaming Bunny instead.”

“Flaming Bunny,” Wax said flatly. “Please tell me you didn’t set a rabbit on fire, Wayne.”

“Of course not. I couldn’t find a damn wig in time; where would I find a rabbit?”

“Good, I—”

“You use a cat for Flaming Bunny. And those are all over the dang place.”

“Wayne. You set a cat on fire?”

“Hell, no! What do you think I am? A sadist?”

Wax relaxed a little.

“You throw the cat out a window,” Wayne explained.

“Oh, Harmony…” Wax said. “Why?”

“To save it from the flames, of course!” Wayne shook his head as Wax led him toward the storm drain. “That’s the plan. You start a big fire, then go around screaming and throw a cat out the window. People believe you and think you’re saving pets.”

“Then…”

“Then you shout that someone has to save the bunny,” he said. “You lead everyone in to knock on the doors and get folks outta the place, and everybody gets all crazy and distracted helpin’ you.”

Wax stopped on the street, gawking at the Silver House with everyone else. It was now almost fully ablaze, a terrible plume of smoke rising from it, like the Deepness itself.

“You did say,” Wayne noted, “that following an egregious diplomatic incident, we might as well have some fun.”

“That is not what I said.” Wax sighed.

“What?” Wayne said. “You still on about that cat thing?”

“You really threw it out a window?”

“What would you have done? Leave it to burn? I hadda rescue the thing.”

“Rescue the cat. From a fire you made. A cat that you kidnapped expressly for that purpose.”

Wayne grinned. “Oh, don’t worry. I hucked him at a tree real good. Cats always land in trees, so long as you throw them hard enough.”

“Why … why would you think that?”

“Dunno,” Wayne said as Wax started them moving again. “Must have learned it in school.”

“Did you … go to school?”

“As a kid? Nah. But I burned one down once, before I even developed Flaming Bunny. Maybe the cat thing was on the board or something in there.”

“Wait. When did you burn down a school?”

“West’s Haven?” Wayne said. “Nine years back. It was an evil damn school.”

Wax hesitated at the mouth of the alley with the access ladder, thinking. West’s Haven …

Oh, right. That had been an evil damn school.

“Fine,” Wax said, pulling open the hatch to the storm drain. “Let’s keep moving.”

Wayne climbed down. At the bottom, he grunted.

“What?” Wax said, joining him.

“Don’t tell Marasi ’bout this,” he said. “I told her you ain’t never taken me into a sewer. Least this one doesn’t stink…” He squinted. “Actually, kinda looks like a narrow canyon, with all those lights coming in the top…”

“Why would you say that?” Wax said.

“No reason.”

They both turned around as the bells of the fire brigade sounded from above.

“So…” Wayne said. “Calendar and letters, was it?”

Wax nodded. “Gave has been visiting a place called the lab, though he also left for two weeks for some kind of trajectory test a couple months ago. Disguised as a vacation.”

“Huh,” Wayne said, pointing ahead. “And the lab is this way, you think?”

“Seems likely,” Wax said. He dug in his pocket a moment, then passed the calendar to Wayne.

Who whistled softly. “No appointments after today?”

“I noticed that too.”

“‘They arrive’…” Wayne said, reading.

Wax nodded, giving Wayne a moment with the calendar pages while he pulled out the letters. The light wasn’t great down here, but he could make out enough in the sunlight coming through the grates. Reading the two letters again, one extremely incriminating, the other full of pleasantries. What …

Oh, rusts. “Wayne,” he said, holding up the incriminating letter they’d gotten from the newspaper editor. “This is a forgery.”

“What? Really?” Wayne took it. “How do you know?”

“Before all this started,” Wax said, “I spent a good amount of time on an operation that implicated Vennis Hasting — who supposedly wrote that letter — in a scandal. I proved that he had been bribing other senators. In order to make our case, Steris and I authenticated letters we’d acquired from him. Rusts. I visited three separate handwriting analysts, and they talked specifically about the distinctive turn of Vennis’s strokes. Which aren’t right in this one.” He felt his eyes widen. “That’s what it means … that’s what she’s doing…”

“Mate,” Wayne said. “You’ve gotta be more clear. ’Cuz I sure ain’t following.”

“My sister,” Wax explained. “She needs a way to seize control of the Basin, and prove to Autonomy she can rule here. I’ve been wondering how blowing up Elendel achieves that.”

“It would remove a whole lot of barriers.”

“Yes, but surely the other cities would never follow someone who committed such an atrocity.” Wax held up the fake letter. “Unless Telsin could claim she didn’t blow up Elendel. Unless she had proof — in the form of forged letters — that the senators inside Elendel were the ones developing the bomb. With the right evidence, she could make it look like they mistakenly blew themselves up.”

“Oooh, that’s devious,” Wayne said. “She can ‘recover’ some of the details of that weapon too, so Bilming will ‘reluctantly’ have access to the technology to protect the Basin from the Malwish. Hell … that would work. Remove Elendel. Unite the Basin. Achieve dominance on the planet.”

A piece locked into place. Even Gave’s letters — the real ones from Vennis Hasting — made sense now. They’d needed handwriting samples, hence the cordial letters between mayor and senator.

“And the lack of appointments after today?” Wayne asked. “Seems like our deadline’s even tighter than we feared.”

“We need to find this lab,” Wax said, starting along the storm drain again. “And hope the bomb is there.”

Wayne nodded, joining him. Gave had scheduled fifteen minutes on either side of his appointments for travel to the lab — so it wouldn’t be too far.

As they walked, Wax found himself increasingly worried. About what Telsin was doing. About the implications of it all. So he was a little relieved when Wayne broke the silence.

“Sooooo…” Wayne said. “When you were in the mayor’s office … did you notice if he had a nice desk?”

“He had a rather nice one,” Wax said. “Why?”

“Did you…” He nodded back in the direction of the Silver House. “You know…”

“Fart in his chair?”

“Yup.”

“Wayne. Of course I didn’t.”

They walked a little farther through the muck, finding a place where kids had obviously snuck down, judging by the graffiti painted on the walls: giant sweeping Terris patterns of V’s.

“Okay,” Wax finally said, unable to let it go despite trying quite forcefully, “why would you even think that I would do that to his chair? You explicitly said not to, and beyond that … what the hell? Who does that?”

“Nobody, nobody,” Wayne said. “It’s good you didn’t. Gotta stay classy, you know. ’Specially in times like this. Very serious. Bombs threatening cities. Likely detonation today. No time for frivolity.”

He paused.

“But…” Wayne continued, “if I’d been there, and seen that fancy chair … Well, I like those chairs, you know? The type that leans all the way back, and is all leather, and firm enough for support, but not so firm that it’s uncomfortable. You know?

“And I’d think, ‘Damn, that’s a fancy chair.’ And I’d wonder … would the old backyard mistmaker sound different? What if I released a little concentrated essence of Wayne into those perfect leather contours? Would it feel different? Would my cheeks—”

“That’s enough. Please.”

“Oh, right. Okay.”

They continued on a little farther, but something about his words … Wax again tried to put it out of his mind, but …

“Wayne,” he finally said, closing his eyes, feeling angry at himself for continuing the conversation. “I have a chair just like that back in my study in the penthouse.”

“That you do,” Wayne said solemnly. “You do indeed.”

Oh hell. “Wayne. Did you—”

“Wax, the whole city is in danger, you know? You need to stop letting your attention drift, mate. First that fixation on me maybe setting government buildings on fire — only twice, mind you, which isn’t a pattern, just a coincidence. Now this fascination with what comes outta my backside. Can’t we keep focused on important things?”

“Yeah, I suppose.”

“Like this art,” Wayne said, admiring some graffiti. “Ma was right. This place is beautiful.”

“Ma?” Wax said. “Do I want to know what you’re talking about this time?”

“This just reminds me of an old story with a canyon,” Wayne said, joining him as they continued. “A story my ma told me. Last one she gave me. So I remember it well, you know?”

“No,” Wax said. “How is this tunnel a canyon?”

“It just is,” Wayne said softly, looking up as they passed under another grate, sunlight crossing his face in a checkerboard pattern. “Been thinking about it since earlier today. It’s inevitable, you know?”

“I don’t,” Wax said. “I really don’t, Wayne.”

“Well it just is,” he said. “Even if you don’t know it. You’re the hero, Wax, and you got a mission. Barm. The nastiest monster what ever lived. You’re gonna stop him…” He hesitated. “Watch out. Might be some snakes in this canyon.”

“It’s a storm drain,” Wax said, “and I’ve never seen a snake in the city.”

“Yeah, they’re damn good at sneaking,” Wayne said. “Speaking of snakes: the Set, they’ll know that was us with the mansion.”

“Undoubtedly,” Wax said. “They might push into the mayor’s study to recover sensitive documents. I couldn’t replace the rug above the trapdoor — so they’ll know I found the tunnel.”

“Ah, great.”

“Great?”

“You’re supposed to find a bad guy in the canyon,” Wayne explained. “If the story is going to go right, at least.”

“Wayne,” Wax said. “We’re not in a canyon in your mother’s story. We’re in a storm drain in Bilming, trying to find and stop an explosive device. We—”

He was interrupted by a gunshot just ahead, echoing in the narrow tunnel — and a bullet hit the concrete near Wax’s head with a pop, blasting out a chip.

They both immediately ducked to the sides, getting low, and saw shadows moving in the tunnel ahead, just around a bend. Wax picked out two figures crouching beside the curve of the tunnel — the Coinshot he’d fought earlier, and a shorter woman wearing a bowler hat.

“Hey,” Wayne said. “Will you look at that. Bad guys and snakes. Both at the same time.”

47

Marasi’s team neared the bottom of the elevator shaft without incident, carefully using TwinSoul’s roseite ladder. Red-pink dust crumbled around her as she slowed her climb, the little motes often evaporating in the air below her. Marasi probably had a dusting of them in her hair — smoldering there, like simmering ashes without the heat.

They found the large service elevator settled snug on the bottom of the shaft. TwinSoul expanded his ladder to the sides so all three of them could climb down beside one another. Then Marasi tested the roof of the elevator with her toe. Solid, sturdy metal. She lowered her weight onto it carefully, and it didn’t even bow. She nodded to the others, who joined her.

“Now what?” Moonlight whispered.

“Service hatch,” Marasi said, locating one set into the other corner. She eased it open. The front doors of the elevator were open, though she couldn’t see much more from this angle. She waved TwinSoul over. “Can you see if there is anyone watching below?”

A small line of roseite provided answers.

“Silajana sees two guards,” TwinSoul whispered. “A man and a woman, armed with rifles. They are opposite the open elevator door, near a natural stone wall. It appears that we have indeed arrived at a series of tunnels and caverns.

“The guards do not seem observant, and are currently looking at one another rather than the elevator. Should I try to send them to the aethers, their souls left to ruminate on their poor choices in this particular life?”

“She wants to remain quiet, TwinSoul,” Moonlight said. “That might be overkill.”

“I can handle this,” Marasi whispered. “Though it would help if you could lower me through that hole a little, TwinSoul, so I can see.”

He obliged, creating a small lattice of crystals to support her as she lowered her head into the elevator, her hair hanging down. The two guards stood amid some large crates, facing each other and leaning back against separate boxes. TwinSoul was right. They weren’t paying attention. Actually, they appeared to be flirting. At least, the man was giggling at his own jokes, and the woman was pretending not to be impressed.

From her side pouch, Marasi took out one of her Allomantic grenades and then attached her fishing line. She charged the grenade, then waited — and patience rewarded her when the man said something that finally made the woman laugh. With them distracted Marasi threw her grenade, which activated immediately after touching down. The two guards — focused on one another — hopefully wouldn’t notice that time around them had slowed.

“All right,” Marasi whispered, holding the fishing line. “Let’s go.”

Marasi dropped into the elevator with a thump. Moonlight followed more stealthily, prowling forward as she landed. TwinSoul lowered majestically on a pole of roseite with a foothold. He stepped off, then stumbled and put his hand to the wall of the elevator, steadying himself.

The three of them checked the tunnel for any other guards — it was empty — and slipped out, careful not to touch the barely visible edge of the slowness bubble, which was shimmering like the air above hot pavement.

The two guards remained frozen there. The woman’s eyes closed as she laughed, the man grinning and fixated on his companion. Hopefully he wouldn’t catch blurs from the corner of his eye. Marasi and the others hid in a nearby cross tunnel. She yanked her grenade up and out using the fishing line, and the bubble collapsed.

She snatched the grenade from the air as the female guard’s laugh echoed from amid the crates. Marasi waited, tense. Had they been seen? Had either of them heard the grenade hit the stone over the sound of laughter?

Their conversation continued as if nothing had happened. Marasi nodded in relief to the others, and they prowled a little farther down their current tunnel. It was lit by a series of miner’s lights on a thick cord on the wall, creating alternating darker sections and brightly lit ones.

“That was well executed,” Moonlight whispered as Marasi rewound the fishing line. “Only one way to go for now: down this tunnel?”

Marasi nodded.

“I feel exposed like this,” TwinSoul whispered. “We could encounter more guards.”

Marasi felt the same, but there was little they could do. They continued along the tunnel, which felt much like the ones she’d entered with Wayne the other day. Smooth, ancient rock — with some rubble here and there showing that chunks had fallen in from the ceiling during the explosive-weapon tests. And perhaps some of the blasts had been used not to test, but to connect tunnels and caverns.

Voices echoed from up ahead. Marasi glanced behind them at the long, exposed tunnel, then pointed forward, toward one of the darker sections where she thought she saw some larger chunks of rubble. TwinSoul lagged behind, despite his promise, as Marasi and Moonlight hurried into the shadows.

None of those speaking were visible yet, as the tunnel turned ahead. Marasi crouched behind some rubble, Moonlight joining her. The stone chunks only just came up past her knees when she crouched, but it was better than nothing. They waved anxiously to TwinSoul, who did his best, stumbling as he arrived and falling to his knees near them.

Then stone began to grow from his hand. It arced up around them, darker colored than his usual roseite. Though it was still pink, the shadows hid the color. He took a long drink from his backpack to restore his water, then — at his urging — they all crouched as low as they could go and let the roseite grow over them, leaving a small section clear at the front so they could see what was happening outside.

A group of patrolling soldiers wandered around the bend. There were only five of them, but Marasi was glad for the cover as they paused and chatted about the lord mayor’s visit, then split up in opposite directions. One patrol went back toward the elevator, right past their hiding place. They didn’t even look down.

Still, Marasi’s heart thundered in her chest until the tunnel fell silent again, and she risked a whisper. “You two certainly are handy.”

“Thank you, my lady,” TwinSoul said.

“This is only a fraction of the talents members of the Ghostbloods have,” Moonlight noted. “You’ll be amazed at the things we will show you.”

“If I join,” Marasi said. “I don’t truly know what you are, what you do.”

“Well, that is easy to explain,” TwinSoul said. “We have three general tenets.”

“Protect Scadrial,” Moonlight said, standing up as the roseite shell began to disintegrate.

“But neither of you are from here,” Marasi whispered.

“True,” TwinSoul said, “but my homeland is inhospitable to my kind for now. I joined Lord Kelsier for the opportunity to gain allies and resources for my eventual fight against the dark aether. And having this planet remain safe and uncorrupted is a worthy goal on its own.”

“And you?” Marasi asked Moonlight. “You can’t go home either?”

“I can’t,” she said, “but I don’t care so much about that. I’m keeping an eye on a particular enemy of the Ghostbloods. Plus I like secrets.” She nodded forward.

They continued, and after they checked around the bend and made sure no one else was coming, Marasi whispered to Moonlight, “What are the other two tenets?”

“We share what we know with each other,” Moonlight said. “There are no secrets within a team. If you ask Kelsier, even he’ll tell you what he’s planning. But you absolutely can’t share secrets outside the organization without his permission.”

“And the last one?”

“We trust each other,” TwinSoul said. “We’re a team. A family. You join us, you absolutely swear not to make a move against another Ghostblood. No infighting. No betrayals. No undermining one another. No squabbling over resources or favor.”

“We take it very seriously, Marasi,” Moonlight said. “And the way you act — your attitude as part of a team — is one of the main reasons we came to you.”

And not, she implied, to Wax. They went on, Marasi chewing on those tenets. She swallowed the last one easily. Not moving against one another? Not undermining the mission or goals of another member of the group? That sounded wonderful. More than once, she’d collided with another constable’s ambition, preventing her from getting things done.

The other tenet though … Not sharing information with those outside? That sat in her gut like a stone. She was a constable for the city of Elendel. Joining the Ghostbloods would be like … like swearing allegiance to another country.

But the secrets they knew … the things they were doing … She doubted that if she joined the Ghostbloods, she’d ever have to waste her time dealing with small-time criminals again.

She put it all out of her mind for the time being as they reached an intersection. The rightmost turn was particularly well-lit. There, two long, narrow structures had been built out along the tunnel, one on each side. The path continued between them, as if they were shops on a street.

Peeking around the corner into this tunnel, Marasi could see that one of the two buildings was guarded by thick-armed men. The lord mayor’s bodyguards. The two men were distracted though, talking to someone inside. Which gave Marasi an opportunity.

She led the way, crouching low around the corner, and crossed the short distance to the rightmost building. She was joined by the other two as the bodyguards finished their conversation and closed the door, settling into guard postures.

A window on this short end of the building, where Marasi and the others hid, gave her a chance to steal a look. And there he was, right inside. The lord mayor himself, in formal dining wear, hair slicked back with something greasy, sitting at a table. Aside from him, there were two additional guards settling in by the door. Four people in white lab coats huddled near Gave’s table, one handing him something to drink.

Marasi frowned, noticing Gave’s slumped-over posture. He looked … worn. Far less commanding or smug than he was at the police station.

He shook his head. “What odds do you give her,” he asked, his voice muffled from inside, but audible, “of getting that bomb to fly. Of actually salvaging this?”

“That’s … not my department, sir,” one of the scientists said. “I’m not an engineer.”

“I can’t believe it’s come to this,” Gave said, his voice softening. “I didn’t think … when I agreed … Are they here?”

“Nearly,” another scientist said.

“How many?” Gave asked.

“A lot,” the woman replied. “An army of soldiers with golden skin and glowing red eyes. Sir, is it true? Are they…”

Gave pounded the table. “I’m supposed to be in control! She’s supposed to fail, and I’m supposed to take her place.”

“You will, sir,” one of the scientists said. “If she doesn’t get the bomb working, Autonomy will kill her.”

“And invade the whole rusting Basin,” Gave said, hands to his face. “Maybe the world. Damn. It wasn’t supposed to be like this…” He downed his shot and hauled himself to his feet.

Marasi shared a glance with the others. They’d known Autonomy was planning some sort of decisive attack if Telsin failed to prove she could control the Basin. It seemed that maybe Gave had been assigned to facilitate that?

It would be convenient for him, she thought, to have these caverns as a bunker in case a destructive war breaks out above. That would explain the food, too.

And some kind of invading army? She remembered how awed Miles Hundredlives had been, speaking of the “men of gold and red” as he died. Rusts.

“How many soldiers of our own do we have left in the bunker?” Entrone asked.

“Two contingents,” said a scientist who seemed to be in charge — a thick-bodied woman in a white lab coat.

“And Metalblessed?” Entrone asked.

“None,” the woman said.

“That woman,” Entrone said, “is deliberately trying to leave me short-manned.” He started pacing. “While I’m forced to support her, lest the worst option play out. I can’t believe I let it get this far. We need some kind of military presence to corral those alien soldiers.”

“Can we do that?” the scientist asked.

“I don’t know,” he said, putting his hand to his head. “I don’t want to rule ashes. Rusts, Edwarn’s plans were always superior. We should have been pushing for those, instead of Telsin’s idiotic bomb.”

“Yes, my lord mayor,” Labcoat said. “Speaking of Edwarn’s plans, did you … want to proceed with the test?”

He waved for her to do so, and Labcoat sent her two assistants to the far side of the room, the stone wall of the tunnel. Marasi had missed a thick door set into the rock — made of strong wood, with sturdy locks on the outside.

The assistants undid these, opening the door to reveal a group of some twenty people huddled in the darkness. They wore an assortment of different kinds of clothing — some expensive, others just common work clothes. All were grungy and rumpled. With pistols drawn, the assistants picked out a lean woman in a torn evening dress, her face streaked with makeup. She barely resisted, looking too exhausted for anything more than a token protest.

The door was locked again, and the assistants strapped her facedown to a table. Then one took out a silvery spike, long and thin. Marasi felt a chill, then nausea. Was this …

Oh, Ruin. Were they making an Allomancer? She’d read about the process in the book Death had given her, but she’d never wanted to see it in person.

Labcoat took out a notebook. “We believe that we’ve isolated the technique Edwarn was on to,” she said. “Indeed, we’ve refined it. The process involves a very thin spike, my lord mayor, and, oddly, the right mindset.”

“Mindset?” he asked.

“You need to know what you’re doing and why,” the woman explained. “It helps to whisper a Command as you work, though we find it isn’t strictly necessary. Trauma on the part of the subject is helpful as well.”

At a nod from her, the assistants threaded the long spike through the skin of the woman’s upper back. Almost like they were sewing with a six-inch needle. The poor woman made a pained whimper, and the assistant doing the procedure mumbled something to himself, then pushed the needle slowly back through her skin, as if making two holes for some kind of piercing. The woman screamed louder as the process finished.

As soon as the spike left her skin, the holes started bleeding. The woman fell silent, and the assistant washed off the bloodied spike and handed it to Labcoat, who promptly placed it in a solution attached to a device and examined it.

“Roughly five percent Invested,” she reported to Entrone. “And as you can see, the subject is still alive. We’ve essentially excised a piece of the soul and stored it in the metal.”

Wait.

They’d made a spike without killing the woman?

That was supposed to be impossible. Granted, Marasi hadn’t studied Death’s book in as much detail as Wax had, but she was fairly sure Hemalurgy always killed its subject.

“So?” Entrone said. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I don’t particularly care if these people live or die. Creating spikes without killing them is pointless. We need Metalborn in huge numbers. That will impress Autonomy. That will make her realize this planet is a resource, not something to be burned.”

“Ah, my lord,” the woman said. “This woman isn’t Metalborn. We’ve Invested a spike — a tiny bit, granted — using an ordinary person. All people are Invested by Ruin and Preservation as part of our very makeup — and we have a little extra Preservation, blessed by the Shards upon our creation. We’re pulling some of that out.

“The percentage you get depends on the person. We think it might have to do with how likely they were, genetically, to be Metalborn. But they don’t need that extra if the powers didn’t manifest in them. It’s vestigial. We simply slice it off and use it in a spike. Fully Investing one takes between twenty and thirty people.”

“But can you make Allomancers from those spikes,” Entrone said. “That’s the key part.”

The scientist glanced at the others. “Sir, this is a fantastic result. A huge step forward in—”

“Can you make me Allomancers?” he demanded. “Now. Today. To show Autonomy.”

“No,” Labcoat admitted. “We think we need to code this in some way to give a specific Metallic Art blessing. We’re working on that. We’ve had some few gain a power for a short time using one of these spikes, but it gives out soon after.”

“Damn,” Entrone muttered. “That means Edwarn’s Community project here is still valuable.” He folded his arms, looking worn down again. “But we have nothing to show Autonomy at the present. I’m going to have to do it. I’m going to have to let her army through. Call all of our remaining loyalists — those not working directly for Telsin — into the caverns.”

“But—” Labcoat began.

“We wait,” he said, “for Telsin to initiate her plan. We give her every opportunity. And then … then if it doesn’t work…”

“We survive,” Labcoat said.

“We survive.” He nodded to himself. “I’m going to the Community to see to the perpendicularity.” He waved toward the cell at the rear of the room. “They have all heard and seen too much. They are a liability. Execute them.”

“Of course, my lord,” Labcoat said. Entrone left, leaving the two guards inside, but collecting the two in the tunnel. He slammed the door, making the flimsy structure shake. Fortunately, once outside, he turned and continued farther into the complex instead of walking past Marasi and her team.

“Fetch me some invel gas pellets,” Labcoat said to the assistants in the room. “That will be a painless end for the captives. Fion, tell our loyalists to retreat to the caverns. They can bring their families, but nothing else. A priority-one evacuation order. This is the real thing.”

One of the assistants left at a dead run, also going farther into the complex. The other began fiddling in cabinets at the side of the room. Marasi and the two Ghostbloods crouched in the shadows, whispering.

“We have to get this information to Kelsier,” Moonlight said. “A new way of making spikes could change everything.”

“It’s still brutal,” Marasi whispered back. “Stealing a piece of someone’s soul? It’s better than murdering them, but I doubt this is something we could use in good conscience.”

“You don’t understand,” Moonlight said. “If they’re even close to forging Metalborn out of the raw power of souls — if they’ve had tests that resulted in an Allomancer, no matter how fleeting … Marasi, that path could lead to creating spikes using pure Investiture instead of souls.” She tapped her rucksack, indicating the glowing jars inside.

Ruin. The ability to create spikes in a mechanical way? Even the process of making medallions among the Malwish required Metalborn. If what Moonlight implied was right, then it would change everything.

“For now,” TwinSoul said, “Silajana reminds us that the planet itself is in danger. Getting information to Lord Kelsier is meaningless if that invasion happens. We must follow Entrone and see if we can interfere with Autonomy’s plans.”

Marasi peeked around the corner, looking farther down the tunnel. They could sneak past. But the people in that room were about to be executed …

“We have to help the prisoners,” Marasi said.

“A few lives are meaningless right now,” Moonlight said. “We need to keep moving. It’s our way.”

“It’s not mine,” Marasi said. “I’m an officer of the law. I can’t leave a group of people to be murdered. Besides, he said they’d heard too much. They know something of use to us.”

Moonlight and TwinSoul glanced to one another.

“I’m going to help them,” Marasi said. “There are only two guards. We should be able to stop those with ease.”

“If anything goes wrong,” Moonlight said, “it could alert everyone down here. One gunshot…”

Marasi hesitated, weighing the risks. It might be foolish, she acknowledged, but she hadn’t become a constable to leave people to be murdered. She stood up straight. “It is a risk I will take. Are you with me, or do I do it alone?”

The other two stood. “Let’s do it quickly then,” Moonlight said.

48

Steris had heard that in a fire, the rats were often the first creatures out. They could smell the smoke before the flames raged out of control — and so, on occasion, you could get an early warning of impending danger by watching the rats flee.

That was what she did now, while organizing her thoughts and listening to the other senators prepare their escape routes. She watched Lady Gardre, the woman Steris was almost certain was a member of the Set. So long as Gardre remained in the city, they had time.

But as the minutes stretched long, waiting for TenSoon to return with the Bands, she began to doubt. Perhaps it wasn’t Gardre. Perhaps one of the aides was the real agent, and they’d already fled. Perhaps the Set didn’t actually have anyone in the government’s inner circle. Perhaps–

An aide bustled into the room — and stepped over to Lady Gardre, whispering in her ear.

“Ah,” Gardre said. “I’ll need to deal with this.” Gardre stood up, straightening her jacket. “I’ll be back shortly.”

Steris knew she wouldn’t be. Her departure meant the city was in imminent danger. She passed TenSoon on her way out, and he drew the attention of the others. They didn’t realize.

“Now,” Adawathwyn said, striding around the table to TenSoon, “let’s see how these work. Give me the Bands. Let me walk Harmony’s Path and save the city! I am Metalborn, a Ferring of the mind. Whatever bomb is being delivered here, I can Push it away with the force of a planet! Or I can soar to Bilming and bring justice to those miscreants!”

Ambassador Daal stepped forward, his face hidden behind his mask. “This must be a negotiation. You promised that they wouldn’t be used.”

“Surely you can see the need, Ambassador,” Steris said. “You don’t expect us to simply die if this could save us?”

“Surely you Northerners understand the meaning of the word ‘promise,’” he said, looking at her through the holes in his mask. “I have the authority to negotiate for their return to us.” He leaned forward, his hands on the table, and looked straight at the governor — who leaned away, his eyes widening.

“If you use them,” Daal continued, “then I demand that they must be turned over to us next, for use during the disaster of our choosing. A compromise, yah? If you wish to avoid war, but also use these Bands, that is the only solution. You get this chance. We will also get a chance. Deal?”

All eyes in the room went to TenSoon. The kandra had validated the treaty and had become keepers of the relic. It appeared the others thought he could agree to this, and Steris supposed he was as close to an arbiter as they had.

“Harmony is preoccupied,” TenSoon said, “but our time is tight. So I will agree to this if the humans do. The Basin may use the Bands right now. But they revert to the Malwish.”

“Do it,” the governor said. “If it could save the city … I agree.”

It was not the best situation for a negotiation, and Steris wondered how badly they were being played. Daal must see this as the perfect opportunity to get what he wanted. Regardless, she still didn’t understand why TenSoon thought this might work. Yes, the Bands made a person a powerful Metalborn, but Daal acted as if they could win wars on their own — and TenSoon had this distant expression. He met her eyes.

“What?” she asked.

“We believe,” he whispered, “there is a way to transport objects large distances using a conflux of Metalborn powers. It is a thing Harmony doesn’t yet understand himself. But I wonder … if someone feeling the transcendent power of the Bands … could solve the puzzle.”

Fascinating. She took notes.

TenSoon opened the box to present the Bands — which were in the shape of a large spearhead, made of multiple bands of different kinds of metal. The governor nodded for Adawathwyn to take them. She reached in and touched them, her eyes alight. She picked them up, held them for a moment, and frowned.

“How…” she said. “How do I activate them?”

“It was natural for Wax,” Steris said, walking over. She hesitantly poked the Bands, and felt nothing.

They passed them around, letting everyone try. Finally TenSoon took them, his face scrunched up in thought. Then horror followed. “They’re drained,” he whispered. “Something has happened … How…?”

Without their power, the Bands of Mourning were essentially just a heavy piece of history. Like a statue’s broken arm.

The governor gave a groan of despair and leaned back in his chair, squeezing his eyes shut. Salvation had just flitted away on butterfly wings. Steris couldn’t help wondering what she was missing. She’d never anticipated this. The Bands could be drained? By whom? And how?

Daal stepped forward and touched them with one finger. “It’s true,” he muttered. “What have you done? Have you been using these in secret?”

“What?” Adawathwyn said. “No! We haven’t seen them in years, not since the treaty!”

Daal picked up the Bands in one hand. “I will return them to my people.”

“Wait,” Steris said, standing. “That wasn’t the deal.”

“Wasn’t it?” he said. “You had your chance to use them. It happens they are useless to you. Now we must have our chance. I wonder if it is piety that makes them work, yah? Or if maybe I am right, and you’ve been using them all along. Our scholars will know if you are trying to pass off some fake.”

Steris looked at him and had the distinct impression that was … a prepared speech? Yes. She prepared words to say even in common conversations. His mannerisms felt practiced, rehearsed. But surely she was wrong. He couldn’t have been prepared for this?

Unless he’d known the Bands would be drained. Unless he’d come to Elendel looking for a crisis that would make them call on the Bands, so he could offer his deal. And then …

“I don’t know if I can allow this,” the governor said.

“I don’t know that we can forbid it,” TenSoon growled back. “You agreed.”

“Ah,” Daal said. “Perhaps your Faceless Immortals can actually be impartial? Curious. I had not believed it.”

Daal took the Bands’ case from TenSoon, who growled low and dangerous — but let it go.

Steris watched with an odd feeling of disconnect. This was … this was some kind of Malwish ploy, completely separate from the tensions at Bilming. Which made it a problem for another time, when they weren’t being threatened with extinction. The Bands were not the solution today. But there was a secret here that eventually she would like to tease out.

The ambassador walked to the door, but paused there, the Bands under his arm. “I did promise you passage, Governor. If this city is doomed, as you all think, then … if you wish, any of you may join me now. I will drop you at a safer location.”

“I’ll go,” Adawathwyn said immediately. She snatched her things off the table.

“Maybe…” the governor said. “Maybe we’re wrong. Mistaken somehow about this danger…”

“Are you a betting man, my lord governor?” Reddi asked. “Because I am. And I’ve learned to never bet against one particular man. If Dawnshot says a bomb is pointed at us, it is.”

“We need to evacuate the city.” Steris thumped her notebooks. “I have the plans here. Full citywide emergency plans for various categories of disaster. I had free time a few summers ago and was bored.”

“This is what you do for fun?” Reddi asked.

“Well, the house taxes were already done for the next year,” Steris said. “Here. This plan is the best for this situation. It gets the most people out of the city the fastest. The longer we have, the more we save. It’s one of my most efficient creations.” She looked up to the governor. “Please. We can’t leave. We have to protect the city.”

“Are you coming or not?” Daal snapped from the doorway. Perhaps he wanted the honor — and political bargaining chip — of having saved the governor.

Governor Varlance glanced from him to Steris. Then toward Adawathwyn — whose robes flashed as she vanished out the door. The other senators hastened to follow.

“You,” Steris said softly to the governor, “are the captain of this city. This entire nation. You were chosen by the people to represent them. I need your authority to save as many of them as possible. There will be time for you to escape later. For now, help me save this city.”

“You … really have a plan?” the governor said. He wiped his brow. “An evacuation plan?”

“Yes. We can do this, Varlance.”

He nodded. A quick, hesitant nod, frightened. “I want to try. Where do we start?”

49

There wasn’t no cover in this canyon, so Wayne had to do the smart thing: turn into some.

He stepped in front of Wax, who was ducking backward around the corner. Too slow, but fortunately the next shots from the enemy hit Wayne, making him grunt. Bullets really hurt. He supposed that was the point, but some other wounds were so big that your body kinda freaked out and decided not to hurt, least at first. Like it was saying, “Whoa. This is gonna suck hard. Better take a deep breath.”

Bullets though, they didn’t send him into shock or anything. So they just hurt. Like Death’s own eyes.

Still, it kept Wax from bein’ hit. Together he and Wayne ducked back around the curve in the tunnel, out of sight. The two of them waited there, Wax with guns out, ready to fire. They were perhaps thirty yards from where they’d spotted the two doppel-dummies, blocking the way farther through the tunnel.

Wayne rolled his shoulder as the bullet wounds healed, draining his metalminds a little further. He was using up his reserves pretty fast these last few days. Fortunately, most of his work with Marasi hadn’t required much healin’. Her missions didn’t usually involve things like throwing Wayne out windows like he was a rustin’ cat.

“Oi!” the not-Wayne called from farther down the tunnel. “We can’t shoot you if you keep hidin’! Come out so we can get on with killing you, mates!”

Oh, now that was plain awful. She was trying too hard — that wasn’t a Roughs accent at all. It was inner-city Roughs enclave accent, with a bit of upper-crust theater thrown in — probably from her dialect coach. The resulting accent was ridiculous, just close enough to his natural accent that it was like rusty old spikes being pulled across a chalkboard.

“What the hell is going on with those two?” Wayne whispered.

“I suspect,” Wax replied, “that the Set realized they’d need to face us, considering the ruin we made of their plans a few years back. So they spiked a few of their members with powers to match ours and trained them to fight us.”

“That one isn’t just tryin’ to fight me,” Wayne said. “She’s tryin’ to be me. You get the same sense from yours?”

“No,” Wax said. “Other than the suit, he merely seems to be a competent Coinshot with a few extra spikes. Watch him, Wayne. He can burn up all of his steel in a single terrible burst, supercharging his Push to extreme levels. But he can also drain your abilities if he gets hold of you.”

“So long as he has metals,” Wayne said.

“The Set has some powerful resources, Wayne,” Wax said. “I’ll bet his chromium outlasts your bendalloy.”

“We’ll see about that.” Wayne narrowed his eyes, peering around the corner. “That one what thinks she’s like me, she’s doin’ a terrible job. I’m not nearly that annoying.”

Wax calmly loaded a few bullets into his pistol.

“Hey,” Wayne said. “Don’t you say it.”

“I didn’t say a thing.” He snapped the revolver closed. “Unfortunately, any delay is to their advantage. Which means we’re going to have to go on the offensive.”

“Close confines down here, mate,” Wayne said. “Not great for Steelpushing. Real easy to get stuck in slow time while they coordinate to trap us.”

“See if you can catch all four of us inside a speed bubble together,” Wax said. “It’s close confines, yes — but for them too.”

“They can make their own bubble, mate,” Wayne said. “Even inside ours. But I suppose they can’t sculpt one like I can. So we should be good, if we’re in close together.”

“Exactly,” Wax said. “If neither of us can rely on speed bubbles or flying high with Steelpushes, maybe our trained skill will overwhelm their borrowed abilities. We can try to throw that Steelpusher out of the bubble, to freeze him. Just don’t let him touch you, or he can Leech your powers.”

A good enough plan, Wayne supposed. He dug in his pocket for the aluminum-lined pouch his accountants had given him and pulled out a few beads of bendalloy. Kept it in little marbles, easy to swallow.

He knocked them back. Wax nodded, and Wayne made as big a speed bubble as he could. They ran through it, broke out the other side, and dashed down the tunnel. It was a big concrete pipe thing, a good ten feet or more across, the bottom containing a foot-or-two-wide section of sludge that had partially dried, on account of the lack of rain recently.

The evil twins got a chance to deliberate in a speed bubble while Wayne and Wax moved. But they couldn’t do too much from inside one. Other than position themselves really well for when the bubble ended. So, the moment Wayne saw motion ahead, he dropped and rolled in the mud. So did Wax.

Bullets went streaking over their heads, where they’d been moments before. Wayne dashed the last few yards to close in on them, then tossed up a large speed bubble — fifteen feet across — to catch all four people. Dueling canes out, he went straight for the evil him, feigning a strike, dodging right, then sweeping with a cane from the left to knock her in the noggin. She barely managed to block him, then slid her weapon along his in a classic maneuver to try and smack his fingers.

He shoved her back and went in again, and the next sequence of attacks hit like a drumbeat — wooden stick against wooden stick. He got a hit on her, but she barely flinched as her metalminds healed her. She returned the blow, and he took it without much more than a faint grunt. Though his ribs cracked, they healed right up.

“Oi!” she said in that exaggerated parody of his accent. “That’s cheatin’!”

“You ain’t me,” Wayne growled. “Don’t pretend you are.”

She grinned and slid in the mud in an admittedly skillful move, getting past him and dodging his next swing — all while rapping him on the arm hard enough to break the bone. He grimaced and flipped his hand to the side to reset the bone as his muscles pulled it back into place.

He fended off her next attack with one arm while the other healed, letting her force him to retreat. At that moment, Wax flew between them and slammed into the tunnel wall with a grunt. He tossed a handful of bullets in the air, then ducked — tricking not-Wax into Pushing on them instead of him. Wax then slid back across the ground underneath and unloaded his guns toward the Coinshot.

Wayne and the not-him watched it all with shocked hesitation, then Wayne grabbed his second dueling cane out of the mud. The two scrambled back together and exchanged a few more blows.

“Hate doin’ this sober,” not-him said. “Maybe we should grab a pint, then have at this again in a right proper state of mind.”

“Nah,” Wayne said, “I drink with bastards, liars, and fools. But I draw the line at someone like me.”

“I’m doin’ well, then?” she asked as they locked canes, coming in close together. “I’m you?”

“You’re something far, far worse,” he muttered. “You’re someone who wants to be me.”

“Ha!” she said, breaking the lock and shoving him to the side, making him slide up against the shimmering edge of the speed bubble. It didn’t move when Wayne did. They anchored in place, so it wouldn’t fall unless he dropped it or was shoved out.

He shook his arms. Damn, she was strong. Looked like natural strength training, which he didn’t have time to do. She came at him with a body check, making him grunt as she pressed up against him.

“Hope old Dumad is doing all right,” she said, nodding at her companion. “I done stole some of his metal vials without telling him.”

“I don’t steal,” Wayne muttered.

“Sorry! I borrowed it.”

“I don’t borrow neither! And your accent is sliding from Roughs street into southern Elendel street gang! Gah! You’re gettin’ it all wrong!”

“I love that you’re more worried about me imitating you poorly than you are about me tryin’ to kill you,” she said, shoving her face up next to his. She stabbed him in the chest — he hadn’t even seen her drop the dueling cane — with a glass knife. “It’s so you, Wayne!”

“You don’t know me,” Wayne growled, managing to kick her leg and make her slip a little. She loosened her grip, which let him rip free and move around her, though her knife sliced him across the chest.

Rusts. He could heal that with the health in his bracer — which these days he wore embedded into the flesh of his thigh. But he was worried about how much she was making him use. That was probably the point.

“Oh, Wayne,” she said, turning toward him. “I do know you. I’ve studied you for years! Freewheeling Wayne! Always ready with a joke. Snatchin’ what he sees, chasin’ the girls. Livin’ his life without consequences. Just here for the fun and the booze!”

“Yeah?” he muttered. “And the pain?”

“Eh,” she said with a shrug. “You get used to gettin’ exploded, now don’tcha.”

“Not that pain,” he whispered.

They met again, but she was just plain better at the fightin’ part than he was. Oh, Wayne was fine with the canes. But he lived his life. And in doin’ so, he’d let the trainin’ slack off — having a little gum chew out behind the building instead of working into the evening. With Marasi, he hadn’t spent quite so much time getting his head knocked in.

But this creature, well, she’d been trainin’ something hard. Focused entirely on this day, this meeting, this fight. He wasn’t brawlin’ with some bully off the street, or even some talented Set Metalborn. He was facin’ an assassin what had been designed specifically to kill him.

She was stronger than he was. Faster than he was. Younger than he was. Better with the canes. He was better with his powers. He was certain of that. But in these close confines, that didn’t really matter. And as he traded blows with her, taking hits and forcing himself to heal, he … Well, he took more punishment than he gave. Rusts … was this what Wax felt like, now he was gettin’ on in years?

He rolled to the side, through the muck on the bottom of the giant tube they was in. That put him right to the other edge of the speed bubble, and he slipped halfway out of it — though fortunately, so long as you were touching it at all it included you in its powers.

A motion from where Wax was fightin’ made Wayne duck. Wax himself went flying past again, and he soared completely out of the speed bubble. Damn. That was what they’d been planning to do to the other guy.

Wax froze instantly, hanging in the air with a grimace on his face, gun trailing from his fingers and hovering in front of him, mistcoat tassels sweeping around him.

Uh-oh, Wayne thought.

A spray of coins hit Wayne a second later.

“Aw, Dumad,” not-Wayne said, turning. “I was havin’ fun. I’m supposed to be the one who takes him.”

“You’re inefficient, Getruda,” Dumad said. “You play with him. You simply need to hit him repeatedly until his health runs out.” He punctuated this by giving Wayne another faceful of coins, knocking him to the ground.

Rusts. This was bad. Wayne healed that, but it was slow — his healing was starting to run dangerously low. And he had to ration it as a result.

“Oi,” he muttered, “Death. Betcha fifty clips I survive this.” It was a good time for a bet. Because in such a situation, Wayne had to try something truly desperate.

The truth.

He stumbled to his feet, putting his back to the rounded wall of the tunnel. “You think you know me?” Wayne whispered. “You think you know what I’ve been through?”

Dumad looked at him, then Pushed. And rusts, the guy was so strong he could affect the metal inside Wayne’s body. That was a crazy thing to experience — Wayne was shoved backward from the coins embedded within him. Rust and Ruin … that was a power that the Ascendant Warrior was said to have had.

These guys really were cheating. No wonder Wax had lost his fight. No wonder Wayne had essentially lost his — the dueling portion at least. But if he could keep their attention …

He grunted at the Push. Then he stepped forward anyway, feeling the coins tear and rip inside him. He took another step, leaning forward into the Push.

Not-him hesitated, lowering her canes. He met her eyes.

Then he grinned.

“You can’t hurt me,” he whispered, changing his accent. “Ain’t nothin’ that can hurt me more than life already has. You can’t kill me. I’m already dead. I been dead for years, sister.”

He took another step forward. Most people, they didn’t notice accent changes like that. Little tweaks to the tone of your words. But people judged you on them anyway. Their brains associated accents with meaning.

Dumad frowned, seeming disturbed, and raised his hand and Pushed harder. Wayne slid in the mud, the coins ripping farther through him. Then he took another step forward and changed his accent further. Put on his most wide-eyed, excited face. Twisting his voice to be something unnatural. Something terrifying. Something out of a nightmare. Matching this not-Wax’s accent, but terrible.

Like the accent he’d hear from his parents and family. Only broken. Wayne didn’t need a hat for this one.

“It’s easy to do what you do, since you don’t care,” Wayne growled to the two, making his eyes go even wider. “So long as you can pretend. But real pain, that comes when you realize what you are. What you done. Waking up each morning, knowin’ you’re worthless. That’s pain. Anything else? Anything you could do to me? Well, that’s just a little bit o’ fun.”

“You’re…” Dumad trailed off as Wayne’s smile widened.

“Thank you,” Wayne said, “for tossin’ Wax outta here. That way I got a few moments to have you two all to myself.”

The coins finally ripped through Wayne’s back, letting him lurch forward in a sudden rush. And as he did, he threw himself to the ground. Because amid his display — getting them to focus only on him — he’d dropped the speed bubble. And they hadn’t noticed.

From the side, Wax put a hazekiller round straight in not-Wayne’s face. Its secondary explosion went off a second later, blowing off half her skull. A second shot from Wax took Dumad in the chest as he was turning, then exploded out his back.

Incredibly, the Coinshot didn’t fall. Pewter. Did the fellow have pewter to burn and push through wounds? How many spikes did this fellow have, and why hadn’t they let Harmony take control of him?

Unfortunately, the man stayed on his feet and ducked the next bullets. He shoved a grate off the ceiling, opening it up to the sunlight, then seized the bloodied not-Wayne and Pushed on a coin.

The two launched up and out. One with a hole in his chest that didn’t seem to hurt as much as it should have, the other with half her head gone. She might be dead, though Wayne couldn’t be certain. Head shots were tricky. They could end you, but it all depended on the damage done.

Wax maybe should have put another few shots in them as they fled, but the man looked pretty ragged from the fight. Breathing deeply, he slumped back against the wall of the tunnel. They’d come close to losing this fight. Real close.

Wayne stumbled to his feet, aching all over, and used his healing to seal those coin wounds. But they remained sore. He was forced to stop healing to save the last bit of juice in his metalmind. Rusts.

Wayne turned and lurched over to Wax, his clothes a bloody, muddy mess. Wax’s, impossibly, were pretty nice — barely marked by the gunk on the floor.

“Hey!” Wayne said. “How the hell aren’t you covered in mud? I saw you roll through it.”

“I Pushed off a bullet when I did,” he said. He put a hand to his shoulder and groaned softly. “Nice job, with the distraction.” He met Wayne’s eyes. “Did you mean any of that?”

“Nah, of course not,” Wayne said, looking away. Ruin, he felt exhausted. And creaky. Like a floor what had been walked on so much, all the boards wobbled.

“Wayne…”

“Not the time, mate.” He settled down on the floor. “Rusts, I feel old. I’m not supposed to feel old. I’m the spry one!”

Wax settled down next to him on a dry part of the concrete. “You’re thirty-nine, Wayne. It catches up to you.”

“You infected me, you did,” Wayne grumbled. “I never felt old when I was workin’ with Marasi!”

“I infected you,” Wax said, “with being old?”

“Damn right.”

“That’s ludicrous even for you.”

“No it ain’t. You done started to think yourself old, and it drilled into my head too.” Wayne tapped at his skull. “Ideas is infectious, Wax. More than diseases.”

They caught their breath for a few more moments. Unfortunately, they couldn’t linger.

“They know for sure we found this tunnel,” Wayne said. “If there’s some kind of lab at the end of it, they’ll be clearing it out as we speak.”

Wax nodded and heaved himself back to his feet. He reached out a hand to help Wayne up.

“We need to talk,” Wax said. “About you. The way you’ve been feeling lately.”

“Sure. Okay. I like talkin’. But later.”

Later was always better.

Together, they pressed forward. “I got the woman pretty good,” Wax said. “Do you think that killed her?”

“Depends. How’s your luck been lately?”

“Awful,” Wax admitted. “But at least we know we’re on the right trail. Otherwise they wouldn’t have tried so hard to stop us.”

“Yeah, sure,” Wayne said. “I’m glad we’re done with the canyon, but the hardest part is yet to come. The mesa, which is gonna gobble you up. Remember to choke it from the inside.”

“I’ll do my best.”

50

Marasi drew up a quick plan — which was the only kind they could afford. Moonlight and TwinSoul stayed near the window, ready to break in. Marasi worked her way up to the front of the building to place a grenade by the door. The slowness bubble would work through the wall, trapping the two guards who stood inside. As she charged her weapon, however, Moonlight ducked around the side of the rectangular structure and scuttled up to Marasi.

“Guards just moved,” she hissed. “They’re getting gas masks from a bin near the scientists.”

Rusts. She couldn’t let them release the gas.

“We go in now,” Marasi hissed. “Back me up if the grenade fails.”

Moonlight nodded, and Marasi kicked in the door and hurled her grenade toward the group of people in the left corner, near the window where she and the others had been spying.

Sorry, TwinSoul, she thought, knowing the grenade would catch him too. Her aim was solid, and the grenade box bounced off one lab table, then fell to the floor near the group of guards and scientists.

The two guards immediately leaped away, one sliding over the table, the other one dashing for the front of the room. One of the scientists was also at the perimeter and — unfortunately — jumped away in surprise.

When the grenade activated, it caught only two of the scientists in gas masks. Luckily, that included the one holding a tin with warning labels on it, presumably the poison tablets.

Marasi’s grenade would keep them frozen. But now she had to deal with the others without raising an alarm. The free scientist was cringing at the side of the room, so Marasi dashed forward and slammed her rifle’s butt into the arm of one guard, who had been pulling out a pistol. Moonlight moved behind her — hopefully dealing with the other guard, because the man Marasi had attacked decided to slam into her, shoving her back against a table full of beakers.

She grunted as he rammed her own rifle up almost to her neck. Glassware shattered on the floor around her, and a part of her panicked. The part of her that still, even after all these years, worried she wasn’t good enough and didn’t belong.

That part of her was a lot quieter than it had been. Because she did belong. This was her operation. And though this man was stronger than she was, he was only a common brute. Training beat strength.

She shifted, then let go of the rifle and stepped out with her left leg, shifting the man’s weight — and force. As he stumbled, she wrenched out from his grip, rotated around behind him, then slammed his face down into the counter.

She recovered her rifle, sparing a glance for Moonlight, who was struggling. She’d disarmed her guard, but he’d in turn pressed her against the wall. As Marasi took that in, the wall distorted and a door popped into existence behind Moonlight.

Marasi barely caught sight of the stamp in Moonlight’s hand as the door opened, and the woman fell backward through it — surprising the guard, who cried out as she pulled him down with her. Moonlight elbowed him in the face to cut off his cry, so Marasi finished off her guard with a rifle butt to the face, then turned to deal with the scientist, who was …

Destroying evidence? Marasi cursed and scrambled over to the woman and pulled her away from the trash can where she’d started a fire. Marasi kicked the trash can over, scattering charred notebooks and papers out of it.

“Marasi!” Moonlight cried.

Rusts. The scientist had found a large knife and joined Moonlight’s fight. As Moonlight struggled to deal with the guard — who was trying to grapple her — the scientist raised the knife.

Making a quick judgment, Marasi swung up her rifle and snapped off a shot, killing the scientist with a well-placed bullet. The sound echoed in the tunnels like a screamed condemnation. Someone would hear that for certain.

Moonlight finished off her guard with her own knife, then was cut off from view as the door she’d made vanished. Marasi sat on the floor and groaned softly, the shimmering barrier of her slowness bubble just a foot away. She’d taken the risk to save people. She’d known what she was getting into. But now their operation was jeopardized.

So don’t let it be wasted, she thought, hauling herself to her feet. As her slowness bubble came down, she pointed her rifle right at the two scientists.

“Make one move to open that tin,” she said, “and I will kill you. I’m having a particularly bad day, so I wouldn’t test that threat.”

The scientist with the tin of poison gas tablets carefully set it down, then both raised their hands and backed away. Moonlight entered a moment later and began binding them. TwinSoul stumbled in behind her, holding to the doorframe for stability.

“I appear to have run afoul of your powers,” he said to Marasi.

“Sorry about that,” she said.

“I note two disabled guards,” he said. “And one dead scientist. So the operation went well?”

“Marasi had to shoot one,” Moonlight said, pulling one of the scientists’ bonds tight, “to save me. I ruined it.”

“No,” Marasi said. “It was my fault for not helping fast enough.”

“It is done,” TwinSoul said. “We should see to the captives and secure an exit. What are those burned pages?”

“They destroyed evidence,” Marasi said. “I assume about how they were accomplishing the Hemalurgy. I wasn’t able to save it, so…”

Moonlight sniffed. “Looks like the cover of a book there. You saved that much.”

“But none of the writings,” Marasi said.

“I can rewind that later,” Moonlight said, “with a stamp.” She grabbed the burned remnants and shoved them into her sack. “TwinSoul is right. We should probably begin our extraction — that gunshot will bring people running.”

“Extraction?” Marasi said. “Entrone said he was going to help an invading force attack. Moonlight, can enemy troops really reach us from … another world?”

“They’re probably coming through Shadesmar,” Moonlight said. “A dimension overlapping ours. It’s how TwinSoul and I got here.”

“Autonomy has access to … some very specialized troops,” TwinSoul said. “Hard to control. Dangerous to unleash. I know their destructive power personally. While I’m more frightened of that bomb, an invasion by Autonomy’s forces could also be catastrophic. Fortunately, the local perpendicularity — the portal to reach this world — is far to the south and carefully controlled.”

“There’s no other way?” Marasi asked.

The two shared a look.

“There are planets,” Moonlight said, “where Autonomy has created such portals unexpectedly, and against all understood mechanics. I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s done that here, or is soon going to. Providing a means for her armies to attack.”

So if Wax succeeded in stopping the bomb, there would be an invasion instead. Marasi took a deep breath. Even more reason they couldn’t run — not until they knew what was happening with that army. For now though, she unlocked and yanked open the cell door, spilling light across the ragged prisoners. They pulled back from the light like mistwraiths in the night.

“I’m Marasi Colms,” she said, fishing her credentials from her pocket. “Elendel Constabulary.”

“Oh, thank the Survivor!” a man said, stumbling forward and taking her hand. His suit had once been nice, and he had a few tufts of hair on an otherwise bald head. Did she … recognize him?

“You’re in Bilming politics,” she said. “You served as the local advisor to the Senate.”

“Y-yes,” he stuttered. “Pielle Fromed. I was head of the opposition party for the Bilming Council. I still am … I think…”

Most of the others looked like ordinary citizens, but there was a Terriswoman in the rear with kinky hair. That was … yes, she was a major newspaper owner, wasn’t she? Editor of the Seasons? Marasi had been interviewed by her staff the other year … It was a newspaper that had been sympathetic to Elendel interests.

Preservation … Entrone hadn’t merely been experimenting on his citizens, he’d been experimenting on his political opposition. It was shockingly brazen. How had he made these people vanish without anyone getting wind of it?

The editor of the Seasons accepted Marasi’s help as Moonlight ushered the captives into the main room. “Listen,” the woman said. “I think they have an army of some sort! I’ve … I’ve been taking notes…”

She almost fainted as Marasi helped her stand. But she pressed a notebook into Marasi’s hands. “There isn’t much. But you must believe me.”

“I do,” Marasi said. “We’re here to stop them.”

“Locate a place they call the Community,” she said. “I think it’s where their barracks are.”

“We’ll stop them,” Marasi promised, leading her to the others. “We have to get these people out of here,” Marasi then said to TwinSoul. “Immediately.”

Together, the three of them ushered the poor captives along. They were slow, they were tired, and they were underfed. It took a dangerously long time to get them all into the tunnel. And as Marasi was preparing to lead them back toward the elevators, she heard noises from that direction.

With a sinking feeling, she saw a good two dozen guards — soldiers, really; probably the ones who had been standing watch in the building above — come piling around the turn in the tunnel.

This had just gone from quiet infiltration to full-on war.

51

The Set soldiers, spotting Marasi’s group, immediately organized in the tunnel, using the natural curve as cover. Fortunately, this bought Marasi and her team a few precious moments — the enemy didn’t know what they were facing, and so took up a defensive posture.

Marasi ushered the former captives back toward the room, though the flimsy drywall would offer very little protection against gunfire.

TwinSoul, however, knelt and put both hands on the ground. “Moonlight,” he said, “I’ll need extra fuel. Water will not be enough for this.”

She swiftly dug out one of the glowing jars and tossed it to him. A line of crystal grew from him and around the jar, opening the top. His crystals began to grow faster — in moments he’d created a chest-high wall of roseite in front of them.

Gunfire rang out from the other end of the tunnel, making the former captives cry out as they crowded back into the room. Rifle in hand, Marasi threw herself against TwinSoul’s improvised fortification next to Moonlight. She risked a glance over the roseite mound — he’d made this one opaque, perhaps to give the enemy less information.

She ducked back down as a bullet blasted a few chips off the front of the fortification. TwinSoul clearly had to concentrate to keep this large a barrier up. He had settled down with his legs crossed and his hands in fists, knuckles pressed together in front of him, his head bowed. The crystal-stone had grown up over his arms in an odd way. Marasi turned to Moonlight.

“Can you make a door in the ground?” Marasi said. “There might be tunnels beneath us.”

Moonlight shook her head. “Even if there were, the thickness of the stone would be far too great for my stamp.”

“I believe, my lady Marasi,” TwinSoul said, “that you should allow me to take the people we’ve freed and hasten them to the exit. It seems these soldiers were guarding the shipping bay above. So if I can push through them, I can get the civilians to safety.”

“That would be good,” Moonlight said. “Marasi and I can escape farther into the tunnel complex — and the enemy might be so focused on you and your escape that they don’t notice us.”

“I can’t allow that,” Marasi said as bullets flew overhead. “TwinSoul, there are at least two dozen soldiers over there. You can’t manage them on your own. No offense, but you can barely walk down a corridor without support.”

“No offense taken,” he said, his voice muffled as the roseite continued to grow up — and for some reason around him. “But in return … No offense, my lady, but you might perhaps be underestimating Silajana.”

The roseite completely encased him, forming a transparent boulder around him. His head bowed, with formal sash in place, he was still fully visible in his cross-legged posture through the rose-colored stone. Marasi frowned as it continued to expand rapidly. The size and speed of this creation seemed to need the help of the glowing substance from the jar, which was being drained as the roseite grew.

Bulges formed at the sides of the boulder, like … smaller boulders? Only longer. Then two more formed on the bottom rear of the boulder. Marasi cocked her head, her back to the fortification mound, rifle across her knees. Actually, with the smaller boulder forming on the top, it had almost taken on the shape of … of a …

Thick stone fingers formed on the ends of the two protrusions at the sides, then massive roseite arms spread out, stone grinding against the stone ground as the lower parts formed knees and feet. TwinSoul at the center, the thing heaved itself up — a twelve-foot-tall stone behemoth. The crystal didn’t bend, but had formed joints, like armor.

A man made of rock, like some mythological creature, with a head on the top, broad shoulders, and trunklike legs. TwinSoul sat at its heart, legs crossed, fists pressed together in front of him. But his head rose and his eyes snapped open, glowing softly, as his creation ripped free of the lines of roseite connecting it to the ground.

The fortification started to disintegrate right away, but the soldiers’ attention was totally focused on the stone monstrosity that advanced, its head scraping the top of the tunnel. Their gunfire intensified, bullets hitting with a pop and spray of stone. TwinSoul barely seemed to mind. He stepped in front of Marasi and moved his construct’s hands in front of him, growing something out of them.

“Behold!” he said, his voice somehow booming through the tunnel. “By the grace of Silajana, Suna, Vishwadhar, and the Twelve Primal Aethers, I am Sanvith Prasanva Maahik va Sila, Grand Aetherbound of the twelve kingdoms, Raj of the Coriander Court. And these people are under my protection.”

To punctuate his words, a colossal mace finished forming from roseite in his stone fingers — with a huge bulb at one end, like that of a tulip. He let it thump to the rock beneath him, shaking the ground.

Some soldiers continued to fire. Others up and ran. Chips blasted off the construct, but the holes filled in immediately. The jar of pure Investiture — still half full — had been overgrown by the roseite and was near the rear of the large stone figure, its glow illuminating TwinSoul from behind.

“Silajana demands that I warn you,” he announced, “you have been given this rebirth to bless, encourage, and uplift those around you. By your actions here, you prove this gift wasted. If you are destroyed today by resisting my defense of these innocents, you reject your great blessing — and may not be given rebirth again for many, many centuries. Lay down your weapons and let us pass, or suffer my wrath.”

He certainly had a way with words. Moonlight grabbed Marasi by the shoulder, gesturing for them to retreat past the building with the hiding civilians. For the moment however, Marasi remained rooted, amazed by the sight of TwinSoul’s construct raising the mace.

“It appears,” he announced, “that my offer has been rejected. In turn, your offer of conflict is accepted. Prepare yourselves!” With that, he charged down the corridor, each footstep making the ground tremble.

Marasi finally allowed Moonlight to pull her back. In the flimsy structure — over the cacophony of gunfire, screams, and the impact of stone on stone — they told the captives to arm themselves, then follow TwinSoul to the way out.

Then Marasi and Moonlight exited and hurried down the main corridor, finding a darkened side passage to slip through. Hopefully, this would let them avoid any reinforcements that might come up the main passage.

“Will he be able to get them out, do you think?” Marasi whispered as — using light from one of the two remaining jars — they made their way through the tunnel complex. Marasi spotted a sign pointing toward THE COMMUNITY.

“TwinSoul is the best chance they have,” Moonlight replied. “I think he can manage it. He has the pure Investiture — and as long as that holds, he’ll be nigh invincible. He can shrink and grow his juggernaut as he needs, to get through smaller corridors. If they try to cut the electricity, he can even push the elevator all the way to the top — or create a new one from roseite.”

More gunfire sounded from behind. Marasi hoped it was the civilians arming themselves and firing to protect their retreat. She was certain she heard more footfalls and shouts coming from the main tunnel.

Moonlight looked back and smiled. “Don’t worry,” she said. “He’ll be fine. And this is exactly what we need. Prasanva is an absolute artist at drawing attention when he sets his mind to it.”

“You willing to keep going forward?” Marasi asked.

“If there really is a perpendicularity here,” she said, “then … yes. As much as I want to get out with this information, protecting the planet must come first.” She hesitated. “I’m new to this large-scale sort of thinking. Spent a long time looking out for myself and my own goals. Sorry if I come off as terse or too quick to want to retreat.”

Marasi nodded, noting some light up ahead. She slipped forward quietly, and Moonlight covered up the jars in her rucksack. Together they approached another tunnel, lit with mining lights. The natural tunnel vanished to the right, but to the left the stone had a different cast to it. Marasi pointed at the jagged sections of rock on the ceiling and walls.

“They blasted here,” she whispered. “This is a section they opened up and expanded.”

Moonlight pointed to another sign. The Community, whatever it was, could be found this way. Marasi held out hope that Gave and the Set weren’t quite so zealous as to let Autonomy’s armies in. He’d sounded hesitant, at least. Smarmy as the man was, even he realized this was extreme. But he also had seemed worn down. As if he felt he couldn’t fight or resist.

As they snuck farther along the blasted-out tunnel, Marasi was pulled out of her thoughts. Were those sounds coming from the tunnel behind them? Something following them?

Moonlight seemed to hear the sounds too, because she turned and glanced that direction. They shared a look, then hurried forward, hoping to stay ahead of whatever it was.

52

As Wax and Wayne neared the end of the tunnel, Wax noticed his friend sniffling and trailing behind. In the light streaming through the holes in a passing manhole cover, Wax saw that Wayne had sudden bags under his eyes.

“This might not be the best time to store up health,” Wax whispered softly.

“I’m runnin’ low,” Wayne mumbled. “I feel like I’m gonna need every bit I can store. That, or I’ll die one of these times somebody shoots me. That’s right terrifying, it is. Don’t know how you all deal with it.” He paused. “If we get inna fight, I’ll stop. Just need to squeeze a little extra in during breathers, you know.”

Wax didn’t say anything. This was more a matter of comfort to Wayne than anything practical. Wayne wouldn’t be able to store up much in the time they had. It took a Feruchemist months storing health to get a full metalmind.

The tire tracks stopped at the end of the tunnel, where the giant concrete tube dumped out over the ocean. Wax was used to the relatively sheltered and calm waters of the Elendel docks — where the waves were so placid, you could be on a large lake. Here on the promontory that Bilming occupied, the waters chopped and churned, crashing against the docks. No wonder the Bilming navy was made up of such hulking metal monstrosities. He could see them in a row in the near distance, six terrible petrol-powered warships, each larger than the one before.

It was strange to think that, even combined, they posed an insignificant threat compared to the bomb Wax was hunting. All that work to create weapons of war, invalidated by a single discovery.

He gestured to a final hatch and ladder, which must lead to the lab. As soon as he and Wayne emerged onto a street by the docks, a door slammed nearby. Wax spun, scanning the warehouses.

“There,” Wayne said, pointing. “Third one down. Someone was watchin’ out the window too.”

The two glanced at each other, then took cover as gunfire exploded from the window. Conventional bullets and guns, his steelsight told him.

No aluminum weapons, Wax thought. They sent those Allomancers to try to deal with us, but didn’t have time to otherwise prepare. We might finally be ahead of them.

He increased his weight with his metalmind, then Pushed the next round of gunfire away — flinging the bullets back through the wooden walls and glass windows. Curses followed, giving him and Wayne a chance to scramble closer. Wayne nodded, so Wax increased his weight and hit the entire building with a Steelpush, anchoring himself from behind.

The wall shook, and a section was ripped free by its nails and a window housing. Wayne leaped in through the hole and dropped a few gunmen inside. Wax followed with Vindication raised, three precise shots bringing down the gunmen Wayne couldn’t reach. As they fought, a truck revved its engine and barreled out on the other side of the warehouse, tires screeching. Wax caught sight of two others ahead of it. A small convoy escaping into the evening.

A quick survey of the large room told him an entire story. Laboratory desks and machinery, stripped bare in a frenzy. Debris on the floor. Torn corners of paper still stapled to the wall where charts or schematics had been hastily ripped down. Dangling chains indicated that something had been constructed here, built in the center of those desks.

They hadn’t expected Wax to dare raid the Silver House or find the tunnel. He was only one step behind now.

Wax launched himself after the truck, decreasing his weight and flying through the large garage doors to track the truck as it screeched around another corner, nearly toppling in its haste.

Wayne would take care of the stragglers. Wax needed to know what was in those trucks.

He roared into the air in a rush, gaining height, and spotted the last of the three trucks heading back into the heart of the city. He’d spent the whole day running to catch up, to tease together plots that had been in motion for years. He was tired of half answers, of feeling like he was a hundred steps behind his sister.

Now he had solutions in sight. Those trucks held real answers, perhaps even the bomb itself. He’d be damned to an eternal pit of ash before he let them get away.

He Pushed off a manhole cover, gaining more height. From there, streetlamps — which were just starting to come on as the sun neared the horizon — became his anchors, like stepping stones across a lake. He Pushed on a pair at a time for lift and momentum, then began using buildings as enormous anchors. Then a moving car, to gain even more speed, borrowing its momentum.

Air became a whistle, then a roar around him — his mistcoat tassels whipping and snapping. His furious pace let him gain on the three trucks, even as they moved at speed on the highway. He had almost reached the last one in line when a slot opened in the back door and the barrels of several automatic rifles — aluminum — peeked out.

They’d saved the good weapons for themselves as they fled. A hail of aluminum bullets followed. Wax moved by instinct. His pursuit so far had been too direct, making him an easy target.

He dodged to the side as the bullets cracked in the air. He lurched away from the highway over cars full of startled civilians, then between two buildings to give him cover. There he ground to a stop, boots on asphalt, tassels falling still around him.

This isn’t right, he thought. His path following the trucks had been obvious, but their path along the highway was more so. Could they be playing him yet again? He launched himself off a bullet, then gained speed by Pushing against the buildings to the sides, rattling windows — cracking a few as he warped their metal housings.

In Elendel, he had to hold himself back. Moderate his actions to minimize property damage. But Harmony had set Wax on this path, and you didn’t bring Dawnshot out of retirement to play nice. The lives of millions were at stake.

He’d break a few windows to stop it. Hell, he’d break a few necks. He barreled up over cars, ignoring the cries of startled pedestrians as he moved parallel to the highway — trying to gain enough speed to catch up to the enemy truck, but keeping buildings between him and it. At the right moment he ducked back out, shattering windows, and darted across the highway — finding the third truck exactly where he’d hoped it would be.

It was in a pack of civilian vehicles, so Wax dodged behind cover again and followed, parallel, for another minute. He soared down that side street, feeling … alive. Propelled by steel, a bullet in flight. Perhaps he’d been without this for too long, and so had forgotten the rush, but he felt more in control than he ever had before.

Have to stop that truck slowly, he thought. In case the bomb is inside. He assumed the device couldn’t be detonated simply by being jostled — his experiment the other day had shown that the real explosion required specific mechanical intervention. But he had to be careful regardless.

At the next intersection, he glanced right and saw what he’d hoped to see: the truck, in its haste to stay ahead of him, had pulled away from the pack of civilian vehicles into a more open stretch of the highway.

Wax darted in, over the edge of the highway, and increased his weight tenfold. He slowed in the air as a result, and hit the side of the passing truck with a Steelpush, grinding it into the highway’s sidewall. It jostled more than he would have liked, but it did slow.

Wax changed trajectory, staying alongside the truck, forcing it into the sidewall until its tires burst and it stopped. He hit the ground near the broken rear door, sighting three unsteady gunmen within. He took them out, then drilled a bullet right through the front wall of the truck, hitting the driver in the back of the head. But other than those people, the truck was empty.

It was a decoy.

Damn it!

He launched back into the air, Pushing off the truck, bending and warping the crumpled roof as he sought height. Such a Push could only take him up so far — the farther you went from your anchor, the less force you could Push upon it.

He reached the zenith of what his anchor could provide and spun, scanning the city below, searching for …

There. The second truck was racing along the highway ahead. He almost darted straight for it. But …

Three trucks. At least one decoy. He spotted another far ahead, on the straightaway. This was too easy. They were so visible on a highway like this; they could keep his attention, draw him away from …

He hovered there, still Pushing, holding himself upright — though wind began to blow him to the side, upsetting his anchor. As he began to lose altitude …

… he spotted it. A fourth truck with the same markings, winding its way through the side streets perpendicular to the highway. It was heading inward, toward the center of the city. He barely glimpsed it as it moved behind some buildings.

That was the one he needed to catch. He left the others, hoping his instincts were right, and dropped into the city. He slowed with a Push on the top of a parked automobile, cracking the windshield with his weight, then warped the hood as he landed. He launched forward through the center of a park, scattering a flock of ravens, then bounded up the side of a building — barely reaching the top as his Push gave out.

There was an invigorating thrill to the motion. The city was so full of metal, so packed with obstacles. In a chase, each could be an advantage. Wax could soar over buildings, get height, track the vehicle — and gain on it, as the truck had to keep to the roads and deal with traffic.

Wax dropped over the side of a building, then propelled himself between two others with the force of a swimmer pushing off the wall at the start of a lap. He swept around corners and almost seemed to be able to ride the cries of the people below, like a bird riding thermals in the desert.

Chases in the Roughs had their own charm. But nothing there could truly compete with the thrill of landing inside a building via the balcony, charging through, and emerging on the other side to find his quarry right below. A balcony railing was a springboard, and nearby structures let him fine-tune his descent.

Here, he could fly in a way he’d never been able to in that land of dust and stone. He could acknowledge that — no, embrace it — now that he had let go of his past.

The people in the truck ahead pulled open another slot on the back door. Wax sighted with Vindication, but not toward the window. Toward the door itself.

He plugged it with a hazekiller round, one with a secondary explosion designed to rip apart Hemalurgist bodies. It blasted the door to shrapnel and split open the rear of the truck. As the gunmen stumbled away, Wax got a view inside. No bomb, but a ton of boxes, ledgers, and documents.

That would have to do. He let the truck pull ahead as the gunmen started laying down fire. Wax increased his weight and shoved on a grate below him in the street — bending and twisting it out of the way as he dropped through and entered the storm drain tunnels again.

He twisted in the air, delivered two bullets into the tunnel wall behind him, then Pushed off those — and the remnants of the grate that had plunged into the mud — to send himself screaming through the tunnel right under the street.

Wax came out a second later, blasting a manhole cover off into the air. He landed, one foot on either side of the open manhole, and increased his weight many hundreds of times — completely draining his metalmind. Then he Pushed.

His feet skidded a few inches on the concrete.

The truck crumpled as if it had hit a solid wall, the front mashing like tinfoil, doing unfortunate things to the driver. The back end of the truck lurched up into the air, then slammed down, trailing loose-leaf pages. One of the wheels rolled completely free, straight through the front window of a nearby building. A liquor store, Wax noticed with a wince. Wayne would not appreciate that.

The street fell quiet as other cars stopped, their drivers cowering in their seats or — more commonly — staring slack-jawed. Wax took a few deep breaths, his pulse racing, his body electric. His mind …

Focused on the job. He released another breath, and was surprised by how calm he felt. A part of him … a part of him had worried about returning to the field again. Worried that by experiencing these kinds of thrills, he’d view his normal life as mundane, lacking.

It didn’t happen. He could go on a chase like that through the city anytime he wanted in Elendel, as long as he wasn’t quite so flagrant about the property damage. He could even bring Max along, and have someone to share in the joy. He didn’t need this, not as he once had.

What a wondrous thing that was to confirm. He took a deep breath, then rounded the truck.

53

Marasi and Moonlight were being hunted.

Something was back there, something that seemed not quite human. It made a sound like nails or claws on stone, accompanied by unnatural growls. Marasi hurried through the blasted-out tunnel, Moonlight at her side, trying to balance their speed. If they moved too quickly, they might run straight into a patrol. But if they slowed too much, then whatever was back there would catch up to them.

So they moved in fits, hurrying a distance they could see by the light of mining lamps, then pausing to scout out their next rush forward. This part of the tunnel complex was far more built up than the one they’d come from, with many more turns. But they were able to follow the signs, heading ever closer to the Community. They passed more drywall rooms, some clearly occupied, and they had to find improvised cover several times as groups of people hurried past.

These weren’t soldiers though. Mostly workers or scientists. Judging by their whispered conversations, Entrone had ordered everyone to their quarters. There was a sense of frantic worry to the people — but also a single-minded anxiety. That helped, as they weren’t paying much attention to their surroundings.

As Marasi and Moonlight hid from one of these groups beside some boxes, Marasi worried the thing chasing them would catch up. Yet it was creeping along, not rushing. Perhaps … perhaps it was hiding too?

Moonlight eventually whispered for Marasi to wait, then ducked into a room that — through the cracked door — seemed unoccupied. She emerged moments later with two lab coats, and they started moving through the corridor as though they belonged there. The disguises were flimsy, but no one gave them a second glance, despite Marasi’s rifle.

Soon, a voice echoed through the tunnel. “Stay calm. Don’t worry. I am in the Community making preparations for our new arrivals. I want all of you to settle in and wait. This is what we’ve planned for; we are ready.”

It was Gave Entrone. His voice came from some speakers that lined the hallway — a technology that was becoming more common since its invention a few years back.

Hearing his voice finally undermined Marasi’s hope that Gave would resist the invasion. This complex, the supplies … everything about it indicated the truth. This was a bunker, the launching point of an invasion — and a place for Entrone’s favorites to be protected from the coming annihilation.

A haunting worry whispered this was only part of it. Marasi had to stop Entrone, but that wouldn’t protect Elendel from the bomb Telsin had trained on it. For that, she had to trust that Wax and Wayne were fulfilling their half of the mission. Her duty was to deal with this oncoming army. The men of gold and red.

The tunnel eventually expanded to a large cavern. But curiously, the far wall was straight wood, from floor to ceiling. And it felt like that wall bisected the chamber — which, judging by the slope of the blasted-out ceiling, was extremely large. The wooden wall had several darkened rooms built up against it. Indeed, the entire chamber was silent and mostly dark, lit only by a few emergency lights.

Marasi and Moonlight stopped at the mouth of the cavern. Was this the Community? Why split the cavern like that? Whatever the reason, the order to quarters had been obeyed, and apparently any soldiers in the area had gone to deal with TwinSoul. That let Marasi and Moonlight enter the cavern alone.

Soon after, those sounds came from behind again. Taking Moonlight by the shoulder, Marasi pulled them between two buildings beside the large wall. From this scant shelter, she watched as something entered the mouth of the cavern. It stood on four elongated legs and had an unnervingly long neck, with a head that wasn’t entirely canine. It had features that, even shadowed as they were, evoked an image that was … too human. A dog’s nose, or something approximating it, but human eyes set forward on its skull.

It had no clothing, but also no fur. Two spikeheads jutted from its shoulders. She’d heard of something like this before — Wax had encountered something similar in the tunnels beneath Elendel. Now, after studying the book Death had given her, she recognized what it was. A Hemalurgic monstrosity.

One use of the art was to create Metalborn. But the Lord Ruler had also used Hemalurgy to create twisted versions of human beings. The kandra had arisen from that work, as had the koloss. Creating those had required precision use of spikes — the knowledge of a god. If you tried to approximate such designs, you were likely to kill your subject. Or stumble into some kind of half-creation. A twisted mutation, leaving a being’s soul mangled by the spikes.

The Set, it seemed, had found a permutation that was viable but grotesque. The thing sniffed the air, then prowled carefully into the cavern. It knew they were there. It paused where Marasi and Moonlight had stopped to inspect their surroundings — a spot that was barely thirty yards from their current hiding place. The abomination made a hooting sound that echoed in the cavern, and other voices — dozens of them — replied.

Moonlight gripped Marasi’s shoulder, then pointed. She’d made a door in the side of the structure they’d been hiding by, and they slipped into a dim room built up against the wooden wall bisecting the chamber. Two windows looked through it.

Marasi didn’t have a good view through them, not from her corner next to Moonlight. The door vanished, and a few moments later scratches sounded at the wall they’d passed through. Silence followed, then a thumping at the main door. It held, for now.

Marasi unslung her rifle, glanced at Moonlight, then nodded toward the windows. Perhaps they could escape through those? She stepped over to look through, and found … a town?

Neat rows of houses lined streets within a vast chamber, bigger on that side than this one. It was lit from above with floodlights. Someone had painted imitation flowers and grass on the floor in wide swaths, and others had erected sculptures meant to imitate foliage. People in everyday clothing — skirts, trousers, day dresses — walked the “streets,” though there were no horses or automobiles she could see.

“What in Preservation’s name?” Marasi whispered. “I suppose … this is the Community they built for themselves to escape the destruction above?”

She frowned. A short time ago, she might have theorized it was designed to withstand the second ashfall, but she was now mostly certain that was a hoax. The bomb and the invading army were the true threats.

Behind them, the thing stopped scratching at the door. She wasn’t certain that was a good sign; it might have gone to get help.

“There’s something off about this entire place,” Moonlight said. She rapped on the window. “I think this is one-way glass. See the tinting? And those people in the next chamber? They don’t appear to have heard the order to quarters or the fighting. They’re too calm.”

“We could still escape in there.”

“Those twisted things will follow us,” Moonlight said. “The strain the Set has developed can track like a hound, but think almost like a person.”

“Can we fight them?” Marasi said, checking her ammo.

“I’m not … natively a soldier,” Moonlight said. “I can defend myself if I have to, but…” She seemed concerned as she glanced toward the door.

Shouts came from outside. Troops arriving.

“You have another stamp,” Marasi said. “One you said can transform you.”

“Into someone else,” she said. “Someone with a different past, different training, different … talents.”

“Can that person fight?”

Moonlight took a deep breath. “Yes. Better than fighting though, she should be able to vanish. Hide. But the person I would become … she wouldn’t be me. I’ve always wanted to try this specific transformation, Marasi, which is why I have the stamp. But it’s dangerous.

“This one won’t wear off as easily as the others — it will be permanent until I decide not to maintain it. And when I’m someone else, stamped like this, I don’t think the same. One of these times, I’ll change and never come back. Yet, with the jar of pure Investiture as a power source … I can try this. I can really try it.”

Moonlight dug out the stamp, then stared at it with the same air Marasi had seen in Wax when cleaning one of his guns.

“You’re telling me,” Marasi said, “that transforming yourself into another person isn’t magic?”

Moonlight grimaced. “All right. I’ll admit those ones feel more mystical. It all makes sense if you understand the Dor…”

Marasi glanced through the window, then back at the front door. Shouts were converging outside. Rusts … it sounded like a lot of soldiers. Marasi raised her gun, then hesitated.

“Those monsters track through scent. What if you made me a door in this wall, and I jumped through? Next, you could distract them — make a big fight of it — then vanish, like you say. They might not know what happened to me; they might assume we both ran.”

“That’s a solid plan,” Moonlight said. She took a deep breath. “All right. I have wanted to try this. I intended to convince Kell to give me some of that Investiture so I could. Never thought I’d be using this in the field though. I can fight them in this form, but that would leave you alone.”

“I can’t just run, Moonlight,” Marasi said. “It’s my fault we drew those troops. Beyond that, the Basin is my home. I can’t leave it to Entrone and his plans.”

Moonlight nodded sharply. “Let’s do it. I should have an advantage, as they might come after me with batons and bayonets. Too much gunfire could disturb whatever they’re doing in that Community. You’ll notice the Set hasn’t done the smart thing here, which would be shooting up this entire room with prejudice.”

“Forward then,” Marasi said.

Moonlight dug something from her sack, a little device that she read some numbers from. “If I ask, give me the distance twenty-seven sixty-three, inclination twelve degrees. And show me this map.” She held out a notebook. “I don’t have time to explain why.” She popped the top off the jar of Investiture, then dipped her stamp into that light and used it on the wall — making the door for Marasi. “That should make it hold longer than usual.” Then she held the other stamp to her wrist. “I hoped to have Kelsier here to pull me out if things went wrong. You might have to reexplain to me why I need to fight those soldiers.”

“What do you mean?”

“I might not have all my memories,” Moonlight said. “This will completely rewrite my past. My soul will think my parents moved to a different kingdom on my homeworld, and that I was born and raised there. I will change personalities entirely. I wrote it all out, but … well, I’m never quite sure how an Essence Mark will function until I try.”

“Wait,” Marasi said. “You didn’t mention that part of—”

Moonlight pressed the stamp down on her wrist.

Then began to transform.

54

Unlike TwinSoul — who had tapped the pure Investiture like a keg, drawing it forth slowly as he needed it — Moonlight took the entire jug in one metaphoric slurp, sticking her hand into it and drawing it in. Her hair shrank to a bob and became luminous. Incredibly, her skin managed to outshine it — glowing from within like her core was ablaze. But with a white fire somehow far more pure than any worldly flame.

Power swirled around Moonlight, and she even appeared to rise off the ground, though she was simply up on her tiptoes. She let out a long, satisfied sigh, then turned to Marasi. Glowing like some divinity of lore. A being of radiant energy. She smiled through too-perfect lips, blessed from within by her natural brilliance.

The glow started to fade almost immediately, but she knelt on the ground and began drawing with her finger. She consulted the map, and the notations on it that Marasi showed her. She nodded, and light flooded from her, leaving a traced image on the ground. It looked a little like the map — a quick sketch of the Basin, but with a strange rune at the center.

Once she finished, her light stabilized, then brightened. She sighed in satisfaction again and stood in the center of the circular drawing of light. Only then did she address Marasi.

“Ah!” she said, her voice slightly higher pitched than before. “A mortal! How are you, child?” She searched around the room without waiting for an answer. “I seem to be in an unexpected location.”

“You’re in Bilming,” Marasi said. “Underground.”

“Don’t recognize it.”

“The Elendel Basin?” Marasi said, and was rewarded with a blank stare. “You just drew a map of it on the ground.”

“Oh,” Moonlight said, looking at her feet. “So I did. How curious.” She clasped her hands behind her back, humming softly to herself. When she noticed Marasi gaping at her, she looked to one side, then the other. “Ah. Did you have a boon to request of me, child? Something I can do for you?”

“There are soldiers outside,” Marasi said, pointing as the door began to thump and crack. “Who want us dead.”

“Bother,” Moonlight said, then began moving her hands in the air, drawing a complex network of lines that hung and glowed there. She finished with a flourish, and the lines faded into the wall, which stopped cracking, despite the people pounding on it.

“Who are they?” Moonlight said. “Nasties from the Rose Empire? Or another group of Wyrn’s faithful, come to waste their time trying to fight their betters?”

“Uh,” Marasi said, “they’re just bad people. We had a plan to—”

“We?” Moonlight asked.

“You and I, before you changed.”

“I have always been Shay-I,” she said, gesturing. “Blessed of the Shay-ode.”

Riiiight. Okay.

“O blessed one,” Marasi said, trying something else, “your power is incredible, and your being divine. Please, will you grant me a boon?”

“Why, of course!” she said, perking up. “So polite! A rare quality in mortals.”

“I need to escape through that door,” Marasi said, pointing to the one in the rear wall, “which will soon vanish. I need the people outside to think I have left another way. With you. I understand you can vanish…?”

“Vanish? I’ll use Aon Tye-A,” Moonlight said. “But that is quite the blessing you ask. I’d need distance and inclination…”

“Oh,” Marasi said. “Twenty-seven sixty-three, inclination twelve degrees? But can you really vanish—”

“Fine, fine. But if you flee through that door, they’ll find only me in here. An imperfect solution, devised by someone with poor planning skills. Here.”

She tapped Marasi on the forehead, then drew some symbols in the air with one hand. A second later a duplicate of Marasi appeared, made with some of Moonlight’s power. It started moving, though when Marasi tried to touch it, her fingers passed right through. That made it even more unnerving.

“Are you still here?” Moonlight said. “Scoot along, scoot along. Shay-I has it all in hand, child. I’ll deal with these, then make a great show of vanishing. Be certain to deliver the proper offerings for the blessing I’ve magnanimously gifted you, and be pious in your treatment of your gods.”

“Yup,” Marasi said. “Pious. I’ll be pious.” She stepped toward the door, then paused, noticing the last jar of light in the rucksack. She took the bag — which seemed to have some other useful equipment in it too — but handed Moonlight the burned notebook and leather folio of stamps.

“You’ll want these later, great one,” Marasi said. “They’re very important. Please take them and keep them safe.”

“Fine, fine,” she said, then shooed Marasi away with one hand, waving toward the breaking lines on the wall — which was being pounded in force now — with the other. “Hurry. They are almost through.”

Marasi threw the rucksack over her shoulder and — with regret — left her rifle. She needed to be inconspicuous, so the pistol she stashed in the rucksack would have to do. She also left the lab coat, counting on her clothing — still that of a common delivery driver, intended to blend in with the workers for the Set — to conceal her.

She then pushed through the door. As she closed it, she glimpsed Moonlight standing beside the Marasi doppelganger, drawing lines of light in the air with both hands as the far wall buckled and began to break.

Marasi ducked away from the windows — which were indeed one-way glass, disguised on this side as part of a large checkerboard pattern. She threw the rucksack over her shoulder and slipped into the peaceful neighborhood, hoping that this strange version of Moonlight would stick to the plan.

55

In the back of the truck, Wax found a mess of papers and equipment. And three corpses.

Feeling a grim sense of purpose, Wax climbed in and checked each of the corpses — just in case they were feigning. He stopped before the final one. She was bloodied but breathing, and when her eyes slipped open there was a faint red glow to them.

“Ah,” she said in a rasping voice. “You are good at this. We thought we had taken enough precautions. Yet here you are. Breathing down our neck. Such drive. Such individualism. A shame that Harmony got you first.”

Wax backed away, leveling the gun at her.

“This body soon expires,” the creature said. “You need not concern yourself.”

“What are you?”

“You know what I am,” she whispered.

“Trell.”

“Your sister becomes Trell,” the thing whispered. “The name and mythology I prepared for her to adopt. But she has not achieved it yet. And I am not Trell. Rare is it that I speak to one directly as I do you.”

“Autonomy,” he whispered.

“Yes. Pierced by my metal. Soul open to my touch…”

Wax drew back farther, uncertain what to think.

The woman smiled, blood on her lips. “You have nothing to fear from me. I will not intervene against you and your efforts. Your sister does not understand this, Sword of Harmony. She pleads with me to act, but cannot see: It is only in the struggle to survive that a person — a people — achieves their potential.”

“This city,” he said. “Everything in it. This is your fault.”

“It is the fault of those who strive for more,” Autonomy said. “And to their credit in the accomplishment. Though, I do not think your sister understands the nature of true Autonomy yet. Her attempts have a … fabricated, forced uniqueness to them. Not the raw wounds of true individualism.

“She will learn. The longer she holds the power, the longer she becomes an avatar of my nature, the more she will see and understand. If she survives. You should be proud of her. Though she flirts with her own destruction, her efforts have kept this world alive. I would have attacked it years ago otherwise.”

Wax frowned, stepping closer. “Where is the bomb?”

“Aaah. It is not the bomb you should worry about. It is the destruction I have sent if that bomb fails.”

“I think you’re bluffing,” Wax said.

“Think what you wish. But you yourself know the strength — the capacity — one has in those moments before death. It is when the soul is pushed to the limit that true exceptionalism manifests. And so, there must be a consequence — as final and terrible as death — for failure.”

“And what must we do,” Wax said, “to get you to leave us the hell alone?”

Autonomy’s bloody lips smiled. “Prove you deserve it.” She closed her eyes. And the body stopped breathing.

Rusts. Could he believe a word of what Autonomy had said? Could he risk ignoring it? Either way, it left him more rattled than the chase had.

He quickly began digging through the papers in the back of the truck anyway. He found much of it chopped to shreds, then soaked in buckets of water. They’d been trying to prevent him from getting the information.

Fortunately, he found a notebook that was only halfway soaked and began flipping through, reading records of test launches. Rusts … these “self-propelled rockets” could travel thirty or forty miles. How had they launched them without anyone knowing?

The ships, Wax realized. That’s why they built the navy — so they could test weapons out on the ocean. The notes confirmed it. He checked the dates of the latest test.

They matched the dates of Gave’s “vacation.” They’d sailed out into the ocean to run tests. But the rockets had failed, or at least they hadn’t performed to desired levels. They couldn’t quite reach Elendel — though the notebook was full of ideas to get them to go the little farther they needed.

He put together everything of use he could find, then shoved it in a duffel bag he found near the corner. He had so little time to make sense of this, but surely somewhere in all this mess was a hint of where to find the bomb.

He slung the duffel over his shoulder and stepped out of the truck. People had begun gathering, including the poor shop owner who ran the liquor store. The man stood outside, mourning his shattered window.

Though Wax should have been on his way, he hesitated, then walked over and pressed some cash into the man’s hand. “Sorry,” he said. “Trying to prevent a catastrophe.”

The man gaped at the money, but before he could reply, Wax spotted something just inside the broken window.

“Hey,” he said. “Is that a case of Logshine?”

* * *

A short time later, Wax touched down at the laboratory where he’d left Wayne. As he’d hoped, the younger man had dealt with the enemies, even tying a few up. Now Wayne had settled down with a handkerchief that had someone else’s initials on it and was wiping his nose. He looked miserable.

Wax had never been forced to store health, so he could only imagine how it felt — particularly in the middle of a job. And now that the thrill of the chase was over, Wax was tired. Rusts, he shouldn’t join investigations without any sleep. He wasn’t twenty anymore.

He walked over to Wayne, who blinked up at him. Then Wax raised two bottles of Logshine, a beer brewed in the Roughs — best there was.

“Rusts, Wax,” Wayne said. “Where did you find those?”

“Amazing what comes up in the line of duty,” he said, handing one to Wayne.

“I ain’t had a bottle of Logshine in years.” The man actually teared up. “You … Rusts, mate. You really do care about me, don’t you?”

“I think it’s time,” he said to Wayne, “that we take a bit of a breather.”

“Can we afford to?”

“I need to dig through what I found,” Wax said. “And if we keep running into fights exhausted, we’ll get ourselves killed. I think we can spare a half hour or so. Sound good?”

“Good?” Wayne said. “It sounds rusting amazing.”

56

Sneaking through this strange cavern unseen proved impossible for Marasi. The floodlights on the ceiling left little in the way of shadows, and the homes were built around a central park — including fake grass made of some wood chips painted green. Nothing would be more conspicuous than someone being furtive.

So, feeling utterly exposed and half expecting to hear gunshots, she walked down one of the picturesque rows of townhouses. Trying to pretend she belonged. After the urgency of rushing from one fight to another, it felt surreal.

No one in this cavern appeared to have any idea of the battles beyond it. She passed couples walking hand in hand. A man worked on a play structure in the yard of a home, his children eager for the swings to get connected. A man in a white uniform strode past, delivering jars of food to each home, humming to himself.

It was bizarre. It was all too peaceful, too normal … and there was no metal. The windows had wooden frames. The buildings were made of brick or clay, no need for nails. The street had no lights or lanterns.

It was glaring once she noticed it. In fact, the only metal she was able to spot was in those floodlights high in the ceiling above. That made her even more aware of the rucksack she carried. Aside from the glowing jar, Marasi had some ammunition in it, and a few small explosive charges, along with bandages, cash, and some lockpicks and other tools. Moonlight was the type of woman who liked to be prepared.

Marasi pulled the sack tighter against her shoulder. Unfortunately, she was drawing attention. People turned to watch her as she passed. Conversations between promenading couples died. Eyes lingered on her, as if she were the one person on inspection day who’d neglected to wear a uniform.

Perhaps best to hurry through this strange neighborhood and see if there was some way out the other side. Yet would that actually help? Her intel said there was a way to the portal through the Community. She needed to find it.

The lord mayor mentioned going to the Community, Marasi thought. He could be in here somewhere. Maybe he would lead me to it?

As two women on the road passed by quickly, wearing day dresses and moving at a brisk pace, they shot several furtive glances at Marasi. That posture … Marasi’s instincts said they were going to tell someone about her.

Those same instincts told her to go the other direction. But … she needed to find the people in charge. She almost asked Wayne what he thought, then felt like a fool. Over the years, she’d grown to rely on him. Not having him at her back … well, it felt wrong.

After a split second of consideration, she broke into a trot to follow those two women. They hurried into a two-story townhome with wooden trestles along the wall outside, being climbed by painted ropes to imitate vines.

Marasi peered in through the door and found the women clustered around not soldiers or officers, but a stately, middle-aged blonde woman. She wore a fine grey-blue dress: short overcoat, long skirts with a slight bustle. It was a style that had been popular a decade ago. The stately woman met Marasi’s eyes, then hurried over and took her by the arm.

Marasi’s instinct was to dodge away, but it wasn’t a threatening move.

“Hurry, hurry,” the woman said to Marasi. “Inside. You’ve already been seen by too many, dear. Drenya, close the drapes!”

Befuddled, Marasi let the woman pull her into the well-furnished room as Drenya closed the drapes. The third woman lit an oil lamp on the table. It felt … quaint to see it after years of electricity inexorably creeping into every home and light sconce.

“Fialia,” the stately woman said, “fetch the others. Kessi will want to meet her, obviously. And Abrem. He has been keeping notes. Hurry, hurry!” She then patted Marasi on the arm absently. “How are you, dear? Hungry? Thirsty? You must have had such a difficult time of it. You’re a survivor. Good for you.”

Drenya peeked out through the now-closed drapes, watching. She was a mousy younger woman in a dress that could have used some more color. “I don’t think Gord saw her, bless the Survivor.”

“Word will get to him eventually,” Fialia said, pausing by the door. “He’ll go straight to the mayor.”

“I’ll deal with Lord Entrone,” said the blonde woman, who settled Marasi in a seat. “Go!”

Fialia left and Marasi let herself be seated, trying to understand. They didn’t want the mayor to find out about her, so were these dissenters within the Set? But their clothing, these homes, this place …

And this woman. The stately blonde patted Marasi’s hand, then vanished into another room. Perhaps a kitchen? Marasi almost bolted. Perhaps they were trying to distract her from stopping Mayor Entrone? But then the blonde woman returned with some biscuits and tea.

Marasi gaped, flummoxed by the idea of a tea break in the middle of a dangerous incursion into enemy territory.

“Look at the poor thing,” said Drenya from the drapes. “It’s probably been years since she saw real food.”

“It’s all right,” the blonde woman said, offering the biscuits. “Don’t be afraid. We have plenty here — like in the old days. You remember?”

“The … old days?” Marasi said.

“Yes, before the disaster,” the blonde woman said. “Before the ashfalls. We are safe down here.”

“It was built to keep us protected,” the other woman said, stepping up. “You must be so strong to have survived up there, to have found your way here.”

Up there.

Oh, rusts. It finally came together for Marasi. All this time she’d assumed the pictures of ash falling, the strange moving image made with the models above, was a part of a plot to threaten the outside world. But no. The hoax hadn’t been planned to be used in the future; it had already been perpetrated. On these people.

Rusts. They thought the world had been destroyed. And that they had been protected from it.

“How long,” Marasi whispered, “have you been down here?”

“Seven years now,” the blonde woman said, patting her hand. “Though we lived in much smaller caverns originally. This town — ‘Wayfarer,’ as we call it — is about five years old.”

“It was terribly difficult to build,” the other woman added. “But it’s so much nicer. Makes you think of the old days, doesn’t it? With a sky and sunlight? Trees and plants?”

Marasi numbly took a biscuit and bit into it, partly to keep the blonde woman from forcing them on her. It was good, Marasi noticed absently as her mind raced. These people … they’d been tricked into believing the world was ending. Forced to live in a bunker underground. But why? Surely the Set had plenty of willing participants in their schemes; why keep some of them so ignorant? And how did this relate to the impending army or the bomb?

A few other people soon piled in, along with Fialia. Three women and one man, a stocky fellow with a belt full of stone tools.

“No metal,” Marasi mumbled.

“Well, naturally,” the blonde woman said. “The metal mutants can sense it. The only metal we dare use is a little aluminum to make lights and the speakers for the public address system.”

The four others huddled, gaping at Marasi. Did she really look that much like she’d survived an apocalypse? She supposed her outfit was a little worse for wear, after multiple gunfights and struggles for her life. Plus the rucksack, and having no chance to wash up …

Well, maybe she did.

“You poor people,” Marasi whispered.

“She’s in shock,” said mousy Drenya.

“Can you tell us what it’s like up there?” the man with the toolbelt said, stepping forward, a cloth cap in his fingers. “Are the ashfalls still strong? It’s been a year since we saw an outsider.”

“There have been others?” Marasi asked, confused.

“Once in a while someone from above finds their way through the tunnels, and our protections, to the town,” the blonde woman said, patting her hands. “I keep telling the mayor that we don’t need those protections — that we can take in far more people than we have now. But Gave Entrone is a stubborn man. He insists that outsiders are too dangerous.”

“Gave,” Marasi said. “Your … mayor?”

“Yes, he’s from the other caverns originally,” the blonde woman said. “Ones underneath Elendel. There are several complexes, and occasionally people from that one move here.”

“Entrone is a tyrant,” the man with the tools said. “He won’t let us help the world above. Won’t let us search for survivors. Won’t even let us explore the caverns. And when people like you come—”

The blonde woman shot him a glare.

“It’s all right,” Marasi said. “I need to know. Please, there are secrets here you don’t understand.”

“Well,” the blonde woman said, “when outsiders like you arrive … they get shipped off to one of the other caverns. We never get to talk for long.”

“And they … tell you about the world above?” Marasi guessed, connecting the clues.

“A world of ashes,” one of the other women said. “A destroyed land full of terrible metal mutants.”

“I saw one once,” the man said. “A terrible, twisted thing. Poor soul. It broke in here, and the lord mayor’s security force killed it.”

A Hemalurgic abomination, Marasi guessed, let loose in here on purpose to keep these people frightened.

“Newcomers,” the woman said, “can’t help sharing how terrible things are — then get taken away. We think the lord mayor doesn’t want them frightening us.”

“Quite the contrary…” Marasi said. “They’re actors. Brought in to prove his lies.”

Marasi looked around the room, meeting their concerned eyes. They were worried for her. They had no idea.

The blonde woman patted Marasi’s hand yet again. “We keep hoping that we’ll get word that people we knew … had survived…”

“I had three daughters,” said the man with the tools. “In Bilming? It’s been corroding me ever since I was saved, not knowing what happened to them. Please, miss. Do you have news of any pockets of survivors up above? The last refugee who came down here, he said the entire city was a wasteland, completely destroyed. But … some people must have lived…”

Marasi frowned. “Wait. You were saved? How did you end up here?”

The blonde woman forced another biscuit on her, and shared a glance with the others. “It was a random lottery,” she finally said. “The scientists who discovered the impending eruptions realized they could save only a few. So they made an impossible decision, randomly selecting people.”

“It wasn’t completely random,” one of the women said. “It was weighted toward women of childbearing age, for obvious reasons. And an emphasis on Allomancers or those from the lines of Allomancers. Again for obvious reasons.”

“We couldn’t bring our families,” the man said, looking down. “We argued for it, once we woke here. Oh, how we tried to get the managers to see reason. But … eventually … we felt the earth shake, and we knew…”

“Then the lord mayor arrived,” the blonde woman said, “and instituted stricter protocols.”

“Tyrant,” the man muttered.

“We still feel it shaking now and then,” one of the women said, looking up. “From the explosions of the Ashmounts. It must be deafening out there. We are occasionally allowed up to glimpse your world, but not often. Too dangerous. Still, I’ve seen how it is out there. The distant rubbled city, the red sun, the suffocating ash. Like a funeral shroud…”

“How do you see these things?” Marasi asked.

“An observation room,” the woman explained. “There’s a ladder to it at the edge of the cavern.”

That wouldn’t lead to the room Marasi had seen with the projector — they were too far from there. She suspected that entire room was a test chamber, and that these people were somehow shown something more authentic-seeming, without such an obvious light and projector.

Regardless, she was now certain that was what the ruse was for. Along with actors sent to reinforce the illusion — who were then taken away “to another cavern,” so that they couldn’t slip up and reveal the truth. As long as none of the actual subjects of the experiment were allowed to leave, no one would ever know.

But why? So much work, for what?

Except … Allomancers.

“Some of you are Allomancers?” Marasi said.

“Yes,” the blonde woman said. “I’m a Rioter, though not even my family knew about my powers. Fialia is a Lurcher. Kessi a Soother.”

“I had two Allomancer parents,” the man said, “but I never got any powers myself. The others are similar.”

That was the final piece. Marasi knew what was happening. And as she put it together, another revelation struck her. She did know the blonde woman. There was a reason she was familiar.

She was Marasi’s distant cousin Armal Harms: a woman who had been kidnapped by Miles Hundredlives and the Vanishers seven years ago, during Wax’s first case in the city after his return.

57

Marasi should have left right then. There was little she could learn from the people caught in the Set’s experiment. Yet the implications weighed her down. So she sat in that plush seat with a biscuit, feeling overwhelmed, surrounded by people who’d been lied to for years.

Wax had been the first to notice that the kidnapped people had a history of Allomancy in their families. They’d thought them all women at first, though a few other mysterious kidnappings during the same time period had proven to be men.

Marasi and Wax had searched for these people for years, on and off. They’d worried that the Set had done terrible things to them, but had never imagined anything like this. Locking them all up in a bunker? Convincing them that the world had ended?

One of the Set’s primary long-term goals was to gain access to Allomantic powers, and the fact that the Set had so much access to spikes indicated that some of those who had been kidnapped had met with gruesome ends. But this group, and the fact that only the most important Set members had spikes so far, whispered of a much longer-term plan. Down here, they’d have a literal breeding ground for children likely to be Metalborn — excellent for recruitment, or for creating spikes. It turned her stomach in knots, particularly when she thought to look at the women in the room and noticed that two might be pregnant.

That playground the man had been building earlier suddenly took on a darker cast. Yet … these people didn’t seem terrified their children would be taken. There was a hope, and a good one, that Marasi had found them in time. Not to prevent all the trauma, unfortunately — these people had been stolen from their families and lives and locked down here — but at least the Set hadn’t started turning them into spikes yet.

The lord mayor called the Community “Edwarn’s project,” she thought. This whole thing had been the scheme of Wax’s uncle, a long-term solution to providing Allomantic powers to the Set. She suspected that upon his death, much of this infrastructure had been co-opted, with Telsin taking command and Autonomy breathing down their necks. A cavern that had been designed as an Allomantic eugenics experiment had now expanded to become a bunker housing the lord mayor’s loyalists. Further experiments with spikes were leading to different innovations.

But this old experiment remained, and the people trapped in it. Marasi had stumbled upon the solution to one of her most troubling unsolved mysteries. She could rescue these people. Assuming she could save the world itself first.

“I know you,” Marasi said to the blonde woman. “You’re Armal Harms, aren’t you?”

“Well, I was a Harms,” the woman said. “Before marrying down here. Did I … know you?”

“I’ve only seen pictures,” Marasi said. “I’m Marasi Colms. Steris’s … cousin.” It was the lie they’d always used, before her father had been willing to publicly admit to his infidelity.

“Steris?” Armal asked, perking up. “Is she … I mean…?”

“She’s alive,” Marasi said. “Armal … they all are. You’ve been lied to in a terrible way. I don’t know how to be more delicate about this. There was no ashfall. The Basin didn’t fall. It’s a hoax.” She grimaced. “You were all kidnapped by some horrible people.”

Those in the room looked at one another.

“Ash sickness,” one of the other women said.

The mousy woman nodded, then patted Marasi on the shoulder. “You’re disoriented, seeing delusions, dear.”

Marasi sighed. Of course the Set would have come up with an excuse like that — they’d want a fallback explanation in case someone snuck through the defenses.

“I can’t prove it to you now,” Marasi said. “Though I will find a way. Please, consider my words. They will soften the blow when you have to confront the truth. I’m a senior officer in the Elendel Constabulary.” She pulled out her credentials. “For years I’ve been trying to trace you: people kidnapped by a mysterious organization called the Set. They have other plans in motion — even more dangerous ones — which is why I can’t stay. But the truth is, Armal, that you were taken because they wanted Allomancers. And they are willing to play the long game to get them.”

Armal glanced upward — as small feet thumped on the upper floor, and the laughter of children drifted down.

“You have to agree it is odd,” Marasi said, “that you were kidnapped by a group of armed men during a robbery.”

“They had to act that way,” Armal said. “To hide what they were doing. To avoid a mass panic.”

“Posing as a group of thieves?” Marasi asked.

“It worked in the Words of Founding,” she replied. “The Survivor himself pretended to be a thief.”

Marasi didn’t have time to continue this argument. “I need to locate Gave Entrone,” she said. “Do you know where I could find him?”

At that very moment, as if decreed by Harmony, a voice blasted from a set of speakers outside. Echoing in the vast cavern through the public address system.

It was Gave Entrone, the lord mayor.

“Be warned, people of Wayfarer,” he said in a tinny broadcast voice. “A dangerous outsider has been spotted slipping through the outer tunnels, possibly coming in this direction. She is likely armed, and known to be very, very ash-sick.

“Treat her as extremely dangerous and report sightings of her to your neighborhood tranquility officer immediately. Do not approach her. Do not engage with her. She has killed already, and will kill again if given the chance.”

The group of people all looked upward, and Marasi tensed. How far would their congeniality extend now?

“Hell,” Armal said. “We have to hide her.”

“Others saw her entering,” the man with the tools said.

“We’ll rough up the room,” Armal said, “and claim she threatened us and ran out.” She looked to Marasi. “You’re confused and ash-sick. But … do you remember how to get out of here? The path through the caverns?”

“Forget that,” said the mousy woman, suddenly fierce. “Do you have weapons? Anything we could use to overthrow Entrone?”

“We’re not going to overthrow him!” Armal said. “All we need to do is follow our plan: sneak up to the surface, find survivors, and bring them here. Prove to everyone that we can do something to help. That will shift the lord mayor to our line of thinking.”

That was a noble philosophy. And also completely hopeless. Marasi did not have time to try to persuade them further. “Where is Entrone?” she said, standing.

“He has a new mansion at the edge of town,” Armal said. “Large, with the broadcast station in it. It’s dangerous there because he needs metals to work the devices — if mutants ever invade, they’ll go for him first.”

“How very brave of him,” Marasi said, hurrying to the window — the others moved aside for her. “No doubt he has a nice tunnel to the surface too. You know the flat outer walls? Those have one-way glass. They watch you through it.”

“Ash sickness,” one of the women hissed.

“Is there…” Marasi said, trying to figure out how to phrase it, “some kind of portal around here? Rusts. I don’t even know what it would look like. A large construction of some sort, maybe? Or an area that is specifically off-limits?”

They just stared at her, confused. Should have expected that, Marasi thought. Of course they wouldn’t know. They were captives, not confidants.

But something about that puzzled her. If Entrone was creating a portal for Autonomy’s army, why would he do it here, near these people? Why not do it in a more isolated portion of the cavern complex, away from his test subjects? Yet he’d specifically said he was coming here to open the portal.

She glanced to Armal — who was holding Marasi’s credentials, a frown on her face. “Why would you go to the trouble,” she said, “of carrying fake credentials? Going all the way to create a fake stamp, for this year’s date…?”

“She must be far gone,” one of the others said.

Armal met Marasi’s gaze, her frown deepening.

“It’s because I’m telling you the truth,” Marasi said. “Now I need to get to Entrone and stop him.”

Armal shook her head. “Marasi, we can help each other. Don’t do anything rash. We don’t like the lord mayor, but we don’t want violence. There has been too much death already. If we hide you, we can talk, plan.”

“No time for planning,” Marasi said, hurrying back across the room and seizing her rucksack. “Go ahead and rough up this room. Tell them I’m extremely dangerous — tell them at length. Maybe it will delay them a little.” She fished a pistol out of her rucksack — making them gawk at her. All but Armal, who took it in with a disappointed expression.

“Look,” Marasi said to them, “things are about to get very dangerous and very confusing in here. My friends have dealt with a large number of their soldiers, so there’s a chance I can handle Entrone alone. But if I don’t come back, you need to overthrow him. Millions of lives might depend on it.”

“We can’t do that,” Armal said. “Even if we wanted to, we don’t have weapons.”

“You are weapons,” Marasi said. “If we can just get you…”

Metals. That was why there weren’t any down here. The Set had imprisoned a large group of people who either had extraordinary abilities, or were likely to give birth to people with them. Telsin and the others knew that unless they were careful, they’d be overpowered by their own captives. Hence the lack of metals and the story of “mutants” who could sense it.

How did you keep a bunch of dangerous people captive? You convinced them that they weren’t actually captives.

Marasi turned and met Armal’s eyes. “Which way to the lord mayor’s home?”

“I…”

Marasi held her gaze until Armal glanced back down — at Marasi’s credentials — and then looked to the side.

“You know, don’t you,” Marasi said. “That what I’m saying is true? Or at least you suspect. You’ve always known something was wrong.”

“I have a family,” Armal said. “Children and a husband I love.”

“And if Entrone wins,” Marasi said, “they are doomed to a life in darkness. Armal, he is planning to take your children from you. You need to find yourselves some metals and fight back with everything you have.”

“Find metals,” one of the women said, with a sniff. “What do you want us to do? Lick rocks, hoping there’s some iron in them?”

“I don’t know if I believe you or not,” Armal said. “And I’m … I’m not going to fight, even if I had the weapons. Maybe I can take you to where Entrone lives. But that’s all.”

Idiot people, Marasi thought, grinding her teeth. Then she felt foolish. They weren’t idiots because they were scared. They had been abused, lied to, locked away without the sun.

She shouldn’t be berating them. Indeed, in her shame at having done so, she felt an odd moment of clarity. These people, and those like them, were the reason she did what she did. Her reason for being a constable. It was her job to rescue them.

“Just take me to Entrone,” Marasi said. “I’ll find a way to handle him.” She lifted the rucksack to her shoulder.

Then froze as she heard it clink.

58

Wayne watched as Wax held the bottles over his head, then Pushed the caps off with a quick flip of Allomancy. Handy, that. When God had been designin’ Allomancy, had he considered that Coinshots would make good bottle openers?

Wax held one out to Wayne, who wiped his runny nose on his handkerchief, then took the bottle. He sighed, his head pounding, his body aching. Damn, he hated storing health. Made you feel like the stuff a fellow found between his toes after wearin’ his shoes too long.

He lounged back against the support running alongside the front of the billboard. They’d flown up here, naturally, because Coinshots liked being in the sky. Plus, Wax liked bein’ blatant. And what was more blatant than havin’ a beer in front of the city’s stupid propaganda poster?

The thing had a ledge in the front, so sitting was comfortable enough. This was presumably for the workers to erect the image: a nauseating picture of a fellow looking toward the sky, with lines of light spreading out behind him. INDEPENDENCE THROUGH SHARED STRUGGLE, it said. Wayne could have eaten the beer bottle wrapper and dumped a load the next day that made more sense than that.

The offending billboard was up high, pointed inward across the main highway. Toward the city’s central spire, Independence Tower, nicknamed the Shaw. After old Kredik Shaw.

Wax held his bottle out, and Wayne reached forward to clink the necks together. Then Wayne tipped his head back and drank, welcoming the strong taste. Hoppy, bitter. Like a good beer should be. Out in the Roughs they knew that. Why clean it all up, make it taste like somethin’ other than it was? City beers … they were for people that didn’t actually like beer.

The suds felt good on his throat, which turned all scratchy when he stored health. Like he was perpetually sick all the time, every day — but normally didn’t notice it because his body was good at covering it up. Only the moment he started storing health, the sickness got the upper hand.

Wax took a long pull on his own beer and relaxed into the taste, his eyes distant. Content.

“Remember that time,” Wayne said, “when you went to take the tops offa the bottles, but I’d smacked the beers on the table first, so they squirted out all over your head?”

“Which time?” Wax said.

“Heh,” Wayne said. “That joke never gets old.”

“Because it was ancient the first time you tried it.”

Wayne grinned. “I was thinkin’ of the first time, after you caught Icy Ben Oldson. You know, when Blinker was your deputy?”

“I remember.”

“Can’t believe you worked with that guy,” Wayne said, taking another drink. “He couldn’t shoot worth a bean.”

“He had other skills,” Wax said. “You can’t shoot worth a bean either, it should be noted.”

That was true. But honestly, Wax had terrible taste in deputies.

“I do remember that first time you got me by shaking the bottles,” Wax said, sipping his beer. “I remember it well. It was the first time you really seemed to smile.”

“Yeah, well,” Wayne said, “I’m good at pretendin’ to be things I ain’t, you know? I eventually put together how to feign bein’ a person who was worth somethin’. It’s a good lie. Still manage to believe it.” He took a drink. “Mosta the time.”

“Wayne…”

“I don’t need a speech, Wax.” Wayne rested his head back against the metal support, closing his eyes. “I’ll be fine. Just gotta put on the hat…”

“You’ve been feeling worse lately, haven’t you?” Wax asked. Annoying, perceptive fellow. “This isn’t only about MeLaan.”

Wayne shrugged, his eyes still closed.

“Out with it,” Wax said. “I gave you a beer. You owe me an answer — those are the rules.”

Ruin that man. He knew the rules.

“I’ve just been thinkin’,” Wayne said softly. “Rememberin’ my family, and how ashamed my ma would be of me for turnin’ out to be a murderer. I’ve been workin’ all these years to pay it off, but I don’t feel no better. So I guess I’m beginnin’ to wonder: Maybe I can’t ever do enough good to balance the bad I done. Maybe I’ll always be worthless.”

“You can’t pay it off, Wayne,” Wax whispered. “That much is true.”

Wayne opened his eyes.

“Durkel, that man you killed,” Wax said, “he’s always going to be dead. Nothing you can do will change that. No number of good deeds will bring him back or earn you forgiveness.”

Wayne looked away, feeling sick — and not just because he was storin’ up health. “I know I said I didn’t need a speech, Wax. But I don’t know that you need to rub it in, neither.”

“Fortunately,” Wax said, “you don’t need forgiveness, Wayne.”

“Now that’s nonsense.”

“No it’s not.” Wax leaned forward, pointing with his bottle. “Wayne, would you do it again, if you had the chance? Rob a man for his pocket change? Shoot him when things get heated?”

“What? Of course not!”

“So,” Wax said, leaning back, “you don’t need forgiveness. Because you aren’t the man who killed Durkel. Not anymore. The man who did that, well, he’s dead. Buried beneath six feet of the clay and rock that passes for soil in the Roughs. You haven’t been him for years.”

“I don’t think it works that way,” Wayne said.

“Why not?” Wax replied, taking another pull on his beer. “What’s any of this for, if people can’t change? If there’s no chance for you, Wayne, there’s no chance for anyone. We might as well shoot a man the first time he does anything wrong, because hey … he’ll never change, so who cares?”

“That’s not fair.”

“You’re not fair,” Wax said, “to yourself. I’ve watched you, Wayne. You didn’t become my deputy because you wanted redemption. You don’t keep fighting alongside me because you need to be forgiven. You do it because of the man you’ve become. You do it because you want to make the world better.”

“Maybe you’re wrong,” Wayne said. “You don’t know what’s in my brain, Wax. Maybe I am corrupt, through and through. You know how I am when I get in a brawl. Maybe I’m doin’ all this to get a chance to fight and kill folks. Because I like it.”

“Nope,” Wax said. He finished off his beer, then held the bottle out, dangling between two fingers. “I don’t buy it, Wayne. I know you. And I respect you. Admire you. There are times I wish I could be as good a man as you are.”

Wayne sat up, squinting at him. “Wait. You’re serious?”

“Damn right.”

“Mate, I burned down a building today. And not one what you’re supposed to burn down, like a school. A big important building.”

“Yeah, and what did you do with that fire?” Wax asked. “Did you light it and run?”

Wayne shrugged.

“No, you got everyone out,” Wax said. “You specifically led a group of people knocking on doors to make sure everyone escaped. You lit the fire because you needed to, but then you made sure that…” He hesitated, double-checked his bottle was empty, then looked at Wayne with a frown. “Wayne. Schools aren’t meant to be burned down. Just because we did it once doesn’t mean it’s all right.”

“No, see,” Wayne said, finishing off his own beer, “I figured it out. Schools is meant to be burned down. Imagine you was a kid, and you woke up and found the school was plumb gone? Well damn, that’d be the best rusting day ever!”

Wax sighed.

“I figure,” Wayne continued, “that’s why the city keeps building more schools. Have you seen how many there are these days? The government is saving them up, in case they need to make some kids happy. Then they’ll burn ’em down.”

Wax eyed him. So Wayne smiled and winked, letting him know that this might have been an exaggerated-story-type thing.

Wax leaned back. “I can’t tell with you sometimes…”

“That’s the problem though, ain’t it?” Wayne said. “Because I do terrible stuff! Ranette told me that Durkel girl — apparently, visiting her is the worst thing I coulda been doin’. I’ve been making her life awful all these years even without knowing it!”

“And you care?” Wax asked.

“Course I do!”

Wax inclined his head toward him. “Proof. You’re a good person.”

“Fat lot of good it does when I still mess everything up, mate. I still grab stuff sometimes, even when it’s not my friend’s and I ain’t joking. I don’t think about it until later. And I realize, maybe that fellow liked his cigar box.”

“You mess up a lot less than you fix, Wayne. You can’t deny it. You are a good man.”

Wayne fell quiet. Because … because he liked Wax. More, he trusted Wax. Wax was right about things.

Could he … be right about this?

Wax leaned forward. “You can’t keep digging up the corpse of who you used to be, Wayne. You can’t keep toting it around. Let him stay buried. Consider who you are, not who you left behind. That’s what I’ve learned these last few years. It’s made all the difference.”

Huh. It was platitudes. Easy words to say. But Wax didn’t just say things. He never had. Wax meant things.

Maybe … maybe it was time to bury that corpse. Because rusts, it was feelin’ heavy lately. What would life be like if he weren’t carryin’ that thing? Maybe a part of him was ready, and had been for years. He’d stopped shakin’ when he held a gun. His body was ready to move on. Could his mind allow it?

He scanned out over the city, his head pounding from storing health. Cars bustled below, representatives of a new world, with fancy new buildings throwing long shadows as the sun started to set. The whole Basin was changing.

Why not him with it?

He let himself stop storing up health. Truth was, it wouldn’t do much. His head cleared, and his aches faded.

“Right, then,” he said, sitting up. “We needta solve this thing, Wax. I’ve got this bad feeling — had it all day — that we’re on a trail that is far, far too cold for comfort.”

“Agreed,” Wax said, pulling over two duffels. “Look through that. See what Steris packed us.” He pushed over the first of them — his ammo pack, retrieved from a rooftop.

Wayne took it and undid the ties and zipper, while Wax dug in the other and took out some pages, holding them up. The billboard had some electric lights on it, to make the thing visible at night — which was good for readin’. Huh. Maybe Wax had a good reason for pickin’ this spot after all.

Wayne began counting ammo for Wax’s guns, setting it aside in little pouches. “So,” he said, “they was testin’ some flyin’ bomb out in the ocean?”

“They were only testing the delivery device,” Wax said, shuffling papers. “No bomb on it yet. That would be too dangerous. Plus, it wasn’t ready yet. I’ve got schematics for the bomb here, and until recently they were having trouble creating a big enough battery to make it portable.”

“But they figured that out?”

“Unfortunately,” he said, handing a schematic over — as if Wayne would have any use for it. “Look there. Finally have it working, portable but large. That’s what’s giving them such a headache. They have these rockets that can fly a good thirty or forty miles, but not with such a huge payload.” He shuffled more pages, then handed another over. “This schematic is a dead man’s switch. An extremely pernicious one. They don’t want anyone disarming the thing. And here, a design for a much larger rocket. Maybe a last chance at making this work, but they’re worried it won’t fly far enough … and might catch Bilming or other towns and not just Elendel.”

Wayne grunted, tucking the pages in his pocket. Then, digging further into his own duffel, he found a sandwich.

“Hot damn,” he said, unwrapping it. Pastrami? Hot double damn. “Good thing you ignored me and stayed with that woman. She’s quite a catch.”

Wax gave him a flat look.

“I was wrong about her, all right?” Wayne said, digging out a second sandwich and tossing it to Wax. “I’m wrong about people a lot. Maybe even myself.”

Wax smiled, then dug into the sandwich. Wayne did the same, and he hadn’t realized how hungry he was. Some canteens followed — alas, just water. He wished for another beer. But no, they had work to do. One would keep them limber. Any more would be dangerous.

Wayne dug out a replacement metalmind for Wax, filled with extra weight, and tossed it to him. Next were some vials filled with metal flakes, all in a little sheath. Eight of them had been removed already; eight remained. “These ain’t your normal sort.”

“Harmony sent them,” Wax said. “Said they were special.”

“Did he now…” Wayne said, eyeing the last one in line, with a red cork. He set those aside, then took out a small pouch of metals with his name on it. Rusting woman had even sent him some bendalloy. “So, where do we go, Wax? You said they were buildin’ one final rocket, biggest of them all. Where do we find it?”

Wax scanned the notes. “They’re worried, Wayne. Up against the wall. There’s notations at the end here, from today. They are terrified that Autonomy will cancel their whole project — violently. So they’re scrambling to fend us off, and for any last chance at victory. But where … how…”

Wayne continued fishing in his duffel, then pulled out a strange wicker ball with a weight at the center. “Is this something Ranette made?”

Wax grinned, waving for Wayne to toss it over. Then Wax launched it into the air with a Steelpush. “Max must have helped Steris pack. Sent me a little gift.” He launched it higher next time. Then higher.

Then he caught it and froze.

“What?” Wayne said.

“I know where the bomb is,” Wax said. “You need height. Height first, then you can launch something far. Plus, they needed to build a big rocket someplace where people wouldn’t be able to poke around. Get as much height as they can, in a secure location…”

Wayne breathed out, and the two of them turned toward the center of the city. And the Shaw, the enormous tower there — which had new construction on top, supposedly adding a few new floors. Or was it a different construction project entirely?

“Damn,” Wayne said, noting the number of lights on in the upper floors of the tower, and the floodlights on the top. “They’re busy tonight. Backs against the wall indeed…” He looked to Wax. “It’s a mesa. That spire. That’s the mesa.”

“What mesa?”

“In my ma’s story,” Wayne said, “it all ended at the mesa. The lone peak in the center of a flat landscape.”

Wayne eyed his friend to see if he complained they weren’t in that story. Because in this, Wax would be wrong. They were in it — or at least living alongside it. Because Wayne had decided it was so, and that was the way of things.

“A mesa, eh?” Wax said, letting one leg slip out over the edge to dangle. “Yeah, I can see that.”

“I could never figure out the part that happened next,” Wayne said. “In the story, the lawman went to the mesa to find the bad guy — Blatant Barm, worst villain there ever was. But Barm was the mesa.”

“He … was the mesa?”

“Yeah, like he’d transformed into it,” Wayne said.

“That … doesn’t make much sense.”

“Sure doesn’t,” Wayne said. “I never could figure out why Ma told it that way.”

“Maybe it doesn’t mean anything,” Wax said. “Maybe she came up with it because something needs to happen in stories.”

“Nah,” Wayne said. “You didn’t know my ma, Wax. She was good at stories. Real good. It meant somethin’…” Wayne took a deep breath. “If we’ve gotta get to the top, that’s gonna be a rough ascent. There aren’t any other buildings around it nearly as tall. You won’t be able to Push us up there.”

“We’d be exposed to snipers trying that anyway,” Wax said, squinting at the floodlights high atop the Shaw. “We’ll have to go up the inside … Ruin, Wayne. You’re right. It’s going to be rough.”

Wayne’s foot thumped against something from the ammo duffel. He frowned, then knelt and pulled out a wooden box that had been tucked at the bottom. It had Ranette’s symbol on the top.

Wax breathed out softly, almost reverently. “Steris packed it.”

“What?” Wayne said, opening the top.

He revealed a gun. Stocky, with a barrel a good four inches across. Unlike anything he’d ever seen.

“Something special.” Wax took it out, then removed other pieces from the box to assemble something that looked a bit like a single-barrel shotgun, only with a much wider bore. It had a big central ammo wheel — almost like for an oversized revolver — which held slugs bigger than shot glasses.

Wayne whistled.

“We just call it the Big Gun,” Wax said. “I’d hoped I wouldn’t need it. It wasn’t built for a lawman. It was built … for a sword.”

In the distance, the sun finally sank beneath the ocean horizon, like a great big piece a’ dough bein’ dropped in to be fried up nice and toasty. Wayne held his breath. Then mists began to curl in the air. Growing like vines from invisible holes, pouring out into the city.

“Well,” Wax whispered, “that’s a welcome sight.” He glanced at the gun in his hands. “This next part is going to be bloody, Wayne. How much healing do you have left?”

“Not much,” Wayne admitted. “I can handle a bullet or two. That’s it.”

Wax took a deep breath. “I’ll want you to stay back. To let me do what Harmony has decided I need to do.” He cocked the strange gun, chambering an enormous bullet. “We’re going to get to the top of that building and stop the launch.” He paused. “Funny. I don’t know if I could have done this a few years ago. But I know who I am, what I’m fighting for, and why. There’s a certain peace in that, no matter how bad this is likely to get.”

“Rusts,” Wayne said, his stomach in a knot. “Wish I felt the same. Wax, after all this time, it’s still hard for me to sort out. I kill a man, and it ruins my life. Then I join you, and I’ve gotta keep killin’ them. Poor sods. You know?”

Wax shouldered the strange gun, then put his hand on Wayne’s arm. “Yeah. I know. But maybe your ma was right about the bad guy being a mesa. Being the land itself. Maybe that’s what she was saying, Wayne: It’s the world that we have to worry about. Individual men, yes, they can be evil. But we should worry more about the world itself making them so.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well,” Wax said, “do you think you’d have fallen in with the Plank Boys if your mother hadn’t died in that accident?”

“Absolutely not,” Wayne said.

“Nearly every man I’ve had to shoot? He had a story like yours. It’s the sort of thing Marasi is always talking about. You have to stop the Blatant Barms of the world, yes. But if you can create a world where fewer boys grow up alone … well, maybe you’ll have far fewer Blatant Barms to face in the future. Maybe that was what your mother was saying.”

Huh. “Yeah,” Wayne said. “Yeah, that sounds right.” He stood at the edge of the billboard ledge, the two of them facing the spire. Wax slid the last of those metal vials Harmony had given him into the aluminum-lined sheath at his belt. Wayne downed some himself.

“Wayne,” Wax said, “do you remember how this started? This new life, after the Roughs? I’d given up after Lessie’s death. You came to me in Elendel, and you pulled me out, Wayne. I was content to sit around, stewing in my own self-reflection. Then you showed up and grabbed me. Told me there were train cars being robbed mysteriously. Set me on the path chasing Trell…”

“I suppose,” Wayne said. “Doesn’t mean I’m the hero.”

“Nonsense.” Wax glanced at him. “This is who you are. No amount of complaining, no phantom guilt, no whispering lying voice that says otherwise is going to change that. ‘You’re meant to be helping people,’ Wayne. ‘It’s what you do.’”

Wayne cocked his head. “Was that … a quote or somethin’?”

“It’s what you said to me seven years ago. When people needed me, but I was too afraid to pick up a gun.”

“You remember that?” Wayne said. “The exact things I said?”

“Of course I do. Those words changed my life.”

Wayne let out a howl of laughter. “Damn, Wax. I just say things! You’re not supposed to actually pay attention to them!”

“It was meaningful!”

“Ha. Listening to me. Might as well write the stuff I say on a plaque or something. ‘You’re meant to be helping people. Also, remember — ain’t no fellow who regretted giving it one extra shake, but you can bet every guy has regretted giving one too few.’”

They shared a look as the mists began to curl around them, headlights illuminating the roadway beneath like a river of light running toward the Shaw. Then they both nodded.

“You ready for this?” Wax asked.

“Let’s do it,” Wayne replied.

59

Armal and her nervous little collection of townspeople insisted on taking Marasi together. They hurried along a “back road” of Wayfarer — a path lined with fake trees, simulating a park.

It worked. The Set’s “tranquility officers” started a door-to-door search behind them — along the main road — but had to maintain the illusion of being a friendly neighborhood watch. This promenade gave Marasi cover, letting her slip past.

Entrone’s home — constructed over the last year — was so large that she sensed resentment from the others. He should have been smart enough to keep it modest; he likely didn’t spend much time in it. But the man’s ego apparently demanded something ostentatious — including a third floor with large picture windows on all sides. As they approached, Marasi decided it was probably just another observation center. Maybe with a few false rooms at the front to keep up appearances.

“All right,” Marasi said to Armal and the others, “think about what I’ve said. Please.”

They huddled among the fake trees and bushes. Rusts. Marasi wasn’t certain they’d be of much help. All the same, she hurried to the building — which was on a small stone hill.

She was spotted by people gathering outside their townhomes, in deliberate defiance of Entrone’s orders. Some pointed. Well, the time for sneaking was gone anyway. Feeling alone, Marasi used Moonlight’s picks to undo the lock on the mansion’s back door, then slipped in. She passed through a kitchen that seemed a little too clean and quickly found another door, held shut with several deadbolts. Right, then. She wasn’t getting through that with picks.

She took a deep breath. There was so much that could go wrong with her plan. But she was out of resources and out of time; once in a while you just had to do things Wayne’s way.

She attached one of Moonlight’s explosives to the door, took cover behind a cabinet, then blasted the thing off. A second later she burst through the smoking doorway, pistol ready. The two people in here had ducked to the floor at the explosion, though the small charge — intended for this kind of use — hadn’t done much damage to the room. They had been monitoring some radio equipment. A closed door on the other side of the room led farther into the building, and a strange glowing light came from beneath it.

“Down,” Marasi said, her gun trained on the radio operators. The two didn’t look armed, and they hastened to comply.

Radio equipment. Marasi crossed the room, hauled the woman to her feet, then gestured to the equipment. “This broadcasts to the town? Through these microphones?”

“Y-yes,” the woman said.

“Turn them on,” Marasi ordered.

The woman hurriedly flicked some switches. Then Marasi sent the two technicians outside and trapped them in a slowness bubble from a charged grenade. She didn’t have time to do more.

When she returned to the radio room, the door on the far end had opened and people were entering to see what the ruckus was about. And rusts, one of them was Entrone himself, appearing weary, bags under his eyes, wan complexion making him look like a corpse dressed for a funeral in his fine suit and formal hat.

The room behind him glowed with a white light. Marasi glimpsed a large chamber with a white floor — the source of the light — but she didn’t have time to study it now. Instead she leveled her gun at Entrone, but his bodyguards immediately stepped in front of him.

“I told you, gentlemen,” Entrone said from behind them. “The rat we’ve been hunting doesn’t hide in the dark. Wait long enough, and it will come to you.”

“By the authority of the Elendel Constabulary,” Marasi said, “I order you to lay down arms and metals, then submit to arrest.”

Entrone sighed in a long-suffering way, like a man who had just been given a bedtime ultimatum by his three-year-old. So Marasi fired. She dropped one of the bodyguards, but the other returned fire.

Marasi ducked back into the kitchen, narrowly avoiding the shots. “Think about this, Entrone!” Marasi called into the room. “Are you really prepared to kill so many? Can anything be worth such a terrible act?”

He didn’t respond. Rusts. She’d hoped to get him talking. She exchanged a few more shots with the remaining bodyguard, then reloaded.

As she did, she heard footsteps. Dodging back by reflex, she narrowly escaped getting caught in a slowness bubble. Not made by her, but one that had extended through the wall. She could pick it out by the faint shimmering of the air.

She peeked through and saw the bodyguard frozen in a slowness bubble just inside the doorway. Entrone was safely beyond it. But how…?

That bodyguard shares my Allomantic power, she realized. He was trying to catch me in the bubble, but put it up a hair too slowly. If she hadn’t dodged, she’d be trapped in that bubble with him while time sped up around them. Giving Entrone plenty of time to get reinforcements.

It was a tactic she had employed herself on several occasions. It chilled her to realize she’d nearly been caught in it. The slowness bubble took up a chunk of the kitchen and most of the doorway into the radio room.

Entrone paced, separated from her by that slowed time. Gunfire would be useless; they could only glare at one another. She didn’t have a good angle to see into the room beyond him, but that glow … it reminded her of something.

Entrone settled down in a nearby chair.

“Why, Entrone?” Marasi asked. “Why lock all these people away like this? Why pretend the world has ended?” With that corner of the doorway not caught in the bubble, her voice should be able to reach him. Unfortunately, he refused to take the bait, instead simply leaning back in his chair.

Maybe I’m approaching this wrong, Marasi thought. He’s not going to volunteer anything. But what if he thought he was the one getting information out of me?

“Wax and Wayne have stopped the launch,” Marasi lied, taking a risk. “Elendel is safe. You’re trapped, and soon this place will be flooded with constables.”

Entrone didn’t laugh at her immediately, which was a good sign. She hoped he’d try to pry for more information.

“That’s nonsense of course,” he said. “It—”

Then he stopped. Because his voice echoed outside the building, projected into the city. He glanced at the radio and saw it was on. He gave her a dry look.

“I think,” he continued, “you are seriously ash-sick, young woman. Please, let us help you.”

Then he reached over and flipped off the radio.

Damn.

“Clever,” he said to her. “But what do you think would happen if those in the Community knew the truth? They’re a bunch of cowed civilians. They’ve been imprisoned here for seven years, never knowing the truth. Never caring to know it. You really think they’d help you?”

Marasi winced. So much for that plan.

The guard remained frozen in place between them. Eventually he’d realize he hadn’t caught her, and would drop his bubble. But that could take time, inside one of those. She knew how that felt.

“Entrone,” she said, “you don’t have to go through with this.”

“With what, exactly?” he said.

“You’re going to open a portal to let Autonomy’s army begin an invasion of our world. I know the plan.”

He grunted, then slumped forward further. He was still slime — the way he’d casually ordered the execution of those captives had proved it — but he was also obviously burdened by events. Perhaps she could shake his conviction.

“Why?” she asked, genuinely curious. “You know they’re here not to rule, but destroy. Lay waste.”

“Because if I don’t,” he said, “she’ll send them anyway — and then I’ll be one of the ones who gets killed. We can’t fight them. They’ll annihilate our forces.”

“Will they?” Marasi said. “From what I hear, Autonomy is frightened of us. Worried we’ll outpace her people technologically. If she could destroy us easily, she’d have done it already, right?”

“It takes special circumstances to create one of these portals,” he said. “Even for her. Can’t just be anywhere, or anytime.” He turned, looking over his shoulder. “The timing gave us a deadline.”

Rusts. That room behind him … that was where the portal would open, wasn’t it? She’d assumed there would be some kind of gateway, but it was the ground that was glowing. Rusts … maybe he hadn’t wanted a big mansion out of pride. Maybe they’d built it here to hide the fact that the portal, whatever it was, would appear here.

“The location…” he said, turning back. “I think it’s because of those people, oddly. Such a large collection of Metalborn. And we were required to bring in a strange power, a glowing light. That’s part of the key.”

“But—”

“Are you a Survivorist, constable?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said.

“Then you know our prime tenet,” he said, looking up and meeting her eyes. “The one we’re taught from childhood?”

“Survive,” she whispered.

He nodded.

“Not like this,” she said. “Not at the expense of others. Kelsier didn’t give up without a fight. He didn’t simply go with what the Lord Ruler demanded. He taught us to survive despite obstacles. Not to let ourselves be slowly crushed so we could gain a minute or two of extra breath.”

“Interpret it how you wish, constable,” Entrone said, rubbing his brow. “I think these troops will come even if Telsin is successful … to help oversee us, in this new world. One where we serve Autonomy.”

“That’s an excuse,” Marasi said. “Worse, it’s cowardice. You’re the mayor of this city. Your duty is to the people, Entrone.”

He laughed, standing up. “You can’t possibly be that idealistic.”

She blushed.

Was she?

Yes, she was. And proud of it.

I have to find a way to close that portal, she thought, looking through the bubble of slowed time toward the room with the light. Again she thought it seemed familiar. White, with a mother-of-pearl sheen. Yes. It was like the pure Investiture from Moonlight’s jars. The floor had been dug out, then filled up with the stuff, making a kind of pool in a recessed portion of the ground.

“A great deal of power in one place…” she said. Allik always said that you weren’t supposed to store too much harmonium in one place, or “strange things happen, yah?” He didn’t know what those things were. But Marasi swore she could make out a warping of the air in that room. That liquid was somehow powering the portal.

Entrone had stepped up to the faintly visible barrier of the slowness bubble. It was smaller than the ones Marasi made, closer to the size of Wayne’s bubbles. Entrone shook his head at the trapped guard.

“You’re like him, if I recall,” Entrone said, walking to the side. “A Pulser — capable of making bubbles of slowed time.”

Marasi didn’t respond. Entrone strolled sideways, near the wall separating the radio room from the kitchen, where she couldn’t see him through the doorway anymore. The bubble filled most of the radio room, but there were some portions at the edges that weren’t touched by it. His voice continued a moment later.

“Do you ever feel,” he said, “embarrassed by your useless power, constable? I know your sister is an embarrassment to your father. But at least he acknowledged her.”

He had done his research; a few years back, that barb might have bothered her. Now Marasi recognized it for what it was — an attempt to put her off balance. She focused on the glowing pool. The surface was beginning to ripple. Was there another way into the–

At that moment, Entrone ripped through the wall itself, circumventing the slowness bubble. Rusts! He’d sounded so worn out that Marasi had nearly discounted him. Now he crashed through the wood, shattering beams like they were twigs.

Marasi shot him in the chest, but the wounds healed immediately. Faster than Wayne’s did. He gave her a grim smile.

Marasi unloaded the entire magazine into him, and did little more than poke a few holes in his suit. He grabbed her by the front of her shirt and lifted her. Dust from the drywall streamed from his clothing as he pulled her right up to his face. Still in his grip, Marasi hit him on the side of the head with the butt of her pistol. He just grinned. She did manage to knock his hat off though.

“I’m a god now, little bastard,” he said to her. “What strength do you have to stand against me? Your Allomancy? Pathetic. Your weapons? Laughable. You have no power to threaten me.”

He turned and threw her out the window with a crash, back into the main cavern.

It hurt. A sharp blinding pain all across her body. Cuts and slices, followed by a dizzying hit to her head and shoulder as she slowed and stopped in a heap. Through teary eyes, through the pain, she saw his shape — shadowy to her vision — climbing out the window after her.

“The army is coming,” he said, his voice growing softer as he stalked forward, his nice coat disheveled. “I imagined I’d be some grand lord, ruling in a new world. But I guess … I guess … we all have to do what we must to survive.”

He reached for her. She tried to pull back, noting another group of shapes stepping out from the shadows outside the building. Had Armal and the others followed her up to the mansion?

She had hoped they would overhear Entrone admitting the truth via the radio. But perhaps … perhaps they’d been close enough, in their curiosity, to hear him speak now …

Please, please have heard him.

Gave Entrone loomed over her.

“You’re right about my powers,” Marasi said with a cough. “I’ve found uses for them. But they aren’t where my strength comes from. Not really.”

He grabbed her.

“My strength,” she whispered, “never came from Allomancy. Rusts … I learned that lesson as a child. It doesn’t come from weapons, or even the credentials I carry.”

Please …

Entrone raised her into the air as a distinct clink sounded. He froze, then turned to see Armal. The source of the sound was a jar she’d dropped to the ground. Once full of light. Now empty.

A replacement for metal, Moonlight had said. But supercharged.

“I’m a constable, Entrone,” Marasi whispered. “My strength isn’t in myself. It comes from the people.”

A Rioting, with the power of a thousand Allomancers, hit their emotions like a physical wave of force.

60

Shame hit Marasi like a wave.

The Rioter’s art. Pick an emotion, then blast it into a person on full automatic. It was easier for emotional Allomancers to target their powers in a direction instead of at a specific individual.

It caught Entrone, judging by his stumble, but it also pounded Marasi with a sense of worthlessness. A sure knowledge of her own irrelevance and insignificance. Memories bubbled out from her soul: times she’d failed, times she’d fallen short. Had she ever not failed? Had she ever not been worthless?

She’d spent her childhood hidden away by a father who was embarrassed by her. She’d spent her youth dreaming of far-off legends, only to make an utter fool of herself when one of those legends walked into her life. Though Marasi’s romantic feelings for Wax were long since abandoned, the shame of how she’d thrown herself at him — to be rebuffed — was oppressive.

She gasped, rolling to her knees, head bowed, with drips of blood from a slice on her scalp trickling down her cheek.

She was nothing. She’d always been nothing.

Wax let her join him because he felt bad for her. She’d lived in his shadow for years. Unable to find her own constable partner, so she’d needed to borrow his. Unable to solve important cases without his help.

The weight of it smothered her, reminding her of everything she was not. And everything she would never be. And …

And it was nothing new.

She’d felt it all before. Less powerfully, yes, but none of this was novel. She’d lived with some of these fears for her entire life. Others she’d pushed through during her professional years. They were illogical.

Logic didn’t matter. Just emotion. But she could handle that emotion. She took a deep breath, whispered that it would soon pass, and shouldered it.

She could weather this.

Entrone wasn’t so capable. He curled up on the green-painted stone patio and whimpered softly. All the regeneration powers in the world wouldn’t help if he couldn’t move — and without his aluminum-lined hat he was completely subject to Armal’s control.

Some soldiers came running up, but one of the other townspeople dealt with them using what appeared to be a Soothing. It seemed that Armal had spread the Investiture around as Marasi had suggested.

Ultimately, the plan had worked. Marasi had succeeded in her primary job: empowering the people. She could rest now, and ride out the Rioting.

Except …

Except that portal was still opening. The invasion force was still coming.

This worry — narrow, focused, cutting through her shame like a knife — drove Marasi to focus. Because Marasi …

Marasi could function.

She began moving, feeling as if she were crawling away from it: her pain, her sorrow, her shame. With each grueling inch, she felt herself growing stronger. Shrugging off those lies. Embracing the person she’d become. A woman who didn’t care whose shadow she stood in — as long as the job got done. A woman who didn’t care if her father, or society, was ashamed of her — as long as she was confident in herself.

A woman who could, painfully but determinedly, pass Entrone huddled on the floor. And — with a breath of relief — get outside the directional force of Armal’s Rioting. The emotions vanished like smoke on a windy day. Marasi breathed out a long sigh, but there was no time to relax.

“Be careful,” she said to one of the others as they came up to her. “Entrone is Metalborn. He can heal and has incredible strength.”

Marasi wasn’t certain how long Armal’s power would last, but it seemed that she’d been granted exceptional abilities — like when Vin had drawn in the mists, as recorded in scripture.

Rusts. Could that glowing light be the body of a god, just like the mists had been? Marasi limped back into the mansion. She ignored the frozen guard. For him, this would all have passed in seconds. Perhaps he was still responding to her dodging out of the way of his bubble — or maybe Entrone had just ordered him to block the doorway.

Fortunately, the lord mayor had ripped her a new path. She pushed through the broken remnants of the wall, limped past the radio station, and stumbled up to the portal doorway. Most of the mansion, it turned out, was a sham. The vast majority of the space was taken up by this one room with the glowing floor. Radiant light had been poured into a pool twenty feet wide, and it was beginning to churn. Glowing brightly. Lighting the walls a ghostly white.

She didn’t have to think hard to grasp the mythological implications of this place. Rusts. That was raw, concentrated power. A single jar had given TwinSoul the power to create a stone body twelve feet tall, a second had transformed Moonlight into another person, and a third had given Armal the power to Riot emotions like the Lord Ruler himself.

This pool had to hold thousands of jars’ worth of the power. She stepped forward, then felt the most awful premonition: she was close enough that she saw them, in a place with a dark sky and misty ground. Thousands of inhuman soldiers with golden skin and glowing red eyes. Living statues. They carried rifles of an advanced design, and their stares seemed to bore holes in her mind. The men of gold and red had arrived. Bearers of the final metal, Miles had called them. Destroyers.

Marasi stumbled back from the pool, daunted, as the pains of the fight started to flare up; the bruises and cuts from being thrown by Entrone.

But before the call of that power, her pain seemed distant. Inconsequential. Once upon a time, she’d given up the Bands of Mourning. She didn’t need to hold power like that.

Today, she realized something else. She didn’t need power like that, but duty wasn’t about what you needed. It was about what was needed from you.

Centuries ago, the Last Emperor Elend Venture had been faced with a similar problem: how to dispose of a great deal of power. She knew what she needed to do.

A second later, she burst out of the building to find the clustered men and women of the Community speaking with the guards — calming them. Armal had finished tying up Entrone. He struggled, but strangely was unable to break free.

“Macil is a Leecher,” Armal said, gesturing to one of the nearby women. “He might be able to heal, but we’ve sucked the strength out of him.”

Marasi nodded, teeth gritted against the pain and the echoes of the Rioting she’d survived. “I need every Allomancer in this cavern gathered here, right now.”

“Why?” Armal said, walking up to her.

“There’s a well of power in the room nearby, and it’s opening a portal to something terrible,” Marasi said. “We’re going to stop it the old-fashioned way. By burning up all of the power with our abilities.”

61

With Wayne clinging to his back, Wax bounded across the city to the Shaw. He made one last jump from the top of a nearby skyscraper — one that was half as high as the Shaw — and launched them toward destiny, mists curling in their passing.

There were some balconies over halfway up the tower, just inside a strong Coinshot’s reach. If the enemy had any measure of foresight, they’d be ready for incursions at those locations. They were still his best choice. The higher he got, the less ground he’d need to cover inside, where he’d likely have to fight for every inch.

Wax angled them toward a wide balcony with two broad, dark windows looking into the structure. Wax’s Push — the anchor too far away — was barely enough to get them to it, and they landed lightly amid some small planters.

“Aw…” Wayne said, dropping off his back. “We was supposed to go smashing through that glass! All dramatic-like!”

“That’s an excellent way to get cut to shreds,” Wax said, ducking to the side — out of sight of those windows. “I can’t heal. You can barely heal. And there’s a door right there.”

“The Ascendant Warrior did it,” Wayne grumbled.

“When?”

“Right before killin’ the Lord Ruler.”

“Since when have you known that sort of thing?”

“It’s in a little kids’ book that Max and I read sometimes,” he said. “Right about my level.”

Wax tried the door in the wall to the left of the large windows, but it was locked. “Assassinating the Lord Ruler?” Wax asked. “Isn’t that a little violent for a children’s book?”

“Mate,” Wayne said, “it ain’t violence if it’s religion. Don’t you know anythin’?”

“Apparently not,” Wax said. “I—”

He cut off as floodlights turned on in the room beyond, shining through the windows with blazing intensity. Wax pulled up against the wall, Wayne next to him. He dared a glance inside, and saw figures behind and between the lights, their silhouettes raising weapons.

Gunfire cracked like thunder, shattering the window.

“Damn,” Wayne said as the gunfire tapered off. “Those are soldiers, mate. I came down here to the Basin all those years ago ’cuz of a cute little case involvin’ train cars what got robbed in a funny way. How in Ruin’s own name did I end up getting mixed up with dark gods, armies, bombs destroyin’ cities, and … and ghosts, Wax. We still ain’t talked about the ghosts.”

Wax unhooked the Big Gun from inside his coat, where he carried larger weapons while flying. “Can you keep their attention while I try to flank them?”

Wayne smiled. “Scary Tree? We could do Scary Tree!”

“Do you have enough health stored for Scary Tree?”

“Mate, I don’t need health for Scary Tree,” Wayne said. “Just you watch.”

Wax nodded, whipping off his mistcoat and handing it to Wayne along with a spare gun — which Wayne took with a shocking level of calm. Usually they needed to throw some bullets in the fire or something to do Scary Tree.

Wayne proceeded to shoot the weapon from beside the window into the room beyond — mistcoat tassels waving — persuading everyone he was Wax. Wayne even did some eerily impressive vocal imitation.

People fixated upon Wax. They had tunnel vision about fighting the infamous lawman Coinshot. It was even worse these days — where news of his exploits had been exaggerated by the broadsheets. He supposed that finding and using the Bands of Mourning themselves hadn’t hurt his reputation.

While everyone was distracted by Wayne, Wax unlocked the door with a quick Push from the side on the deadbolt. When he’d glanced in through the window earlier, he’d noticed that a wall separated the room with the soldiers from wherever this door led. On cracking it open, he found a small hallway.

If he guessed right, their enemies would soon use this hallway to try reaching the balcony. So he slipped inside and Pushed himself up to the ceiling directly above the door on the other side. He held there, using nails in the floor. As anticipated, a small group of armed men snuck into the darkened hallway, light from the floodlights in the room beyond spilling in around them. Blinding them.

In the old days, Allomancers — Mistborn in particular — had been regarded like shadows. Or the mists themselves. Silent, hidden, practically formless. Wax could well understand the origins of those myths as the three soldiers passed underneath him in a tight cluster. He dropped and disposed of them the old-fashioned way: a few coins flung in the air, delivered noiselessly into their brains from behind. No crack of gunfire. No shouts of pain. Just the thump of bodies on the floor.

They’d left the door open, and he peeked into the main room. Those floodlights had been prepared for this and could move on wheels. Likely they’d had scouts watching for Wax bounding over the buildings below, and positioned their ambush where they thought he’d enter.

Wayne’s distraction was working well. The soldiers had pushed the floodlights into a line across the middle of the room and were arrayed in the gaps between them, shooting aluminum bullets.

As Wayne had noted, these people weren’t like the common street criminals Wax and Wayne had fought earlier in the day, with their rough clothing, mismatched and rugged gear. These wore red uniforms and carried sleek weapons — modern rifles. They knelt with precise postures, firing carefully. Several were slipping forward along the left side of the room to get an angle on Wayne.

Unfortunately for them, they weren’t watching their own flanks. And while aluminum guns might not be affected by Steelpushes, the enormous floodlights were. Tapping weight to make himself sturdier, Wax Pushed into the room, smashing the lights into one another — and crushing the soldiers who had set up between them.

He crashed all of this into a mess against the far wall, then decreased his weight and slid across the ground, using nails in the wall behind as an anchor. On the other side of the room, he positioned himself and Pushed again, sending some of the wreckage sweeping outward to catch the remaining soldiers — and sending them and the broken lights out the window into the mists.

A moment later, Wayne sauntered into the now-darker room and tossed Wax his mistcoat. “Sorry for the bullet holes.”

“A few holes won’t…” Wax said, then noticed — in the weak light of the room’s flickering ceiling light — that there had to be at least sixteen holes in it, even in some of the tassels. “How did you not get shot?”

“By not bein’ where the bullets was,” Wayne said.

Wax threw on the mistcoat duster. He had three guns on him. The Big Gun in his left hand. The Steel Survivor, aluminum but loaded with normal lead slugs. And Vindication, with aluminum bullets in the ordinary chambers and two hazekiller rounds ready for dealing with Metalborn.

“We’re really going up the inside?” Wayne said.

Wax nodded. They would need proper climbing equipment to scale the outside, even if there weren’t Set sharpshooters around.

Wayne pulled out a dueling cane. Wax met his eyes and shook his head.

“But—” Wayne said.

“Harmony knew,” Wax said softly. “He knew what I’d need to become.”

It seemed he had a moment to pause, though more enemies would undoubtedly be on the way. So he reached into his pocket and took out a small sliver of metal. He slipped it into his ear, then carefully — ritualistically — checked Vindication’s chambers to be certain there was a round in each.

As before, he felt a faint disconnect from the trellium earring. But he didn’t see visions. He felt Telsin’s attention come on him, and heard — faintly — what she was doing. Giving orders. Sounding frantic.

She was above. At the top. He could feel it.

Waxillium, she said in his mind. You should have left the city as I suggested.

He clicked to the next chamber of his gun. “I have come,” he said, “to clean up our family’s mess.”

Very dramatic, she said. You—

“Don’t make me do this. Don’t force it, Telsin.”

She didn’t reply at first. The only sound was that of him clicking, chamber to chamber.

You are still just a frightened child, Waxillium, she said. All these years later, and you still can’t take a risk. Can’t see beyond your own limited mindset. I’m going to become something incredible.

“I’ll see you dead first,” Wax said softly.

Wax, she said, you’re thirty floors away from me — and there are hundreds of soldiers from the Hidden Guard between us. My best. Reserved to stop you here.

He snapped Vindication closed.

Oh, Wax, she said. You have never understood. You can’t beat me. You’ve never had the vision for that. Whatever you try, I’ll always be ahead of you.

He slipped Vindication into a holster, then downed an extra vial of steel — one of the ones Harmony had sent him. Finally, he hefted the Big Gun in one hand. Ranette had warned him what it was capable of doing. So he put up his steel bubble, even though the enemy was armed with aluminum.

“Funny, Telsin,” he said, “that you claim to be the one with vision — when you’ve always underestimated me. If you’d actually had foresight, you’d have killed me when I first came back to the city seven years ago.”

Before you could learn what I was doing?

“Before I came to love the things you’re seeking to destroy.”

He ripped the earring out and tossed it aside, then walked into the hallway and looked inward, toward where it ended at a cross hall. Footsteps and calls sounded from beyond a doorway there marked STAIRS. They went silent a moment later.

“Mate,” Wayne said, stepping up. “You’re sure about this?”

Wax raised his gun in two hands and strode forward. “Stay behind. Follow once I’m done. But don’t engage. It’s time for Harmony’s Sword to do his job.”

62

Wax strode toward the stairwell and slipped out the Steel Survivor, loaded with ordinary lead bullets. He shot — then Pushed — twice, drilling a bullet through the wood on either side of the door. He was rewarded with shouts of pain from soldiers hiding within.

Telsin assumed that if she stuffed enough soldiers between them, it would slow him. But Wax was a Coinshot. The more you put between him and his goal, the more debris you gave him to turn into weapons.

He ripped a fire extinguisher off the wall next to him, then tossed it and Pushed it forward — his weight increased — and ripped the door to the stairwell off the hinges, slamming it against the men hiding inside. Predictably, several others ducked through the opening to try shooting him. He downed them each with a bullet to the head.

Then he shot the fire extinguisher, blasting white smoke and chemicals into the chamber. Finally, he lowered the Big Gun in his left hand and launched a shot. The massive explosive shell detonated amid the white smoke, spraying shrapnel through the hallway and out around Wax — where his steel bubble Pushed it away. He strode through the storm of steel untouched.

It was a gun built just for him: a grenade launcher designed for maximum shrapnel. And those it didn’t kill, it would outline. Wax stormed through the doorway, tracing the lines of steelsight across the chaotic space, and downed shadows that tried to aim at him through the smoke.

Looking up through the smoke, he found a modern skyscraper stairwell. A straight shot to the top, assuming he could get past all the troops. Men and women fell on the steps as his gun flashed. Like those he’d faced before, these were dressed in sleek uniforms and didn’t carry a trace of metal on them. But Wax had plenty to work with regardless. The stairwell had a metal banister and wrapped around itself, leaving a hole up the center. He almost flew straight up it, but he couldn’t afford to leave enemies at his back. Plus he needed to carve a path for Wayne.

So, Wax launched a grenade up through the center of the stairwell, which detonated in another hail of shrapnel and screams. He launched upward, then Pushed outward, forcing the metal banister out and away from him in a circle, pinning it to the wall — and taking any people still standing with it. Indiscriminate firing started from above, so he dropped back down, narrowly avoiding aluminum bullet hail. Another grenade — fired up through the gap and detonated in exactly the right position by a careful Push — made them curse and stop.

He dashed upward, keeping his momentum, and Pushed off a fuse box, then a metal sign indicating the floor number. Sweeping up the steps, firing — yes — but just as often using chunks of metal debris as weapons. Grim, he advanced, never touching down, building a wall of metal — bullet casings, shrapnel, debris — ahead of him as he continued to Push, constantly repositioning, soaring up the stairs and bounding over corpses.

Once, Wax had run from his calling. He’d seen a duty that required him to not just find answers, not just solve problems, but to become something terrible. Something that Harmony — manacled by the powers of Preservation — couldn’t do himself.

Tonight Waxillium embraced that duty. He became destruction incarnate. For to worship Harmony was not only to worship Preservation — it was also to worship Ruin, with all that implied. There were times for careful caution and empathy. And there were times when people pointed a weapon capable of killing millions straight at his home, his family, his constituents.

Wax ascended the stairwell as a tempest, constantly seeking upward. Toward the false heaven of a monstrous god. And as he did, he noticed mist trickling down the steps — there was a small vent to the outside on each floor. Enough for Harmony’s blood to spill in. It rarely came indoors, but it coated the steps tonight like a ghostly liquid.

Metal plinged. Metal he couldn’t see. He ducked back by instinct — and a second later another explosion shook the stairwell. He found himself bleeding from shrapnel along one arm; they’d found grenades of their own. But as the resistance pressed forward to stop him, they found him still quite hale.

Vindication aimed true, dispatching aluminum death. The enemy bunched up with wooden shields and furniture to block his way, but Wax lobbed a grenade into it, then used the wood — now embedded with steel fragments — and a Push to force them back. When they went down, Wax landed behind the barricade and heard calls from above, giving him time to reload the Big Gun with another six grenades. He locked the weapon closed, then gritted his teeth.

These soldiers might have thought themselves prepared. They might even have fought Coinshots before.

But they’d never fought Waxillium Ladrian.

He had to take another hit of steel as he advanced. He was using it faster than he expected. He dropped the vial as shouts above accompanied soldiers throwing lines and nets across the central column to prevent him from flying up.

Wax pressed on, relentless. Heavy as a truck at some times, light as a bullet at others, he drove himself upward. Allomancy made the stairwell tremble — the concrete was reinforced with steel he could sense and use. It bent beneath his will, the concrete cracking, stairs rupturing and throwing off the aim of those trying to fire at him.

Time seemed to slow as he hit the next batch of soldiers, and he avoided their gunfire, then increased his weight and lodged a bullet in one’s skull, then slammed that person back into the others. He crumbled the steps completely beneath the feet of the next group.

This wasn’t about a case. This wasn’t about a mystery. This wasn’t about questions. He couldn’t stop. He couldn’t afford to stop. If he did, life ended. He fought with grenade, bullet, and steel. He fought as the sword, put where it needed to be. For all he hated that it was necessary.

Finally — trailed by the mist, trailing death — he reached the top. The end of the stairwell. There didn’t appear to be a way up to the roof from here, but he’d reached the top floor. Breathing heavily, he glanced down through the center of the stairwell — flickering electric lights illuminating broken, crumbling concrete, ripped apart as if by cannonballs. Railings twisted and covered in wreckage.

Groans, like the hollow moans of the damned, echoed up from below. Wayne’s head popped out to look up at him from one floor down; he was covered in dust and chips from the broken steps.

“Did you know this was coming?” Wax whispered to Harmony. “Is this ultimately why you brought me back to Elendel? Was this why you had Lessie watch me? Did you always know?”

There was no answer, of course. Wax wasn’t pierced by the right metal currently, and couldn’t commune with God. Still, he felt as if he could feel Harmony trying to push through, trying to see. Fighting Trell’s influence.

“Don’t ask me to do this again,” Wax whispered, turning away from the carnage below. “This wasn’t an adventure. It was a massacre. I’ll finish the job, but don’t ask me again. Find yourself another sword. You don’t know how this feels.”

In reply, he was given a distinct impression. Almost like a memory implanted directly into his mind: an exhausted, overwhelmed man lying broken on an ashen street, in front of a shattered city gate. Surrounded by death.

Wayne arrived a moment later, scrambling up the last cracked steps. “Mate,” he said softly, looking back down the stairs. “I ain’t … I mean … Wow.”

“It isn’t over yet,” Wax said, easing open the door to the top floor. The two of them slipped into a large marble hallway, with fine pillars and lush red carpet. Another force was gathering at the far side, before a broad set of double doors. Wax and Wayne took cover behind a large pillar, but they’d be flanked as soon as the troops moved forward.

Fortunately, this final group seemed to be the dregs of the enemy forces. Steelsight showed him few, if any, aluminum guns. Indeed it revealed metal weapons, zippers on clothing, keys in pockets. These people wore uniforms, but not like the others — more security officer, less soldier.

Wax downed another metal vial and quickly reloaded, then … Rusts. Those cuts along his arm were throbbing. He pulled a self-clinging bandage from his pocket and wrapped it around his arm, best he could. Hopefully the damage wasn’t too bad. His hand still worked fine.

“They aren’t well armed,” he whispered to Wayne, “but there are a lot of them. Building security, I’d guess. I’ll go—”

“Stop,” Wayne said, holding his arm.

“What?” Wax whispered.

“These ones ain’t into it,” he said. Then as Wax frowned, he continued, “Those other ones, the ones who came down first? They wanted us dead. They wanted to prove themselves. They wanted the fight. These poor sods? These are the last defense. And they ain’t into it.”

“You might be right,” Wax said. “But we have to keep moving. Telsin could initiate the launch at any moment.”

Wayne nodded.

Then he started shouting.

63

“Hey,” Wayne called loudly, his voice echoing in the marble room. “You all, out there? I know you!”

Wax gave him a glare, but Wayne ignored him. Wax knew a lotta things. But tonight the fellow had become Ruin incarnate. Wax wasn’t wrong. But he didn’t have to be right neither.

“I know you!” Wayne shouted, louder.

The hall fell quiet save for the clinking of weapons and the shuffling of feet. Wax glanced out from the side of the stone pillar, perhaps thinking he might use Wayne’s voice as a distraction. Wayne grabbed his friend’s arm, then shook his head.

“I know you,” Wayne continued loudly, looking up toward the ceiling. “Yeah. I know how you feel. You’re guards. Watchmen. Fellows what was hired to protect the building. You don’t know about this nonsense — about cities being destroyed, about dark gods. Sure, you seen creepy stuff, but you ain’t here for that. You’re here to put coin in your pocket the honest way.

“You were supposed to go home tonight. Hug your kids. Have a meal — maybe cold, but filling. You were supposed to go drinkin’ with buddies, or get a good night’s sleep for once.

“But now, here you are. Gun in hand. Wonderin’ how you got where you are. Sure, you’re only facin’ down two blokes. But you heard what happened below. Maybe just rumbles, but you heard. And you know there used to be a hundred or two actual soldiers between those two blokes and you. Now there aren’t any of them left.”

Wayne let that thought linger. The room had gone so quiet you could have heard a man cock a pistol from a hundred paces. Wayne squeezed his eyes shut, remembering. Feeling. Then he continued, softer.

“Yeah, here you are,” he said. “Your hand is slick on the grip of your gun. Your heart, it feels like it’s tryin’ to rip outta your chest and run away. But you think, ‘I ain’t got no choice. I signed up for this. I gotta shoot.’

“You’re wrong. You don’t hafta do this, mate. To hell with what you said you’d do. To hell with it all. You’re in the wrong spot, and you know it.

“There’s a door to your right. I don’t know where it goes, but at least it ain’t in here. In a moment, Dawnshot and I, we’re gonna come out killin’. If you stay and fight, maybe you’ll get lucky. Maybe we’ll kill you, and you won’t hafta spend the rest of your days feeling crushed on account of what you’ve done this night. Shootin’ lawmen, then hearin’ about an entire city bein’ destroyed — full of kids, and families, and men what just wanna live like you do.

“But maybe you won’t get lucky. Maybe you’ll actually pull that trigger and hit one of us. And if you do, it’s gonna be bad. Worse than bad. It will follow you your whole damn life.” He paused. “Anyway, I just wanted to say my piece. I hope there’s one that listened. When we come out, if you got your gun holstered and you’re makin’ for that escape route in the chaos … well, we ain’t gonna aim for you first.”

He looked at Wax, who pulled his bandage tight, then nodded back. He’d dropped the Big Gun; it was out of ammo. But he raised his regular revolver, armed and ready.

Sometimes you needed what he’d done. You needed a sword. But Wayne figured sometimes you needed something else. A shield? Or maybe that was too poetic. He didn’t know much about poetry.

Sometimes what you needed was a guy who had been there before.

The two ducked out from behind the pillar, weapons out, and saw a whole host of people pushing and scrambling to get through that exit. Wax lowered his gun, dumbfounded, and Wayne grinned as every damn person left. Sure, a few at the tail end glanced back — with concern, like maybe they were the guys in charge of this bunch and didn’t want to leave their posts. But when the army left you alone facing two trained Twinborn with notches in their stocks running to three digits …

In seconds, the marble entry room was empty. Wax shared a look with Wayne, then they walked to the large wooden doors at the far end and threw them open, to reveal a grand staircase leading up to some kind of ballroom with a skylight. Standing at the top were a man in a suit and a woman with a bowler hat, her head completely healed, flipping a dueling cane in one hand and trying her best — but failin’ somethin’ awful — to imitate a Wayne grin.

“These idiots again?” Wayne said with a sigh. “All right. I’ll tackle the one with the hat. You—”

“No,” Wax said softly.

“No?”

“No,” Wax repeated. “They were built and trained to defeat us. That man knows exactly how to hunt me.”

“So…” Wayne grinned. “I take the fellow, you take the woman?”

“Damn right,” Wax said, smiling. “Remember he’s a Leecher. Don’t get too close, or he’ll wipe out your Allomantic abilities.”

“Mate,” Wayne said, “I’m depending on it. Let’s do this.”

64

The Allomantic grenades in Marasi’s hands vibrated so powerfully, she thought they’d shake her flesh free of her bones. The Allomancers from the Community gathered around the edges of the glowing pool, which was rapidly vanishing — their hands thrust in to touch it, draw it in. Their skin glowed as they filled with power.

Marasi had waded straight into the middle. And she could feel those troops on the other side, in a place that was somehow distant and impossibly close at the same time. Waiting.

She needed this power gone. Now. Marasi continued to draw in strength, charging her grenades. She had no idea how much they could hold. She’d never had access to this kind of strength before.

“It’s too much!” a man cried. “What do I do with it!”

“Burn it!” Marasi shouted. “Use it!”

“For what?”

“It doesn’t matter!” Marasi yelled. “We only need to get rid of it!”

Bursts of emotional Allomancy washed over her as Armal used her powers to Riot. Metal in the radio room vibrated and ripped apart. The Allomancers in the room channeled every bit of energy they could.

The pool shrank further. Marasi thought — through the blasts of confidence Armal sent — that she could sense the troops on the other side getting agitated. Then she felt something different. Something emerging. They were coming through. She understood it in a flash — you had to want to come through the portal. To command it to let you through. They were beginning the process.

No you don’t, she thought. Then she dropped both her grenades, and used the same mental command to open the portal to them.

The movement on the other side stopped. Frozen in time as the Allomancers around her continued — wide eyed — drawing from the pool. Siphoning away the awesome power until, at last, the glow faded. The room was suddenly a normal ballroom again, with a hewn-out rock pit in the floor some three feet deep.

She was left with one final impression from the other side. Shock. Judging by how much energy she’d put into those grenades, it would be a while before the army discovered what had happened.

The other Allomancers slumped against one another, exhausted. She had never thought that using their powers would be so much work, but she felt wrung out as well. Not simply from what they’d done here — but from all of it, taking place in such a short time.

She limped to the edge of the pit and let them help her out.

“… Now what?” Armal finally asked.

“Now,” Marasi said, lying back on the rock, “we hope that my friends have had an easier time of it than I have.”

65

Figures, Wayne thought, dashing up the steps. Wax would want me to face the evil version of him. While he gets the easy job. My evil twin probably spent the afternoon drinkin’. She’ll be a snap. Especially since she’d gotten her face half blown off earlier in the day.

The steps led to a large ballroom, with red-carpeted floor and no furniture. A skylight kept out the mist above, but for the most part this was a wide-open room with high ceilings and no obstacles. No cover either. The two backed away a little as Wayne and Wax charged up the steps — Wax doing a steel-assisted flying leap at the end, because of course he did.

Wayne kept his eyes on the woman, pretending he was going to engage her. As soon as he drew close though, he broke to the left and tackled the Coinshot. The man cried out in shock as Wayne knocked them both to the carpeted floor.

Rusts. His cologne smells terrible.

The man scrambled to get free, but Wayne took hold of his suit coat and clung on. Wayne knew how to fight beside Wax, which translated into knowing how to fight against him. Gotta stay close to Wax, otherwise he’d do something smart, like fly up high and shoot you till you died of it.

The man grunted, trying to pry Wayne off, seeming baffled by the whole experience as they wrestled on the ground. Eventually he put his hand on Wayne’s face and Leeched him — the bendalloy in Wayne’s stomach vanishing.

Wayne grappled anyway, trying for a headlock, but the man was strong. Too strong.

“You know,” Wayne said, “you’re too handsome to be a copy of Wax. You oughta get a scar or something.”

The man tried to seize Wayne’s hand and pry it free, but Wayne let go with that hand — then grabbed the man with the other, grinning, staying close.

“You miscreant!” the man growled. “Go and fight Getruda, as is your task. I must prove myself against Ladrian!”

“Why?” Wayne said as he tried to get his arm around the man’s neck — but also palmed a bit of bendalloy and popped it into his mouth. “Why do you two have this freakish obsession with copying us?”

“Survival,” the man said with a grunt, “of those most worthy. Trell demands that her servants prove themselves. Against adversity. Against society. Against the roles we take. And when there are several who fit the same slot in life … well, only the strongest can survive and be rewarded.”

“Rusts,” Wayne said. “That is one of the most messed-up things I’ve ever heard, mate.”

Not-Wax pried Wayne’s fingers free with pewter-enhanced strength. “It is the way of Autonomy. To find our place in the coming pantheon of rulers, we must be the best versions of ourselves. It is not we who are copying you, but you who seek to take the places which are rightfully ours.”

Wayne shifted positions, but then felt something tremble on the front of the man’s coat. Wayne rolled out of the way as one of the man’s buttons — metal, evidently — burst free and shot off like a bullet.

“Damn,” Wayne said, rolling over. “Did you steal that button trick from Wax?”

The man stood, glaring at Wayne while pulling a gun from his holster.

“Of course you stole it from him…” Wayne said. “You really are tryin’ to become him. I thought you weren’t as freaky as the not-me over there, but you’re just more classy about it, eh?”

The man started firing, but Wayne tossed up a speed bubble. Anticipating the look of shock on the man’s face when he found out that Wayne still had his Allomancy, he repositioned.

* * *

The essential trick to defeating the not-Wayne, Wax knew, would be staying close enough to her that she couldn’t leverage her speed bubbles. So when Wayne broke left, Wax broke right, surprising the short, squat woman in the bowler hat.

“Oi!” she said. “That’s not fair! Fight someone your own size! Or at least your own stench!”

She tossed up a speed bubble moments before Wax drew close enough to be within its perimeter. From his perspective, she became a blur of motion. Fortunately, he’d worked with Wayne long enough to know what to do. He changed his trajectory and shot the floor with an ordinary bullet. As she came out of the blur, leaping for him, he Pushed himself out of the way to avoid getting hit by a dueling cane.

“Oi!” she said. “Stand in one place so I can clobber ya in a fair-type manner, ya rustin’ sod.”

“Is that the best you can do?” Wax said, backing away — dodging her strikes but staying close enough to be inside a speed bubble if she made one. “Really, I thought you’d be harder than this.”

“Stop quotin’ lines from your wife last night,” she snapped, “and fight me!”

She tossed up another speed bubble, catching Wax — but making it appear that Wayne and the Coinshot were frozen mid-conflict. Wayne was wrestling the fellow for some reason.

Whatever. Wax shot the woman as she drew close, but she barely flinched. She seemed to have a lot of health stored up — and that made sense if she’d begun preparing to fight him and Wayne years ago.

He jumped back, floating on a slight Steelpush to the perimeter of the speed bubble, where the air shimmered. He had to separate her from her metalminds. Wax clicked Vindication to a chamber with a hazekiller round, though she’d healed from the last one of those he’d hit her with.

Where to shoot her? He’d memorized the Hemalurgy book Death had sent them, but it would be hard to blast her spikes off her, as she would be wearing them deep in her core. Her healing power came from her metalminds though, and many surgeries embedded those in arms or legs. A pin through the arm bones was easier to recover from than one in the chest, and easier to swap out if required.

She growled and dropped the speed bubble, then attacked — clearly trying to get him to dodge too far out. But his years beside Wayne had given him a gut instinct for the precise distance to stay from her — which unfortunately meant he had to stay dangerously close to her attacks. During his next jump to get past her, he had to stay low enough that she was able to get a solid hit on his leg. It didn’t break anything thankfully, but rusts did it hurt.

She saw that and grinned wickedly. “Oh, that pain. That pain is delicious. Get in here. That was just an appetizer.”

* * *

Wayne stayed wary, putting up a speed bubble and watching the Coinshot try to take aim at him. That trick with the button worried Wayne. His remaining stored-up health would probably let him survive a hit or two, but not much more. He felt so exposed.

I have to watch out for that super-metal he has too, Wayne thought. Or … actually … that’s probably my best way of beating him …

After gauging the direction the man was swinging his arm as he aimed, Wayne repositioned and dropped the bubble. A series of bangs sounded as the man’s shots missed. Then Wayne dodged in from the other direction and tackled him again. This time the man managed to keep his feet.

Wayne grunted. “You know, Stinky — can I call you Stinky? — I can respect what you’re doin’. Gettin’ into a man’s head to figure out how to beat him? That’s good strategy. But…”

The man Leeched away Wayne’s bendalloy, then shoved Wayne off and started punching, his face turning red with anger. Wayne dodged the blows, then leaped forward and grabbed him yet again.

“But weren’t you worried?” Wayne continued. “About contamination? Wax, you see, isn’t a complete waste of a person. While you obviously are. So by pretendin’ to be him, you might have accidentally ended up doin’ something useful.”

The man growled, shoving Wayne aside, then fired a few shots. Wayne took one of those — ouch — but managed another hit of bendalloy. That was the key. People expected a man like him to run out of such an expensive metal.

But the fellow didn’t know. He wasn’t merely fighting Wayne the amiable miscreant. He was fighting Wayne Terrisborn, filthy rich snob with way, way too much money to burn.

“You know I can heal, right?” Wayne said after dodging back out of a speed bubble. “Shootin’ me is kinda stupid.”

“Not if it hurts,” the man snapped, though he stopped firing. Mistake that, lettin’ Wayne talk him out of it. He couldn’t know that Wayne was running low on health — but then in general, you beat a Bloodmaker by makin’ them use up their metalminds.

Instead, the man fished in his pocket and brought out a pair of what seemed to be aluminum handcuffs. Wayne swallowed a wisecrack. That … was actually a good idea. If he could grapple with Wayne for long enough to lock him to something, then get away, he could shoot Wayne full of bullets at his leisure. The only way out would be for Wayne to cut his own hand off.

As he was considering, the man gestured at Wayne with the cuffs — which he didn’t need to do, but Wayne could admire the nice pose — and released a terrible wave of Allomantic strength, one that ripped the carpet up by its staples and sent Wayne tumbling backward.

Rusts. Even his metalminds — embedded beneath the skin of his thighs — felt those blasts. Still, Wayne had been ready for it. So he pretended to be dazed, but instead watched keenly as the man covertly pulled an aluminum flask from his inner coat pocket and took a hit. Wax had said every time the fellow used that super-Push, he’d have to replenish his steel.

Now I know where you keep that flask, friend.

With another speed bubble, Wayne rushed in close. The man groaned as — once again — Wayne grabbed on to him.

“You annoying little prick,” the man snapped.

“Oh, mate,” Wayne said. “You sweet mama’s baby.” He pulled in closer. “You ain’t even begun to learn how annoying I can be.”

* * *

“I’m supposed to like the pain,” the woman said, circling Wax as they continued their dance — him trying to stay just far enough from her to avoid being hit, but not so far as to give her a chance to back up and make a speed bubble. “That’s something I didn’t know about him. Learned it recently, ya know? In the tunnel? He likes pain. I have to like pain. Enjoy fear. Savor misery.”

Wax didn’t reply, focused on keeping the right distance.

“Do ya know why?” the woman asked, feinting in, making Wax hop backward. “I didn’t at first. Freaked me out! I hadn’t seen that innim. More I thought though, the more it made sense. He must like the pain. Otherwise he’d have ended things long ago. It’s the only answer that makes any sense.”

She lunged, and he dodged a little too far, because she broke and threw herself the other direction, rolling to the ground and becoming a blur. Wax cursed, dancing away — noticing something from the corner of his eye that made him feel comfortable backing up. A moment later, his back pressed up against Wayne’s.

“So, how’re things?” Wayne said.

“Could be better,” Wax replied.

“I hear you,” Wayne grumbled, giving them a speed bubble. “Wanna try something new? Shake it up?” He waggled one of his dueling canes in his hand.

“Sure.”

Wayne tossed a dueling cane into the air, and Wax tossed him Vindication, loaded with aluminum bullets. “Ignore the hazekiller chambers,” Wax said, snatching the cane from the air. “Lever on the top activates those.”

The bubble dropped, and Wax met Getruda with dueling cane against dueling cane — a crack of wood nearly as loud as Vindication, as Wayne took a few shots at Dumad.

Wax smiled at the sound. It was in some ways silly to enjoy hearing his friend fire the gun. But it wasn’t the action that mattered. It was the wound that had finally healed.

Wax parried the next set of dueling cane blows. She was better than he was — but this change-up obviously had her confused. She started at him in a more defensive posture, and he was able to briefly fend her off, then deliver a strike on her thigh. Looking for where her metalminds were embedded deep under the skin, where Allomancers couldn’t interfere with them.

Not either thigh, he thought, hitting again. She, like Wayne, seemed not to mind the hits. Indeed, her eyes flashed with pain at each one, and her smile widened. At the same time, she didn’t have the wild sense of pleasure he’d seen from some who truly enjoyed pain. She was trying to brute-force train herself to think like she believed Wayne did.

In some ways, that was even more disturbing.

She eventually came in more aggressively, and after he took a hit on his side — one that might have bruised a rib — he forced himself to retreat. His arm was still aching from the shrapnel earlier, and rusts … he was beginning to wear out.

So when Wayne came past him, Wax tossed him the cane back and caught Vindication as Wayne threw it. He’d fired all but the hazekiller rounds.

“More dodgin’ and hittin’?” the woman asked Wax with a yawn. “I don’t really mind, as it’s fun watchin’ you squirm. But I would rather not waste all night.”

Wax needed to try something different. So with steelsight, he located a suitable piece of metal: a doorstop by a nearby door. He leaped over and grabbed it, then turned back as the woman came at him in a blur.

Time to try something old-fashioned.

* * *

Wayne landed another grapple on the Coinshot. The man had given up burning away Wayne’s metals, and tried something smart. He took to the air — forcing Wayne to hold on tightly as he dangled. The Coinshot fired into the skylight, then they smashed through into the dark misty air. As they did, a shard of glass sliced the fellow along the arm something fierce.

Huh, Wayne thought. Look at that.

The wound didn’t heal. He wasn’t a Bloodmaker. So there was some limit on the number of spikes the Set could stick inna person. Or maybe Trell/Telsin just didn’t want them to be so powerful they could challenge her.

Being in the air let Wayne control the fight far less; he really had to hold on, since if he dropped from up here — well, healing that would take basically all Wayne had. The need to hold on with both hands let the guy snap the handcuffs around one of Wayne’s wrists. Rusts.

Wayne did get a glimpse of the apparatus set up on the rooftop though, among the construction. It included a long, sleek weapon that looked an awful lot like … well, a sausage. And sausages looked like a fellow’s knob.

That had to be the rocket, and it hadn’t been launched yet, which was a very good sign. Wax’s sister stood there among some engineers, wearing jacket and cravat, the mists staying far away from her — like she had an invisible glass bubble. Her waiting with hands clasped behind her back, and staring off into the darkness … that seemed a bad sign.

The Coinshot let them go down lower, then used a Push off some apparatus to jerk them forward, then another Push sent them backward. The jarring motion dislodged Wayne, who dropped with a grunt of annoyance to the rooftop. Not far enough to need much healing, but still.

Damn, damn, damn.

Well, if the fellow was going to fight dirty, Wayne could do the same. Granted, Wayne would fight dirty anyway, but he felt better about it in moments like this. He ran toward the broken skylight, where hopefully he could drop down to help Wax fight Getruda.

* * *

Wax used the metal doorstop like a bludgeon, Pushing it at the woman. She dodged by instinct, as something that large would hurt more than a bullet.

Wax leaped over her as she rolled, then he Pushed the doorstop toward her again, hitting her in the arm and snapping bones.

She growled, agony breaking through her facade. It made her stumble and slow momentarily as she waited to heal — which let Wax reposition and shove the doorstop straight into her foot, shattering bones there too.

It bounced to the side, and he used a Push to soar in that direction, grab it, and shoot it again. By then she’d healed and managed to get out of the way — but this weapon made her keep dodging. Whenever she was distracted, or the bludgeon fell far enough away to be awkward retrieving immediately, he hit her with a bullet Pushed from his fingers. He didn’t pause to reload. He just kept beating her down.

Her quips trailed off. He grabbed a chunk of metal from the broken skylight and used that too. He kept throwing things at her, relentless, a flurry of steel she had to dodge, or be slowed by pain and healing. Soon she seemed more angry than anything else, and she kept trying to find a way to engage him directly.

Wax didn’t let her. He cut the woman on one side. Then the other. Then he delivered a bullet directly into her arm — and caught sight of a glimmer of metal. The wound healed over in a moment, but he knew what he’d seen. Her metalmind.

A second later, Wayne came thumping down from above, breathing heavily and muttering under his breath. Wax reached out and had his fingers in the right place to be inside the bubble when it appeared. Since any part of your body touching the perimeter would work to hold you in it, with that brush of the fingertips he was able to step in and join Wayne.

“Mate,” Wayne said, “fightin’ you is rustin’ hard.”

“Likewise,” Wax said.

“It’s fun though,” Wayne noted. “He’s real annoyed.”

“Well,” Wax said, “I’ll admit I’ve often wanted an excuse to shoot someone short, with an exaggerated accent, wearing a bowler hat.”

Wayne eyed him.

“It’s the oddest thing,” Wax said. “Can’t rightly say what causes it. Instinct, I guess.”

“I wear a coachman’s hat,” Wayne grumbled, shaking his hand — which had a handcuff on it. “It’s different.” He took a deep breath, then pointed toward the sky, where Dumad was hiding in the mists. “I need to draw him back down. Shall we?”

Wax nodded, and as the speed bubble dropped they both made for the woman. This drew the Coinshot’s attention, as he couldn’t afford to let his ally be double-teamed. He landed back on the carpet, then released a barrage of Pushed bullets. As he did, Wax tossed Wayne a chunk of metal, then used a careful Push to separate the two of them. The bullets soared through the space between them.

Wax turned back to the woman, as his Push had put him closest to her. She had healed from the hits she’d received, but she appeared to be slowing, gasping for breath, covered in sweat. He knew that feeling. He ached in a dozen places, and even the adrenaline from the fight was fading before the exhaustion of an entire day spent racing a deadline.

He raised Vindication, hazekiller round chambered.

“Can you at least tell me why?” he said. “Why are you so fixated on imitating him? This goes further than trying to know your enemy.”

She drew in a ragged breath. “You ever been nothin’, Dawnshot?” Before he could reply, she shook her head. “No. You’ve always been somebody. Had two names. Even when you ran, you still had the money … the knowledge … a life spent knowin’ that you were in charge of yourself. Running away was a luxury for someone like you.” She paused, flipping one of her dueling canes and catching it. “Well, we don’t all have that. Some of us, we take the chances we’re given. And becoming someone we’re not? Well, that’s temptin’.”

Wax kept the gun on her. “Walk away. I don’t know you, but I can promise you this: They’ve lied to you. Trell, the Set. They’ve lied. You are somebody. And someone out there misses you.”

She grinned. “They said you’d get into our heads. They said it! But see, I’m smarter than you think. I got into your heads first.”

She came running at him. Wax turned Vindication a fraction of a degree and pulled the trigger — delivering the hazekiller round into her right shoulder. The secondary blast came a moment later.

Ripping her arm clean off.

She lurched to a stop, gaping at the wound. It didn’t heal, as that arm had held the metalmind that stored her healing. She might have another metalmind elsewhere — having several was smart — but if so, he’d forced her to use enough healing to drain it. Because the arm didn’t heal.

The wound was gruesome, but not as bad as one might imagine. Head wounds bled a ton, but if you separated a limb … well, it was awful. Yet there was always less blood than he expected.

She looked to him, almost pleading, but kept running at him. So, with a sigh, he tossed a bullet in the air and delivered it into her head with a surgical Push.

Her body dropped. Wax sighed, feeling wrung out. Now … where had Wayne run off to?

* * *

The Coinshot raised his hand toward Wayne, preparing to do his trick with the super-Push again.

Wayne braced himself, then got pushed back into a heap, barely raising a speed bubble in time. He glanced up and saw a bullet inching through the air about a finger’s width from the edge of the bubble. He rolled aside as it broke through the barrier, deflecting in the process, and went zipping past him.

Right. Okay. He gritted his teeth and launched forward, dropping the speed bubble and charging the fellow. Not-Wax was expecting this, of course. Wayne had pulled this trick multiple times. The guy flung out some bullets, which Wayne dodged.

Resigned, not-Wax raised a hand to begin grappling Wayne.

Who hit him square in the face with a dueling cane instead, smashing his nose. The man cursed and backed up, bloodied.

“Yeah,” Wayne said, “that’s better. Not so pretty anymore.”

The man howled, raising his gun.

Wayne slapped the free side of the handcuffs down on the man’s wrist. The Coinshot, bleeding from both face and arm, gaped at this. Then, after letting out a howl of rage and frustration, he Pushed them into the air with a powerful force. Exactly as Wayne had hoped, though the force of the launch nearly ripped his arm out of its socket.

He dangled off the fellow, then grabbed on and climbed his body, holding his coat as they shot high, high, high into the air. Up through the mists in an incredible Steelpush, going many times the height Wax could have managed with the same metal. That super-metal — duralumin, it had been called? — was really something.

“You know,” Wayne said over the howling wind, “your problem is that you specialized too much!”

The man grabbed Wayne by the throat, no longer bothering with the guns. They continued to rise, then exploded from the top of the mists into a land bathed in starlight.

“You did everything you could to learn to fight Wax,” Wayne said, “but you didn’t train to defeat me. That says you’ve been too single-minded. You should pick up a hobby or somethin’!”

They finally crested the height of the Push and began to drop. As they hit the mists again, the man shoved Wayne free, leaving him to dangle by the handcuff. With his other hand, not-Wax reached into the inside pocket of his jacket.

He came out with a yellow handkerchief, a bunny sewn in the corner.

“I suggest,” Wayne called up to him, “taking up pickpocketing. It’s rusting useful!”

And with that, Wayne tossed the man’s aluminum flask full of metals away into the darkness.

The man watched it go, his eyes widening in horror. The wind picked up again as they fell. The man scrambled, searching his body frantically.

“No others?” Wayne shouted. “Too bad!”

Not-Wax reached for Wayne as the two of them plummeted, his eyes bloodshot and enraged. But fallin’, it happened fast. Faster and faster, the more you did it. Wayne had always wondered why that was.

“Hey!” Wayne shouted. “When you meet Death—”

They crashed through the skylight, then slammed to the floor with a crunch.

All went black.

A few minutes later, Wayne blinked open his eyes and groaned. The healing he’d stored had been enough. Barely. He rolled over and looked at the Coinshot’s crumpled, broken body.

“Aw, man,” he muttered. “We dropped too fast. I didn’t get to say my awesome line.”

He found the keys to the handcuffs in the man’s pocket, and unlocked himself. Ruin, his body hurt. He’d have bruises something fierce in the morning. The metalmind had repaired the worst parts first, and saved him from dyin’. But it hadn’t been enough for anything more than an economy-class-type healing, and now he was all tapped out.

“When you see Death,” Wayne said, kicking the corpse in the side, “tell him he owes me fifty clips.”

He wandered over to Wax, who had removed the metalminds from the disembodied arm of the woman who absolutely was not a clone of Wayne. Takin’ those out was smart. There were stories of Compounding Bloodmakers regrowing a whole damn body from a limb that got ripped off.

“We should remove their spikes too,” Wayne said. “Just in case.”

“Let’s stop the bomb first.”

“Your sister is up there,” Wayne warned. “With the rocket thing, ready to shoot off.”

“Right, then,” Wax said. They crossed the room to the skylight.

“Why’d you keep so close to fight?” Wayne asked. “You shoulda stayed up high. Best way to fight someone maybe a little like me, in purely superficial ways.”

“I couldn’t. She would have run out the time. I needed to stay in close, force her to engage me.”

Huh. Well, maybe both of them had wanted things personal this time. They positioned themselves in the center of the room, ready for Wax to grab ahold and launch them both up into the open skylight — toward the mist, which cascaded down like a ghostly waterfall.

But Wax paused.

“Mate?” Wayne asked.

Still staring up, Wax fished in his pocket, then brought out a small earring. Shaped like a bent nail. A religious icon for a Pathian, but to him, so much more.

He rarely put it in, except when he had to. Tonight he hooked it into his ear, and then he whispered something.

66

“I did my part,” Wax whispered. “I became your sword. I want you to do your part now.”

My part, Harmony said in his head, is to put you where you can—

“No,” Wax said, reloading quickly while staring up at the mists. “Not good enough. Not damn near good enough, Sazed. I can kill men. I’m far too good at that. But I can’t kill a god. If Autonomy intervenes, I will need you.”

Autonomy won’t intervene, he said. It’s not our way, as it exposes us. She has Invested your sister, but mostly to let Telsin communicate with her followers and visualize plans in greater complexity than an ordinary human. She will not fight you. You won’t win this next part with bullets.

“Can I kill Telsin?”

I’m counting on you trying to. But … I’m not certain. She might be so highly Invested that you can’t. If so, Telsin will die only if Autonomy withdraws her power.

“I’m still going to want your help.”

I—

“What can you do?”

I … I do not know. I can perhaps stun her. Briefly interrupt her Connection to Autonomy. Maybe.

“Be ready,” Wax said, raising his reloaded gun in one hand, then seized Wayne by the arm. Wayne nodded and held on. Wax Pushed off the nails in the carpet, sending them soaring up into the mists and onto the rooftop.

Wax felt better immediately, entering the mists. His fatigue washed away, his pains fading. The mist was something ancient, older than Harmony. It had seen the Ascendant Warrior and the Last Emperor stop the end of the world. It had seen the Lord Ruler rise before that, and protected — perhaps threatened — the world when it had been new.

You’ve done something to me, Wax thought at Harmony, nudging them to the side and landing on the roof. Odd things have been happening to me all day. Is it an aftereffect of holding the Bands?

No, Harmony said. It is something else. But it didn’t work as I’d hoped.

Mists wrapped around Wax as he walked across a cold rooftop to confront Telsin. Her eyes glowed bright red, painting the nearby mist bloody. It stayed away from her. The way a dog lurked outside the range of a man who had kicked it in the past.

“You’re right,” she said. “I have underestimated you.”

Wax stopped a distance away, Wayne at his side. Behind Telsin was a hulking contraption with the rocket on top. Hidden from sightlines below by the “construction” at the perimeter of the rooftop, it was bathed in floodlights. Engineers worked on it furiously, sparing him nervous glances.

“Wayne,” Wax hissed, gun trained on Telsin, “go help those engineers take a lunch break.”

“Gladly,” Wayne said, hurrying over. It didn’t take much work to get them corralled into a corner.

Wax stood there, gun on Telsin, feeling … unnerved. He’d made it this far. He’d found the rocket. This should be it, shouldn’t it? But what did he do now?

Don’t get blindsided again, he thought. Six years ago, she got the better of you. She must have something planned today too. Don’t fall for it.

“So,” Telsin said, her eyes glowing brighter, “here we are. Now you’re going to let me destroy Elendel.”

“Like hell I will,” Wax growled.

“What would you give up, Waxillium,” she said, “to save a planet? How many people are you willing to sacrifice to do what needs to be done?”

She stepped closer. He cocked Vindication, thrusting it forward. Rusts.

“Autonomy likes you,” Telsin said. “She called you a masterpiece. I disagreed, but here you are, and I find myself persuaded. Harmony knows he’s growing impotent, that Discord is near, and so he created you. A sword. Who can act when he cannot.”

She stepped closer, ignoring Vindication. And why shouldn’t she? Harmony had said the gun wouldn’t do anything. Her smile as she advanced reminded him of when she’d turned on him. Of how it had felt to be betrayed by his last living kin.

That moment. That terrible moment when he’d realized that by saving her, he’d not only gotten himself shot, but potentially gotten Steris, Marasi, and Wayne killed as well.

That horrible moment lived on. Like crystallized agony deep within him. One last tie to his old life. He needed to defeat that as much as he did her.

“Do you think Harmony could do it?” Telsin asked, gesturing to the rocket. “If this were the only way to protect the people of this world? Could he sacrifice one city to save the rest? Or would indecision freeze him? Like a constable on their first day on the job.”

Rusts. She didn’t seem the least bit concerned by their arrival. Something was wrong. Something was profoundly wrong.

“Well,” Telsin said, “I’m strong enough. I’ll see it done.”

Rusts, rusts, rusts. This was all wrong. A quiet conversation on a rooftop? A doomsday device apparently stopped? And yet Telsin was so rusting confident.

You’re not merely a sword, Wax, he thought. You’re a detective. That’s the life you chose. Be the person you decided to be. Not the one you’ve been assigned to be.

Wax focused his thoughts, pushing away the pain of betrayal. Think. You found those charts of launches. None of them could travel far enough. So …

He lowered his gun. “It doesn’t work.”

Telsin froze.

“The delivery device,” he said. “All this time, and it still can’t lift a bomb this big, can it? You’d have fired it by now if it could.”

Telsin shrugged.

The detective in him grasped for connections. If she legitimately thought that the world would end if she didn’t destroy Elendel, she’d have launched it anyway. On the hope that it worked. Because if she failed, everything ended anyway — so why not try?

Feeling cold, Wax raised his hand and increased his weight. Then he Pushed against the rocket. The whole construction collapsed, and the enormous weapon — the bomb — hit the rooftop with a resounding, hollow clang.

It was a decoy.

Telsin’s eyes went wide.

He turned and looked across the city, softly blanketed in mist, made indistinct — like a dream. Here in the mists he could think; he could make the connections that had eluded him all day. Where was the bomb?

They’d been planning this for years … waiting until the delivery device was ready. Building the launchpad high to give themselves the best chance. Those were the right threads. He’d followed the correct clues.

Problem was, in the end, they hadn’t been able to get it working. So when Wax had arrived earlier in the day, they’d panicked. They’d moved their bomb somewhere else. But where? Surely they weren’t going to deliver it by train or by road. Too obvious. Plus, he’d told Steris to close both routes into the city. So what? They had to move and install their bomb on a new delivery device. So …

The docks, Wax realized, pieces clicking into place. They were genuinely surprised when I located the tunnel from the mansion. Why put their lab out there near the docks, instead of secure in this tower or one of the caverns?

Because they had another delivery method, a backup. In case the rocket never worked. And when I arrived in town they acted, taking the bomb from here to …

He spun, searching the darkness, and somehow he was able to see through the mist. As if it thinned just for him. Distant, beyond the city, he picked out the trailing lights of something out on the open sea. An enormous warship, a Pewternaut-class vessel that had been docked all day. A show of force, he’d thought.

But also the fastest way to carry something large toward Elendel. A method that couldn’t be stopped by a railway or road blockade.

The bomb was on that ship.

“She thought you’d find it,” Telsin whispered. “I think she prefers you to me. I’m … not sure how I feel about that.”

Wax’s mind raced. How to stop it? He rushed up to the edge of the roof, looking between the steel rods of the construction facade.

“Wax?” Wayne asked, hurrying up. “Nearly gave me a heart attack when you toppled that bomb there. What’s going on?”

“The rockets never worked,” he muttered. “Not well enough.”

“Autonomy wanted to figure them out,” Telsin said. “Turns out advanced ballistics and self-propelled rocketry proved a little beyond our grasp. Curiously, with this power I can … see hints of what is to come. But the mechanisms? Well, that takes experimentation, learning, iteration…”

Rust and Ruin. He couldn’t reach that ship. It was already too far out in the ocean, far beyond what a Steelpush could manage. His anchor would give out, and he’d drop into the depths.

“… Mate?” Wayne said, worried. “Wax? What’s wrong?”

Could he get to Elendel fast enough? He doubted he could outpace that ship. And even if he could, what would he do when he arrived? The ship would almost certainly detonate the bomb as soon as it drew enough of the city into the blast radius.

“Oh, give it up, Wax,” Telsin said, stepping closer. “Admit that I’m right. Did you know, that’s the most infuriating thing? When we were young I’d invite you to join me, but you’d judge me instead. You always thought you were too good for me.”

He turned, surprised at the vitriol in her voice.

“I’ve hated you for decades,” she hissed at him, her eyes pulsing an even deeper red. “Because you could never just admit it. Well, today, I’m doing what has to be done. You’re going to watch. You’re going to weep. And I’m going to Ascend.”

How?

There had to be a way!

“A new world begins tonight,” Telsin said. “Emerging from Elendel’s smoldering ruin. The Basin will be devoted to a new god, one who isn’t weak. Isn’t divided.

“All day you’ve hounded me. But now you’re the one who is caught, and the ship is free. The bomb is on its way. You can’t stop it. Go ahead. Throw yourself into the night, Wax! You’ll end up swimming in the bay.

“Or maybe you’ll hurry to Elendel, to join everyone who will die in the blast. The bomb is rigged to blow if the ship is stopped or struck by weapons fire. It’s too late. I’ve won. I—”

Hit her, Harmony, Wax thought. Cut her off. Now.

Telsin gasped. She stumbled, the red glow to her eyes fading, her lips parting, and fell motionless to the rooftop.

Her body is pushed past its limits, Harmony told him. Waxillium… she’s being sustained only by the power. Get Autonomy to withdraw. Stop that ship!

Wax met Wayne’s eyes, which were pleading with him, worried. The answer. What was the answer?

Wax looked down through the broken skylight, where mist was pouring in like water into a drain.

He could barely make out a corpse below.

67

Steris stood at the central station, where people piled onto a train — a cargo train, as those could carry more people. She checked items off her list. Another district evacuated.

Broadsheets were getting wind of Steris’s efforts. Entire octants being evacuated? Mysterious gas leaks used as an explanation? People were fleeing by car in larger and larger numbers, but she’d planned for that. It was part of the evacuation projections.

She nodded to TenSoon, who came prowling up, still wearing the constable’s body. “Daal and the senators have fled the city. News that they are gone is spreading.”

“That’s troubling,” Steris said. “But inconsequential before our current need.”

His expression became distant. “Yes, but they took the Bands. I shouldn’t have brought them out, shouldn’t have let them go. I’ve been away from human politics for too long.” He looked at her. “I didn’t know, Steris. I didn’t know they had been drained. I feel we were played somehow. I don’t do … human very well anymore.”

“We will deal with the problem of the Bands,” she said, “if we have the luxury of surviving what is coming.”

He growled softly, but it seemed more like a sigh than a sign of disagreement. They both turned as Governor Varlance walked up, wiping his brow with his handkerchief. He’d begun the meetings today wearing white face makeup, but little of that remained, just some patches on his cheeks.

His presence lent a great deal of authority to Steris’s orders. People were comforted to see him, the governor, directing efforts. Simply by standing near her, he had probably saved thousands of lives.

It had proved difficult to keep him from talking and spoiling the effect by being … well, himself. “How are you doing?” she asked him, making a notation as another train chugged away. “Perhaps some more coffee?”

“No,” he said. “Thank you.” He paused and spoke more softly. “How many do you think we can save?”

“It depends entirely on how much time we have.”

“Assume there’s not much,” he said, his voice growing even more hushed. “Lady Ladrian, we just received a report from intelligence operatives in Bilming. Something has happened.”

She felt a coldness deep inside. “Artillery launch?”

“No,” he said. “Bilming has launched one of its warships toward Elendel. Full speed.”

A warship. She turned and waved toward Reddi, who was instructing his constables to keep lines organized as people were loaded onto the next trains.

He jogged over. “Bilming has launched a warship,” Steris said.

“A single warship?” Reddi said. “We can handle that, even without a navy of our own.”

“Indeed,” the governor said.

Only one ship? Going at full speed?

Oh no.

The answer was obvious to her.

“The ship is the bomb,” she said, her eyes wide. “Wax said he was going to try to interrupt the artillery launch. So they sent a ship instead, at full speed, laden with explosives.”

“Blessed Preservation,” Reddi whispered, then looked at the vast station still full of people. They, including the ones already evacuated, represented only a fraction of the city’s population. “Can we shell it?”

“And detonate the bomb?” Steris asked. “They wouldn’t have chosen this delivery mechanism if destroying the ship would stop the bomb.”

“So Dawnshot has failed,” the governor said, slumping to the side against a pillar. “Elendel is lost.”

“How long do we have?” Steris asked.

“At full speed from Bilming?” Reddi said. “Not long. Hours at most. Most likely less than that.”

“We can get away,” the governor said, “if we leave now. We have to get on this train!”

Steris stood there, numb. The other senators had already evacuated. They would rant all day that she was wrong, but when there was a whiff of actual smoke, they broke down the doors to flee.

But she knew. She knew.

She slammed her hand against her notebook, surprised at her forcefulness, causing the panicking governor to hesitate.

“That ship,” she said, “will not reach this city.”

“How do you know?” the governor said.

“Because my husband, Waxillium Ladrian, will prevent it.”

“And if he doesn’t?” the governor said.

Steris flipped through her notebook to the disaster scenarios she’d anticipated, landing on a specific page full of projections about the dangers of offshore earthquakes.

“He will,” Steris promised. “But we need to evacuate the region nearest the bay just in case. And prepare for the possibility of a tsunami.” She flipped to a map of the city, pointing. “We need these areas evacuated next in case the best my husband can do is detonate the weapon early.”

“But … if Dawnshot fails…”

“He will not fail,” Steris said. She took the governor by the arm. “I need your help. Don’t go. Stay. Be a hero, Varlance.”

“But…”

“My husband will stop the ship.”

“How do you know?” he asked. Nearby, one of the trains let out a jet of steam, and last call was shouted. Governor Varlance took one step that way, but then looked to her.

“Some things,” she said softly, “cannot be planned for in life. I struggled to learn that, Varlance. But there is one thing I’ve learned that is true: No matter what else happens, Waxillium Ladrian will get wherever he needs to be. Somehow.”

68

Marasi undid the final latch and heaved open the heavy metal hatch. Her arm and leg still ached, but she’d overcome her immediate exhaustion.

No army had appeared. The soldiers in Wayfarer, with Entrone captured, had backed down. Most everyone else — by the lord mayor’s orders — was confined to quarters.

Everyone was waiting to see what happened next.

“We should have known,” Armal whispered from lower on the ladder. “This much metal, by their own admission, would have drawn their ‘mutants.’ This hatch was never to lock them out, but to lock us in, so we could never visit the observation room unsupervised.”

Marasi climbed up into the observation chamber, which was indeed different from the projection room she’d visited earlier in the day. This one was a simple round room with one flat wall — the “window” that displayed a destroyed city and falling ash. Apparently opening the hatch triggered the system.

Knowing what she did, Marasi could see the flicker of the image as proof of its fake nature — but to someone who had never encountered anything like it, it would be astonishingly convincing. Somehow appearing on the back wall without the projector streaming light through the room in a way that could be interrupted.

Marasi helped Armal and the others up through the hatch. The four were immediately transfixed by the image. In the next room they found the projector — set up to shine onto the back of a sheet and create the image in the main room.

As the four former captives inspected the equipment and put their hands between it and the sheet, Marasi found and opened another small door — one to the outside. It let the mists pour in, revealing that they were in a small, nondescript building in a warehouse district. The door looked out onto a street — and a good portion of the city was visible beyond, twinkling with electric lights.

Armal and the others gathered around her, staring. Marasi could only imagine their emotions. They’d believed her enough to fight Entrone and the Set, but seeing this … knowing what had been stolen from them …

“I’m sorry,” Marasi said. “I—”

“Have you appreciated it?” Armal whispered.

Marasi frowned as the woman regarded the city.

“These seven years,” Armal said. “Have you used them? Have you appreciated them? I spent them wishing I could have even one more day of my old life. That I could show my children a world of lights and life, instead of stone and shadow. Please. Tell me you lived those years of freedom.”

“I…” Marasi said.

Had she? She had spent much of that time with Allik, and that had been wonderful. And she’d accomplished much in her career. But was it what she wanted, ultimately?

Or, was it all she wanted?

She’d seen and learned so much. And yet … these poor people, kept in the shadows. How much sooner could they have been saved if Moonlight and her people had been more forthright with what they knew? Marasi and the Ghostbloods had been working toward the same goal for years, and she had never known it.

People suffered when the truth became a commodity to be speculated upon.

For now she looked up — peering through the mists, toward some spotlights shining high above. Was that … the top of the Shaw in the distance? Lit up so it blazed in the mists like some kind of mythical beacon?

As she watched, something flashed there, and the lights — in an explosion — went out.

69

It had taken Wellid far too long to decide he hated the ocean.

He had volunteered for this duty — sailing the Pewternaut A16 from Bilming to Elendel — because he’d figured it would be the safest. On a giant ship made of steel? The biggest the world had ever seen? Protected by the thick hull from enemy bullets?

He figured that at least — once the war started — he’d be aboard the most indestructible ship ever built. Yes, they were going to engage Elendel, but he’d prefer that to being in Bilming where that crazy lawman swooped around.

But now here he was, the familiar glow of Bilming retreating in the distance. Ordered to keep watch on the deck as they steamed across the choppy waters. Keep watch for what? There was nothing out here but churning froth and mist. They were even cutting lights on the ship, now that they were out of the bay and beyond any other vessels they might hit.

He’d thought that sailing out on the ocean would be serene, but not tonight. The crash of waves, the thrum of engines. And other … phantom noises from out there somewhere. Splashes that didn’t match the flow of the water. Distant screeches that might have been gulls. Only what gull screeched at night?

Spooked by the sounds, he slid open the hood on his lantern. Unfortunately, that just lit up the mists — making a blazing halo around Wellid. He couldn’t make out much of the waters; the ship’s deck was pretty high up in the air. When he’d signed on, he hadn’t realized how intimidating it would be to look down. It was like he was atop a three-story building, the water all the way below.

“What are you doing?” a harsh voice said from behind. Gabria? The more senior sailor took him by the arm and quickly closed the lantern’s hood. “Didn’t you hear the order? Once we’re out of the bay, we’re running dark. Do you want Elendel to be able to target us?”

“I thought I heard something,” Wellid said, prying his arm free. “I’m on watch. Aren’t I supposed to watch for things?”

“If you hear something suspicious,” she said, “report it. Don’t open your lantern unless absolutely necessary. Didn’t you listen to the briefing?”

“Sure I did,” he said. Though his mind did tend to wander.

“Why are you wearing a life jacket?” she asked. “That wasn’t ordered.”

“I want to be safe,” he said. “Hey, Gab? What are you going to do with your reward?”

With the lantern shielded, he couldn’t see her in the darkness. But she seemed to stare at him for an uncomfortably long time. Was he missing something?

“Reward?” she said.

“Sure,” he replied. “The great reward we were promised. For this mission?”

“Wellid, what do you think we’re doing?”

“Delivering a payload,” he said. “To Elendel. It’s a weapon, right? We drop it off, then we get out of there?”

Another uncomfortable pause. “Yes,” she said. “Get out of there. That’s right. But I’m not doing it for the reward.”

He should have expected that. The others, well, they were all a little bit more … diligent about all of this. Trell. The impending war with Elendel. They’d have probably volunteered for this mission even if it hadn’t been aboard a giant indestructible warship.

“Keep that lantern shielded,” Gabria said, “and fetch me if you hear or see something suspicious. Credibly suspicious.”

She stalked off across the deck, leaving him alone with the cold mists and indifferent waters. He was supposed to patrol, but they hadn’t given him a specific route. So after listening to those waves, and feeling like he could hear the darkness watching him, he walked in the direction Gabria had gone. Logically he’d need to stick close to–

What was that?

That thump against the hull surely hadn’t just been his imagination. He was near the back of the ship — um, the aft of the ship, sir — and the sound had come from farther along. He inched forward, wielding his lantern in a shaking hand. Even shielded, it let out a tiny bit of light. Letting him better make out the ship’s back railing.

That noise was nothing, he told himself forcibly. You heard things in the mists. Everyone knew that. He shouldn’t say anything, because Gabria had–

A hand reached up from the darkness below and seized the top bar of the railing. A shape followed, pitch black, vaguely human, heaving itself onto the deck. It had tentacles waving behind it, a hundred of them curling like the mists. In that shadow, Wellid saw a misbegotten shape. A thing that wasn’t human, a thing that couldn’t be human. The mists seemed to know this, for while they played with the waving tentacles, they stayed away from the figure. It repelled the mist.

It was a mistwraith, Wellid knew. A terror from the deep, a relic of ancient times. A thing of stories and legend come to claim his soul.

He found his voice and screamed. With fumbling fingers, he threw open the shield on the lantern, bathing the deck in light. Revealing …

A man. Tall, with prominent sideburns, his vest and cravat peeking from underneath a thick duster — mistcoat tassels spraying out behind him in the wind.

Dawnshot was here. On the ship.

Gabria spun from farther down the walkway. “Wellid, why—” She cut off immediately, seeing Dawnshot there. She gaped long enough for a second man to climb up over the railing, land with a thump, then pull on a damp bowler hat.

“No!” Gabria finally said. “How?”

Dawnshot flung wide his mistcoat, revealing what had been obscured before: a large metal spike protruding from his lower chest, where it had been pounded right through his clothing to pierce him directly between two ribs.

* * *

Slowly, awareness returned to Telsin.

She found herself on the rooftop, near her failed decoy. Even before Wax’s arrival, she’d been worried. Autonomy’s deadline was today. Maybe she could have gotten more time — made the rocket work — except … except for him.

She growled softly and rolled over to find one of the engineers shaking her arm. What had happened? Her Investment from Autonomy should have prevented a blackout like that. She felt … wrung out. Her core cold, her arms sore from scraping the rooftop, her skin clammy. Rusts. She felt practically mortal again.

What is happening? she asked Autonomy.

You, the distant — too distant — voice said, are failing me.

No. The bomb is being delivered! I’m … I’m …

For the first time, she took in the wreckage around her. A broken rooftop. Bent steel girders. A smashed remnant of her missile-launching construction.

“What … what happened?” she hissed.

“They took spikes from the bodies,” the woman said, pointing. “Ordinary ones, not made of your metal. But one granted … duralumin.”

No.

Telsin heaved herself to her feet and stumbled to the edge of the building to stare out over the bay. The force of Wax’s Push had bent and crushed the very underlying girders of the skyscraper here, leaving the rooftop cracked and sloped.

Your failure begins, Autonomy said, voice increasingly distant. You are not worthy.

The fire inside Telsin died. The power that had for so many months warmed her was leeching away. Her skin began to turn grey.

No! she thought. No! The bomb cannot be stopped. If they interfere, they will destroy themselves and the city. Potentially both cities. Rusts.

We … shall see …

Telsin gasped and fell to her knees, trying to reassure herself. It was just Wax. He’d been an annoyance since childhood, but he’d never actually interrupted anything she’d set in motion. Honestly, he probably hadn’t even reached the ship. A jump like that was nearly impossible, and his aim wasn’t that good.

Was it?

* * *

Wax downed a vial of metals from his belt, replenishing his steel. That jump had been incredible, with Wayne on his back, a flash of rushing wind and power reminiscent of holding the Bands of Mourning. He had barely made it to the ship after slowing their final approach with Allomancy — eventually landing them near some portholes a few feet below the open deck. He expected to get an earful for making Wayne climb the rest of the way.

A sailor reached for her gun, and Wax for his own. But before either of them could draw, Wayne flung a handful of bullets into the air and Pushed them to streak through the air, dropping the woman.

“Ruuusts,” Wayne said. “Is that what it’s always been like for you? That was so easy!” Wayne eyed him. “Gotta be honest, almost ruins your reputation, mate. If people knew how easy bein’ a Coinshot was, they’d all stop talkin’ about how great you are.”

Wax shook his head, pointing Vindication at the second sailor — the trembling one holding up the lantern. Wayne had of course insisted on a spike for himself. Ruin. Wax hoped what they’d done hadn’t been too blasphemous.

No, Harmony’s voice said in his head, not blasphemous, Waxillium. More … a sense of industrious recycling.

“Good to know,” Wax muttered.

I cannot see where the bomb is, Harmony told him. I can see only what you do. I didn’t know the ship was the delivery mechanism — but I am afraid the device will have redundancies and dead man’s switches. Take care. We cannot afford to detonate it by accident. I fear that even at this range, it would be deadly to many innocent people.

Strange. He’d come all the way around to finding God’s voice in his head comforting again.

Wayne seized the fellow with the lantern by the arm, holding tight and staring him in the eyes — though the man didn’t seem to need any further intimidation.

“The bomb,” Wax said. “Where is it?”

“The … the payload?” the man stuttered, then pointed to a nearby door. “In the munitions hold. A-all the way down. Follow the red lines painted on … on the walls.”

Wax shared a glance with Wayne, then nodded.

“You can’t go inside!” the man said. “The weapon is fragile and might explode, so only the experts are allowed to touch it! You’ll blow up the entire ship!”

“Then mate,” Wayne said with a drawl, “I suggest you find a way to not be on the ship anymore. Real fast.”

Wayne let go. The nervous fellow glanced from Wax to Wayne, then — with a sense of panic — threw himself off the ship into the churning waters below, taking his lantern with him and leaving the two of them in darkness.

“Damn,” Wayne said. “I meant for him to find a lifeboat or somethin’.”

“The people on this ship are going to be zealots,” Wax said. “Considering they’re on a suicide mission.” Shouts from farther along the deck, including other lanterns being unshuttered, indicated that someone had noticed what was happening.

With increasing urgency, Wax led the way to the metal door the man had indicated. A Push slammed it open, revealing a stairwell to the decks below. He surprised several sailors coming up, armed with rifles. They didn’t get a chance to fire before Wax dropped them. He then soared to the landing. This entire ship was metal — steps included. It made for some easy–

Wayne crashed down beside him, thanks to a maladroit Steelpush. He scrambled back to his feet.

“That part’s harder than it looks,” Wayne admitted. “You sure you got my spike in the right spot, mate?”

“I studied the Lord Mistborn’s book thoroughly over the years, Wayne,” he said. “If I’d placed the spike wrong, you’d be in an extreme amount of pain.”

Wayne grunted, then grabbed one of the rifles from the fallen sailors. He nodded to Wax, and — despite calling for the sailors to surrender — they had to shoot a few on their way down. Following the red lines, they reached a small hold labeled MUNITIONS DUMP.

Someone really ought to explain, Wax thought, unlocking the door and slipping the key into his pocket, that leaving a guard outside with the key is a terrible practice. He stepped over the body of the guard and joined Wayne inside the room.

It was square, perhaps thirty feet across, and had three very large barrel contraptions — covered in wires, maybe five feet tall — near the center, spaced about five feet from one another. There was another device on the far wall, also rigged with wires — these leading to the three barrels. There were no obvious timers, control panels, or anything of the sort. It was, frankly, baffling.

“Careful, mate,” Wayne said as he inspected the contraption. “Be real careful.”

“It’s some kind of dead man’s rig,” Wax said. “These three barrels are the explosive devices, each with its own power source. Disarm one, and it will send a signal to detonate the other two via that contraption on the wall. Wayne, tell me you still have those schematics.”

“Course I do,” Wayne said, digging in his pocket. “Got lots of interesting stuff in here.” He pulled out the schematics Wax had given him, then spread them out on the floor.

You are right, Harmony said in Wax’s head, processing the information far faster than he could. Actually, it’s worse than you think. The control device is sending a pulse every twenty seconds to the three barrels, telling them not to detonate. If that stops, they’ll go off.

That is combined with a dead man’s rig. If something happens to one of the bombs, the other two will detonate. Even if we had three people, one disarming each barrel at the same time, it wouldn’t work. The timing is too precise for humans. You’d end up detonating two of the bombs.

“How much destructive power are we talking about?” Wax asked, folding out the bomb schematics. “What if we set a charge, get out of here, and let it blow in the middle of the ocean?”

Waxillium, Wayne … Harmony said, and Wayne perked up, apparently hearing the conversation too. This is a new kind of explosive — the direct transformation of matter into energy. I don’t think Autonomy or her agents understand how destructive this is. Looking at this, and how much metal they’ve used, I suspect they severely underestimated this bomb’s power.

If we were simply talking about harmonium blowing up when combined with water, then yes: you could detonate it safely out here in the ocean. But a blast caused by splitting harmonium with trellium … My friends, I have no idea how much power that would release. I can’t exactly be sure what will happen if something this powerful is ignited. It could set the very atmosphere ablaze.

If not, it would potentially vaporize not just Elendel and Bilming, but many cities nearby as well. Your sister is desperate, and Autonomy is callous. I doubt they tested anything on this size or scale in those caverns. We can’t let this explode. But … I also can’t see a way to disarm it.

Wayne whistled softly. Wax carefully backed away, not touching any of the wires. The only safe thing to do would be to get this ship — and everything it contained — as far from civilization as possible.

“So,” Wayne said, “guess we get to steal a ship, eh? That’s new.”

70

Steris didn’t have nearly enough time.

But she had learned, from both accounting and contracts, never to be overwhelmed by scale. Dealing with sums of money in the millions didn’t make a thousand boxings less valuable. In a similar way, being unable to completely evacuate the city — or even a region of it — didn’t lessen the value of a single life.

So she left Constable-General Reddi to handle the main evacuation and hurried with the governor to the city docks. Her master plan included these people leaving via boat, which meant tons of people now crowded the docks. If that bomb exploded nearby, all of these would be in serious danger. In addition, she worried about flooding. She knew only a little regarding this possibility from the studies she’d read — but that was enough to make her alarmed.

She had to rectify this miscalculation. Get as many people away from this region as she could. The governor took command of the dockworkers via their foremen. Following her instructions, he sent them to begin wrangling people for a retreat farther into the city.

Steris set her notebooks out by a lantern on a workman’s desk, sitting beneath the dark night sky, on the road above the bay, worried about her low resources in this region.

“Steris Ladrian?” a voice said from behind her.

She turned to find a group of eight men and women in nondescript clothing. “We were told,” said the man at their lead, “you could use our help.”

“Did the governor recruit you?” she asked.

“Actually—”

He was interrupted as Governor Varlance came jogging up, followed by several workers.

“You,” Steris said, ripping out a page and thrusting it toward one of the men. “Train conductor? I need all of these people gathering here inside those cargo trains. You,” she said, pointing to another. “Crane operator, right? I need those cargo bins moved into positions blocking the streets here, arranged to stem and slow a flood of water, in case of a tsunami.

“Construction workers, congratulations. You’re now constables. Wear your brightest hats and vests and get the people from these three sections moving inland away from the docks. I’ve outlined a route for you. You won’t get far, but putting buildings between you and the ocean is essential.

“Dockworkers, I need ropes. As many as you can find. We’re going to make stable anchor points where we can start human chains to grab anyone who might be swept away if there’s a flood. Hurry! Our primary concern is a blast out in the bay. Our secondary concern is flooding.”

The majority of the foremen ran off through the mists, calling for their crews. It was rather fulfilling how alacritously they obeyed. She wasn’t accustomed to people simply doing what she said; in the past they’d always needed a great deal of persuasion.

“I’ve noted the structures I believe are strong enough to withstand a blast or flood,” Steris said to the governor. “We should evacuate people in this region to the middle floors, congregated away from windows.”

“This…” the governor said, looking over the plans. “This is incredible! Why haven’t you shared any of this?”

“It’s mostly done for my own amusement,” Steris admitted. “Or my own anxiety.”

“What a waste,” he said, picking up one of the sheets. “I thought your evacuation plan was exhaustive, but this is even more so. It’s brilliant. You have detailed plans like this for other disasters?”

“Only fires, earthquakes, hurricanes, sudden invasions, dust storms, droughts, food shortages, and mass pipe breakings. There are seven more I want to get to.”

He stared at her, his eyes wide, several of the remaining officials gathering around and nodding as they looked over her maps, instructions, and plans. “Your talents,” the governor whispered, “have previously been wasted, Lady Ladrian.”

What … What was this emotion?

Feeling appreciated? She’d felt appreciated before by Wax, yes, and occasionally Marasi. But to see it in the eyes of virtual strangers, to have her overplanning seen as a talent, not a bizarre character flaw …

By the Survivor. This warmth inside. She’d always said she didn’t care what people thought of her. And she’d worked hard to build that bubble around herself, a protection against the way she was normally treated.

But this … this was a remarkable feeling. Was this what it felt like to be proud of who you were? Instead of worried you were embarrassing those around you?

Miraculous.

“What is next?” the governor asked. “What else can we do?”

“I want to sink those ships,” Steris said, pointing to the large cargo vessels out in the bay that were waiting to be called in to receive passengers. “After bringing their sailors in safely first, of course.”

“Excuse me,” one of the remaining foremen said. “Sink them?”

“I think it might slow the water,” Steris said, “in case of a tsunami. You read what happened to the island of Alicago three years ago? No? Well, anyway, think of speed bumps. Large cargo ships on the surface will glide over the water, or worse be carried with it and slammed into people on the docks. Scuttled on the bay’s floor though, they’ll create drag and slow the force of the wave if one comes.”

Again, instead of objecting or complaining, the foremen simply accepted her explanation — and her orders. Only one seemed concerned. He hesitated as the others began to move off.

“What is it?” Steris asked.

“His Honor the governor,” the man said, “told us there wasn’t much time left. To get those ships sunk might take hours, ladyship. We’ll have to take tugs out to them — not many of the cargo ships have radio yet — and then explain to the captains, probably fight them on it. Then the scuttling process … it’s not as easy as it sounds. I’d guess four, five hours to get this lot sunk. At least.”

Rusts. Well, that wouldn’t work.

Someone cleared their throat behind her. One of the eight people who had approached her first. Oh, right — she still didn’t know who had sent them, or even who they were.

“Perhaps we can help,” the man in the lead said. “You are certain this is legal? The mass sinking of private ships?”

“Yes,” the governor said. “On my authority. If we are so fortunate as to have overreacted, the city will pay for the losses incurred by the ship captains.”

“Ohhh…” Steris said, leaning toward him. “Varlance, that sounded positively heroic.”

“Really?” he asked, eager. “Heroic?”

“Decisive,” she said. “Very leaderlike.”

Nearby, the leader of the eight people nodded to her, then launched into the air.

Oh! Allomancers. She had all the official ones working on the main evacuation. But having these to sink ships would certainly help. And then she could use them to help carry the injured or infirm away with Steelpushes.

The others followed one at a time, until only one remained. He nodded to Steris, and on the back of his hand — mostly obscured — she saw a red tattoo.

“Your sister,” the man said, “sends her regards.” Then he launched after the others.

That was the last of the meaningful actions Steris could take. From here, she could only make certain her plans were being executed. Everything else rested on Waxillium. None of this would matter if that bomb reached the city.

You’d better be on that ship, Wax, she thought.

71

Clearing the ship proved to be an ordeal. Even worse than that time Wax had decided to teach Wayne “the value of hard work” by making him muck out a stable all on his own. Yeah, he’d learned the value of hard work — it turned out to be three clips. Least, that was what Jeffy had charged to do the job for Wayne.

This time, there was nobody else to do the job. After locking the door to the room with the bomb, they set out to take control of the ship. Wayne kept the key in his pocket, in case Wax had to face another Coinshot.

They didn’t meet any. The ship had only a skeleton crew; seemed they’d saved most of their troops to protect the Shaw. It took some time to fight their way to the bridge regardless, given the need to check every corner and flush out people trying to ambush them. Wayne thought every crew member on board had been mustered to try to stop them.

When, half an hour or more later, Wax finally Pushed down the reinforced door to the bridge, they found a disturbing sight. Four people — three women and a fellow — dead on the floor from self-inflicted gunshots. All wore officers’ uniforms. They’d killed themselves rather than fall into custody.

“You know,” Wayne said, shouldering his rifle, “I thought the weird ones would all be in the Roughs, you know? City folk, they were supposed to be educated. And … and refined. And not bleedin’ zealots.”

Wax checked the bodies to be sure, then stepped up to the ship’s front controls. They were a confusing mess of levers, along with a giant ship’s wheel that appeared to have been locked in place. The ship was still moving at full speed through the mists, and rusts. Wayne thought he could see the glow of Elendel on the horizon. They were getting close.

Wax stopped at the controls, then cursed softly.

“What?” Wayne said.

“It’s wired to the same system,” Wax said. “Harmony? Can you confirm?”

Yes, unfortunately, the god said. With you to give me sight, I can see that it’s wired into the bomb.

“If we undo the locks on the controls, it blows,” Wax said. “I should have foreseen this. We wasted time coming up here.”

“But—” Wayne said.

“It makes a brutal sense,” Wax said. “They guided the ship here, then locked the course down before killing themselves. The thing will explode the moment it stops — as soon as it hits land. We’re not on a traditional ship. This is a rocket, like the one they built to fly to Elendel. Self-propelled. Needing no controls. Set to detonate the second it hits.”

“Mate,” Wayne said, pointing out the front windows. “I see lights.”

You have approximately twenty minutes, Harmony said softly, at current speed.

“We have to risk trying to defuse the bomb,” Wax said, rushing out onto the deck.

Wayne scrambled to follow, tripping on bodies. “Wait! You said that if we tried, we’d almost certainly blow the thing!”

“Do you have a better idea?”

“Maybe,” Wayne said, halting beside the railing — mists coursing past like a river in the sky.

Wax froze, turning back to him.

Did Wayne have a better idea?

Actually … actually he did. He looked out at the ocean and realized something. This ship here … well, this was a lot like a lone mesa. It fit way better than the Shaw had. Yes, a solitary mesa in the middle of flat lands …

And it needed to gobble up the hero.

“You said that this bomb,” Wayne said, “it blows up big if detonated proper. But one part of it is ettmetal, right?”

“Harmonium,” Wax said. “Yes. And?”

“And that stuff is so unstable, it blows up if water touches it. Except in a smaller explosion? One that won’t level cities and such?”

“It’s still bad,” Wax said. “But not catastrophic. But if we fiddle with one of the devices by pouring water into it to detonate the ettmetal, the others will simply go off.”

“Unless,” Wayne said, “we were using a speed bubble. See, there’s that device on the wall, right? And if we fiddle with one of the bombs, it’s going to detonate the other ones?”

“Right,” Wax said.

“So, what if we put up a speed bubble that leaves out the device on the wall? We could work on one of the barrels, detonating the harmonium in it so the real explosion can’t happen. We set that explosion off, then kick that barrel out of the speed bubble. It’ll send a warning to the other two barrels, but that signal will have to pass along the wires outside the speed bubble, to reach the box on the wall. So the signal will be frozen in time and can’t come back! We could work on the other barrels during that time.”

“Wayne,” he said, “do you have any idea how quickly electricity moves? Even assuming you could do something incredible — like speed up time by a factor of a thousand — that wouldn’t be nearly fast enough to outrun an electrical signal.”

Oh.

Wait, Harmony said to them. This could work. I have a way. Wax, I gave you a vial with a red cork.

“I have it,” Wax said, fishing in his sheath of metal vials. He frowned, and came out with … a handkerchief.

“Barely used,” Wayne said.

“Wayne…”

Wayne grinned and handed Wax his rifle, then fished in his pocket. “I thought it needed to be somewhere safe. So I made a nice little trade.”

“Harmony,” Wax said, “if you can make this work, it will still detonate the ship, right?”

Yes.

“Wayne,” Wax said, “… setting off the smaller explosions would kill everyone in that room. An ettmetal blast like that isn’t something you survive, even if you had full metalminds.”

“Ah,” Wayne said as the ship hit a wave, water spraying up along the side. “I’d figured out that part. I just needed to know if the idea worked. And I needed to confirm one other thing.”

“Which is?” Wax said.

“That the plan doesn’t need you, mate,” Wayne said, and he Pushed. Shoving Wax — via the barrel of the rifle he was holding — outward off the ship and through the mists. Wayne felt real proud of that Push. He did it like Wax did, crouching down first to give it a little lift.

His friend gave him a look of outrage … and maybe regret … as he vanished into the misty darkness over the waters.

“Land safely, mate,” Wayne whispered. “And survive.”

He tipped his hat, then pulled out the red-corked vial. “What the hell is this, anyway?”

Earlier in the week, you all conducted a test, Harmony said. Splitting harmonium.

“Same test our enemies have done a hunnerd or more times.”

Yes, but this one was different. I have no idea what happened, but Wax did something different from everyone else trying this. Because he didn’t merely blow up the room. He created something. Something amazing.

Wayne held up the vial, staring at the metal dust settled at the bottom.

That, Harmony said, is the faintest bit of lerasium, Wayne. A metal from legend. A metal found by Vin at the Well of Ascension, and used to make Elend Venture a Mistborn. A metal that hasn’t existed for centuries, and as far as I know, hasn’t been made in millennia. Drink that vial and you’ll be a Mistborn, able to use all of the metals. There’s a little of each one in there.

“Why didn’t you have Wax drink it earlier?”

I don’t want to reveal this happened, as I don’t know why or how. I don’t know what he did. Besides … he might have already had a dose, inhaled during the explosion.

Huh. That explained a few things.

Wayne knocked back the vial. Then he waited. Nothing happened.

“That’s anticlimactic,” he muttered.

You have to burn the lerasium, Wayne.

Oh, right. He searched, and found a new metal reserve. Neat. He reached out and burned it.

A flash of light.

A fire in his veins.

A feeling like a kick to the face.

Damn.

“How does this help?” he asked.

You can now burn duralumin.

“That fancy metal that not-Wax was using to make those big Steelpushing explosions?”

Exactly.

“I don’t need to Push though.”

Wayne, using duralumin burns all the metals in you at once. Every single bit. The more you have, the more powerful it is. It doesn’t just work on steel. It works on any Allomantic metal.

Wayne paused, the ship rocking, then whistled softly, understanding. “You mean…”

How much bendalloy do you have left?

He fished a pouch out of his pocket.

Hmm. Maybe enough to—

Wayne fished another pouch out of his other pocket.

Okay, and—

And the pouch in his sock. Uncomfortable, but handy.

Wayne, how many pouches do you have?

“Seventeen,” he said. “I’m a fancy rich guy now. Will that be enough?”

Oh, Wayne. Yes. I think it will.

Wayne turned and took the steps down at extra-fast speed — grabbing a canteen off one of the corpses. He swallowed mouthfuls of metal beads on his way, stuffing himself with bendalloy. Echoing noises warned him about sailors trying to break into the room to detonate the bomb, but they didn’t have a key. He dealt with both men, then burst back into the room. Electric lights flickered on the walls, and he could hear the chugging of the engines somewhere farther inside the ship.

… And suddenly he wasn’t alone. A figure — mostly transparent — stood beside him, a tall bald man. Terris. And another darker fellow stood behind him. Not in the skin tone sense or anything. Like … this other one was a shadow. It mimicked Harmony as he held out his hands to Wayne.

“I knew,” Harmony said softly, “that I had to bring Wax to Elendel. It is possible to see future needs. I understood it would be good to make this choice, though one doesn’t always know why. Even if one is a god.” He hesitated. “I thought I only needed Wax. It seems that I was wrong.”

Wayne tossed up a speed bubble, so that time didn’t move so quickly. He needed a moment to compose himself.

“It should be Wax,” Wayne said. “He’s the one that fixes messes like this.”

“No,” Harmony said. “You have practiced all your life with speed bubbles, Wayne. Wax would be brand new at them. You might be the only person in the world who could do this.”

“That’s kind of depressing,” Wayne said, turning to Harmony. “Really, I’m the best you could do? Ain’t you God?”

Harmony’s eyes softened. “Wayne. You aren’t the best I could do. You’re the best there is. And no being, neither god nor mortal, could have wished for more than one such as you.”

Wayne wanted to reject that. But damn, if God was sayin’ it … maybe … maybe Wax was right? About Wayne?

Damn. Had Wax been right all along?

“You don’t have to do this,” Harmony whispered. “I will never again force such a choice upon someone. Unfortunately, it is the only sure solution that I can think of, and my thoughts move with exceptional speed. This preserves, but it … destroys.”

“The only solution that is sure,” Wayne said. “There’s another?”

“It is possible — very slightly possible — that you could use your new powers to Push hard enough against upcoming sources of metal to hold the ship back, treading water, while we gain more time and figure something else out. It would be exceptionally difficult, but it’s plausible.”

“You can see the future,” Wayne said. “Would it work?”

“I can see probabilities,” Harmony said. “I can see what might happen. It is, at times, frustrating.”

“And … what are the chances that other option works?”

“One in a hundred, maybe.”

One in a hundred? A one percent chance at survival.

… And a ninety-nine percent chance it failed. Meaning a whole ton of people got vaporized.

Damn. What a day to leave his lucky hat behind.

“There’s this family what doesn’t have a daddy because of me,” Wayne said, stepping forward. “You’ll take care of them?”

“Of course.”

“Will Wax survive this?”

“Normally, no person could,” Harmony said. “Considering explosions in water are exceptionally dangerous. Fortunately, this one will be channeled mostly upward — and Wax has pewter now. So long as he burns the metals in those other vials I gave him, he should survive the blast. I will … do what I can to help Preserve him. But Wayne, there is nothing I can do for you. This blast will be too big.”

Wayne nodded, then hesitated, looking toward Harmony. “Will this … earn me forgiveness?”

“Oh, Wayne,” Harmony said. “You’ve heard this from Wax. You have to hear it from me too, I think. You can’t do this for forgiveness. You need no forgiveness, not anymore.”

And … he was right.

Wayne wasn’t doing this for forgiveness, or out of shame, or out of a need to prove himself. He wasn’t the man he’d been when Wax pulled him out of his hiding place. He was someone different.

“Wayne,” Harmony asked, “do you know who you are?”

“Yeah, I know who I am,” Wayne said. “I’m the God. Damn. HERO.” He paused. “Sorry.”

“Under the circumstances,” Harmony said, smiling, “I understand. Each of those barrels has a hole in the top, to draw in air once the explosion starts. The harmonium has been removed from its oil bath and is currently being heated. That means if you pour water in, it will detonate the harmonium. That will destroy the mechanism that heats up the bomb, and will prevent the much greater explosion. Once you pour, use your Allomancy to Push the barrel out of the speed bubble.”

“Right, then,” Wayne said. “I’m gonna need your hat.”

“My … hat?”

“Gotta sculpt a speed bubble just right,” Wayne said, “and put everything I have into the Push. Burn so much bendalloy in one moment, it practically melts me from the inside — slow time so much, even electric signals get dull.”

“I don’t wear a hat.”

“You’re God. Improvise somethin’.”

Harmony paused, then touched Wayne on the head. He felt it start to glow, as if something had been settled there. Earrings too. He felt earrings like a proper Terrisman wore. Something he’d maybe always been, just in secret.

It wasn’t nothin’ magical. But when he wore someone’s hat, he thought he could understand them. And who was better to understand than God himself?

“Good,” Wayne said, adopting the proper accent. Old-fashioned, but Terris. Like Harmony. He dropped his speed bubble and gathered his power. “Hold on to your robes, my dear friend. This is going to be unlike anything you have seen before, I think.”

* * *

Marasi strode toward Blantach’s constabulary offices, Armal and a few of her friends in her wake, through a dark city content with its own business. Ignorant of the crisis.

Yet she felt something in the mists. Wax always talked about them in this supernatural way, a way she rarely felt.

Tonight though, they seemed to be holding their breath.

* * *

Steris froze on the docks. Her workers and constables were still busy doing as she asked, but something felt … odd? About the moment? She turned toward the waters and looked out across the misty sea.

Gripping the little silver spear she wore at her neck, she said a prayer.

* * *

“Now!” Harmony said.

Wayne made the perfect speed bubble. Most Allomancers with his powers couldn’t change the shape of a bubble. But bendalloy was so expensive, people couldn’t really afford to practice.

He could. He’d probably done this more than any person alive. In that moment, he made a bubble that contained the three barrel devices — but had a hole to exclude the device on the wall that coordinated the explosions.

Then he burned duralumin and Pushed.

People didn’t often refer to speed bubbles and slowness bubbles as Pushing and Pulling, like they talked about Steelpushes and Ironpulls. But it was the same. What Wayne did, it was Pushing on reality itself. Distorting it, shoving it inward, warping it.

Today he Pushed harder than any person in history. He Pushed like a god, on account of wearing Sazed’s own hat. On account of that strange metal, and on account of Wayne bein’ the hero. Time squeezed in around him, compressed like coal bein’ made into rustin’ diamond. Further, further, as a whole damn stomach full of bendalloy was burned in an instant.

God himself froze. Standing motionless. The bubble crystallized into a visible sphere. Lights that had been blinking halted, half-on. Something funny even happened to his eyesight, everything going all strange until he took another vial of Harmony’s metals and burned steel to see that way instead.

Go.

Canteen in hand, Wayne flooded the first bomb. He ducked back as the water dripped, then Pushed that barrel right out of the speed bubble as the explosion started. It transfixed him momentarily, fire and light erupting from the barrel, all outlined in these strange blue lines. As if that barrel was releasing its soul to the afterlife.

Cracks started to appear in his crystallized speed bubble. Damn. Wayne leaped to the second barrel and poured, then Pushed it out too. It sent electric warnings up the wires — but the box that controlled the detonation was stuck in slow time, the signals moving like molasses.

Damn, how fast was he moving? And he’d thought he was getting slow because of old age. Heh.

He slammed into the third barrel and dumped the rest of the canteen’s water out into it. He Pushed it, then turned, gazing out at all three barrels hanging motionless in time. He was going so fast, only the first one was exploding, and that because he’d taken the longest to Push it out. The blast was completely halted now.

He let out a breath and dropped the canteen. He’d been gobbled up, it was true. But when that happened, you strangled the monster from the inside.

His crystalline speed bubble shattered.

And all became red light and blossoms of fire.

72

Wax struggled in the dark waters.

Then something erupted to his right. A flash of light, blinding and dazzling. Followed by a shock wave in the air, and another in the water. For both, he thought he glimpsed — briefly, through the omnipresent light — the sight of a figure dulling the wave directly in front of him. A calm Terrisman standing tall on the surface of the water, with one hand stretched forward.

Then, darkness again. Wax blinked, his eyes blinded by the blast. Debris rained around him. Splashing into the choppy waves.

In moments, Wax was struggling to stay afloat. He’d hit the water hard, and thought he’d broken at least one leg. Wayne, trying to save his life? That frustrating, infuriating …

… that wonderful man.

“Farewell, my friend,” Wax whispered, choking on his emotion. “You incredible rusting man. Thank you.”

As the waters grew more choppy, Wax had to struggle harder. He forced through pain, grief, and fatigue to keep himself — barely — afloat. He burned his steel, then … something else. Something deep within, which kept him warm.

Despite that, he was lost in darkness, and even the mists kept their distance. With his leg not working, with his coat dragging him down, with the exhaustion of a nation’s hopes weighing on him, he felt himself begin to slip. Begin to lose his fight with the waters. Begin to …

What was that?

A tiny light, drifting closer. Small, yet unyielding in the mists. It resolved into … a lantern? On a small boat? How …

The boat motored right up to him, and then a man in a coachman’s outfit with white gloves stood up on the deck and reached out to Wax.

“Carriage,” Hoid said, “for you. Sir.”

73

The shock wave hit Steris like a thunderclap. She gasped in surprise, her ears ringing from the sound of the detonation. Rusts.

She and the governor had been carried via Allomancer far into the center of the city — close to their original evacuation command post — following their efforts at the docks. But that obviously hadn’t been far enough to escape completely. Around her, windows rattled. Any closer to the docks and they would have shattered. And the buildings nearest the explosion …

Fortunately, the only ill effects she felt — standing atop a building this far from the blast — was that shock wave. And so, after her initial panic, she watched that brilliant light in the distance slowly fade.

A moment ago, that explosion had been like a momentary sun on the horizon, magnificent and ominous all at once, blazing through the mists. Now, in seconds, all that remained were the afterimage and the faint ringing in her ears.

The governor peeked up over the rooftop’s stone railing, where he’d ducked at the initial explosion. Then he stood up straight. “He’s done it, hasn’t he? Preservation! He’s done it! He detonated the bomb early! The city is saved!”

Steris nodded, exhaling a long breath. Wax had been exactly where she’d hoped he would be. Now that she’d seen that light — then survived the detonation — a new worry struck her.

You’d better not have been on that ship when the explosion happened, Waxillium Ladrian, she thought. You … just … just have gotten off, all right?

“Will the tsunami come?” the governor said.

“Yes,” Steris said. “Imminently.”

“We … uh…” The governor straightened his cravat. “We actually helped, didn’t we?”

“Yes,” she said. “The dockside buildings are going to be a disaster zone in the weeks to come — we’ll need to rebuild. But I think we evacuated most people from the dangerous section.”

Water was pulling back rapidly from the docks as she watched. Receding in advance of a tsunami. Hopefully it would not be a big one. The studies she’d read were inconclusive about how water would react to explosions.

“Thank the Survivor,” the governor said. “I’m … glad you let us retreat. I worried you’d insist on staying by the docks.”

“There is no need to go down with the city,” Steris said, “if the city isn’t going down.”

He nodded eagerly. He was actually quite an agreeable man. Which made sense. He’d been chosen by people who wanted to steer him. People who’d never expected him to put his hands on the helm and take control.

She blinked, her eyes bearing the afterimage of that explosion.

Just … be safe … Steris thought toward that distant, now faded, point of light. Please.

74

Wayne floated.

Floated someplace high. Damn. Was that the planet itself beneath him? It was a sphere, as everyone said. He’d always hoped maybe it would be, like, doughnut shaped or something. To throw the smart folks for a loop.

Felt kinda strange to be all the way up here, in the darkness. He leaned forward and felt a disorientation, like he should be falling. He was woozy, unsteady.

Huh. Who’d have thought being dead would be so much like being drunk? He could write a whole damn book of scripture about that, he could.

A figure hovered next to him. Vast. His robes like the infinite colors of creation, his essence seeming to expand into the darkness of space itself. But at his core, he had the appearance of a bald, kindly Terrisman.

“Hey, God,” Wayne said. “How’s … um … creation? Time and space? Reality? You know, things?”

“Good,” Harmony replied. “Because of you.”

“Now wait,” Wayne said. “I ain’t gonna be a ghost, am I?”

“No. You were Invested when you died, so you will persist a short time, but will soon join the Beyond.”

“Good, good.”

“You don’t find that idea concerning?”

“Hell no,” Wayne said. “I already done gone and died. That was the part that I worried would hurt.” He gaped down at the planet below. “It’s so big.”

“Yes, Wayne,” Harmony said. “I realize that a person might become intimidated, seeing all this. Recognizing the vastness of what they’ve lived upon. It is a lot to take in, I think. It can make a person feel small, insignificant, and—”

Wayne grinned. “And I saved the whole damn thing!”

Harmony paused. “Well, I suppose you did. With some help from Marasi and Waxillium.” Harmony gestured toward a red haze, swirling away from the planet as if in a funnel, vanishing into the distance.

Wayne felt something from it. An angry sort of respect. Begrudging. Her avatar had been defeated, and so Autonomy withdrew her touch from the planet.

“Is that it, then?” Wayne asked.

“For now,” Harmony said. “She was overextending to try to bring us down quickly, I think. Telsin and the Set’s failure is an enormous setback, and Marasi was quick to collapse the portal to this planet. My vision returns, and I will try to take care I am not blindsided again.”

“You sound afraid?” Wayne said, cocking his head.

“Nervous,” Harmony said, his expression distant. “I can see pieces moving in the cosmere. Aligning. Pointed at us. We are not free of their influence. But we have … time, now. Time to prepare. Thanks to you, Wayne.”

“Me,” Wayne said. “I saved the whole damn world. I … I’m probably the best constable who ever rusting lived!”

“I … suppose…” Harmony said, “that Vin, Elend, and the others weren’t constables…”

“Wax ain’t never saved the whole world. And most of the others in the octant constabulary? They couldn’t save a coupon for free beer, even when I gave it to them. Stupid kandra giraffe man. Wayne, the best conner in the whole damn world … Ha! Eat that, Reddi. Eat it with hot sauce and cry!”

Wayne felt something happening as he said it, though. A kind of … stretching feeling. Like he was being pulled somewhere. Somewhere … warm?

“Before you go,” Harmony said, “is there anything you would like to know? I’m not truly omniscient, but my knowledge far surpasses that of mortals. Some have a final question for me before they go. Have you such a request, Wayne?”

Huh. Any question? That was a hard one. He pondered a moment. “So,” he said, “before she left, MeLaan told me that I was the best lay she ever had, and I was wondering—”

“Wayne,” God interrupted, “what is it Ranette always says to you?”

“Try dodging this?”

“The other thing.”

“Don’t ruin the moment by bein’ all skeevy?”

“Yes, that one.”

“Right, right,” Wayne said, nodding. “Good point. Good point. You’re smart, maybe even as smart as Ranette. Suppose that makes sense and all.” He continued to think, though that stretching sensation … it was getting stronger. What could he ask? What …

Then he grinned. That was perfect.

“I’m gonna assume Wax and them will be fine,” Wayne said. “You already promised that. So I ain’t going to waste a question on them. And you can’t trick me into doing so. You’ll take care of them. I know you will.”

“To the best of my ability,” Harmony said.

“Good. Then tell me this, God,” Wayne said, pointing at him. “Was that the biggest damn explosion a person ever made?”

Harmony raised an eyebrow. “That’s your last question? Your final request of God before you pass into eternity?”

“Hell yes! Figure now that I’m dead, I’ll get the other answers right soon. You ain’t going to trick me into asking a useless question. So tell me. Was it?”

Harmony smiled. “Ah, Wayne. I suppose that most other things that could rival it — like the detonations of the Ashmounts — would be categorized as acts of God. Therefore, I declare that it is. Yes, Wayne. You exploded yourself in the biggest damn explosion a person has ever made in the history of our planet.”

“Make sure Steris knows,” Wayne said, grinning. “She’s always complainin’ about my exploding things. This time I saved her hide by doin’ it. Plus, I made the explosion smaller. That’s gonna break her brain. I made it smaller, and it was still the biggest one what ever was.”

He felt himself really going now. So, he held out a hand to God. Who, smiling, shook it.

“I knew you’d glow,” Wayne said, with a wink.

With that, Wayne stretched into another place, into another time. He stretched into the wind. And into the stars.

And all endless things.