The wood crunched, then burst, exploding downward. Waxillium dropped out of Wayne’s bubble of speed and hit real time, the shift jostling him. The next few moments were a blur. He heard the awesome sound of the explosion above—it hit with a wave of force. He released his metalmind and Pushed against the nails in the floor below them, trying to slow himself and Marasi.
He didn’t have enough time to do it well. They crashed into the floor of the next story down, and something heavy landed on them, driving the breath from Waxillium’s lungs. There was glaring brightness and a burst of heat.
Then it was over.
Waxillium lay dazed, ears ringing. He groaned, then realized that Marasi was clinging to him, shaking. He held her close for a moment, blinking. Were they still in danger? What had fallen on them?
Wayne, he thought. He forced himself to move, rolling over and setting Marasi aside. The floor beneath them had been crushed practically to splinters, the nails flattened to little disks. Part of his downward Push must have been while he still had the increased weight.
They were covered with chips of wood and plaster dust. The ceiling was a wreck, sections of wood smoldering, bits of ash and debris wafting down. There was nothing left of the hole he’d broken; the blast had consumed it and the floor around it.
Wincing, he moved Wayne. His friend had fallen on them and blocked the brunt of the explosion from above. His duster had been shredded, his back exposed, blackened and burned, blood dribbling down his sides.
Marasi raised a hand to her mouth. She was still trembling, her dark brown hair tangled, eyes wide.
No, Waxillium thought, uncertain if he should try to turn his friend over or not. Please, no. Wayne had used a portion of his health to recover from the poison. And last night, he’d said he only had enough left for one bullet wound.…
Anxious, he felt at Wayne’s neck. There was a faint pulse. Waxillium closed his eyes and let out a deep breath. As he watched, the wounds on Wayne’s back began to draw closed. It was a slow process. A Bloodmaker using Feruchemical healing was limited by how fast he wanted the power to work—recovering quickly required a much greater expenditure of health. If Wayne didn’t have much left, he’d need to work at a slow pace.
Waxillium left him to it. Wayne would be suffering great pain, but there was nothing he could do. Instead, he took Marasi’s arm. She was still trembling.
“It’s all right,” Waxillium said, his voice sounding odd and muffled because of the explosion’s effect on his hearing. “Wayne is healing. Are you injured?”
“I…” She looked dazed. “Two in three sufferers of great trauma are unable to correctly identify their own injuries as a result of stress or the body’s own natural coping mechanisms covering the pain.”
“Tell me if any of this hurts,” Waxillium said, feeling at her ankles, then legs, then arms for breaks. He carefully prodded her sides for broken ribs, though it was difficult through the thick cloth of her dress.
She slowly came out of her daze, then looked at him and pulled him close, tucking her head against his chest. He hesitated, then wrapped his arms around her and held her as she steadied her breath, obviously trying to get hold of her emotions.
Behind them, Wayne started coughing. He stirred, then groaned and lay still, letting the healing continue. They’d fallen into a spare bedroom. The building was burning, but not too badly. Likely the constables would soon be called.
Nobody has come running, Waxillium thought. The other staff. Are they all right?
Or were they part of it? His mind was still trying to catch up. Tillaume—a man who, as far as he knew, had served his uncle faithfully for decades—had tried to kill him. Three times.
Marasi pulled back. “I think I … I think I’ve composed myself. Thank you.”
He nodded to her, pulling out his handkerchief and handing it over, then knelt by Wayne. The man’s back was crusted with blood and burned skin, but it had been lifted and raised as scabs, new skin forming underneath.
“Is it bad?” Wayne asked, eyes still closed.
“You’ll pull through.”
“I meant the duster.”
“Oh. Well … you’re gonna need a really big patch this time.”
Wayne snorted, then pushed himself up and moved into a sitting position. He winced several times during the process, then finally opened his eyes. Trails of tears were running down the side of his face. “I told you,” Wayne said. “Innocent things are always exploding around you, Wax.”
“You kept your fingers this time.”
“Great. I can still strangle you.”
Waxillium smiled, resting his hand on his friend’s arm. “Thanks.”
Wayne nodded. “I apologize for havin’ to fall on you two.”
“I’ll forgive you, under the circumstances.” Waxillium glanced at Marasi. She sat with her arms wrapped around herself, hunched forward, face pale. She saw his scrutiny, then lowered her arms, as if forcing herself to be strong, and began to stand up.
“It’s all right,” Waxillium said. “You can take more time.”
“I’ll be well,” she said, though it was hard to make out the words, as his hearing was still dulled. “I just … I’m unaccustomed to people trying to kill me.”
“You don’t ever get accustomed to it,” Wayne said. “Trust me.” He took a deep breath, then pulled off the remnants of his duster and shirt. Then he turned his burned back to Waxillium. “You mind?”
“You may want to turn away, Marasi,” Waxillium said.
She frowned, but didn’t look away. So he grabbed the burned layer at Wayne’s shoulder and—with a jerk—ripped the skin off his back. It came free in almost a single complete sheet. Wayne grunted.
New skin had formed underneath, pink and fresh, but it couldn’t finish healing properly until the old, stiff, burned layer had been removed. Waxillium tossed it aside.
“Oh, Lord of Harmony,” Marasi said, raising a hand to her mouth. “I think I might be sick.”
“I warned you,” Waxillium said.
“I thought you were referring to his burns. I didn’t realize you were going to tear off his entire back.”
“It feels much better now.” Wayne rolled his arms in his shoulders, now shirtless. He was lean and muscled, and he wore a pair of gold metalmind bracers on his upper arms. His trousers had been singed, but were mostly intact. He reached down, pulling one of his dueling canes out of the wreckage. The other was still at his waist. “Now they owe me a hat and a duster. Where’s the rest of the house staff?”
“I’ve been wondering that myself,” Waxillium said. “I’ll do a quick search and see if anyone’s hurt. You get Marasi out the back. Sneak through the grounds and out the garden gate; I’ll meet you there.”
“Sneak?” Marasi asked.
“Whoever hired that bloke to kill us,” Wayne said, “will be expecting that explosion to mean we’ve gone to meet Ironeyes.”
“Right,” Waxillium said. “We’ll have an hour or two while the house is searched and Tillaume is identified—if there’s enough left to identify. During that time, we’ll be thought dead.”
“It’ll give us a little time to think,” Wayne said. “Come on. We should move quick.”
He led Marasi down the back stairs toward the grounds. She still seemed dazed.
Waxillium’s ears felt like they were stuffed with cotton. He suspected the three of them had been shouting their conversation. Wayne was right. You never got used to people trying to kill you.
Waxillium began a quick search of the house, and started refilling his metalminds as he did. He became much lighter, about half his normal weight. Any more than that and it became difficult to walk normally, even with clothing and guns weighing him down. He was practiced at it, though.
During his search, he found Limmi and Miss Grimes unconscious, but alive, in the pantry. A glance out the window showed the coachman, Krent, standing with his hands on his head and looking at the burning building with eyes wide. O
f the other house staff—the maids, the errand boys, the cook—there was no sign.
They might have been close enough to the blast to be caught in it, but Waxillium didn’t think that likely. Probably, Tillaume—who had charge over household staff—had sent away everyone that he reasonably could, then had drugged the others and stuffed them someplace safe. It indicated a desire to ensure that nobody was hurt. Well, nobody but Waxillium and his guests.
In two quick trips, Waxillium carried the unconscious women out into the back garden—being careful not to be seen. Hopefully, they would soon be discovered by Krent or the constables. After that, Waxillium fetched a pair of revolvers from the closet on the main floor and got a shirt and jacket from the laundry for Wayne. He wished he could look for his old trunk, with his Sterrions, but there wasn’t time.
He slipped out the back door and crossed the garden on too-light feet. Each step of the way, he was increasingly bothered by what had happened. It was horrible for someone to try to kill you; it was worse when the attack came from someone you knew.
It seemed implausible that the bandits would have been able to contact and bribe Tillaume so quickly. How could they have even known that an aging butler would be amenable? The groom or gardener would have been a far safer choice. Something more was going on here. From Waxillium’s first day in the city, Tillaume had been trying to discourage him from getting involved in local lawkeeping. On the night before the ball, he’d pointedly tried to get Waxillium to drop the subject of the robberies.
Whoever was behind this, the butler had been working with them for some time. And that meant they’d been watching Waxillium all along.
10
The carriage rattled on the paving stones as it rolled in a cautiously circuitous route toward the Fifth Octant. Marasi looked out at the busy street, her arms folded. Horses and carriages passed, and people flowed down sidewalks like the little blood cells through veins she’d looked at under a microscope at the university. They got clogged at corners or at sections where the paving stones were being replaced.
Lord Waxillium and Wayne sat on the other side of the carriage. Waxillium looked distracted, lost in his thoughts. Wayne was napping, head tipped back, eyes closed. He’d found a hat somewhere—a flimsy cap, of the type broadsheet boys liked to wear. After fleeing the mansion, they’d rounded the street corner and cut through Dampmere Park. On the other side, Waxillium had waved them down a carriage.
By the time they’d piled in, Wayne had been pulling on the cap, whistling softly to himself. She had no idea where he’d gotten it. Now he was snoring softly. After they’d nearly been killed, after he’d had the skin on his back seared off, he was sleeping. She could still smell the pungency of burned cloth, and her ears were ringing.
This was what you wanted, she reminded herself. You’re the one who insisted Lord Harms bring you along to meet Waxillium. You came to the mansion today of your own accord. You put yourself into this.
If only she’d made a better show of herself. She was riding in a carriage with the greatest lawman that the Roughs had ever known—but at every occasion, she’d proven herself to be a helpless girl, prone to bursts of useless emotion. She started to sigh, but cut herself off. No. No sulking. That would only make things worse.
They were paralleling one of the great spoke-canals that divided the eight parts of the city. She’d seen reproductions of pages from the Words of Founding, which had included drawings and plans for Elendel, though the name of the city had been chosen by the Lord Mistborn. There was a large round park at the center where flowers bloomed year-round, the air warmed by a hot spring underneath. The canal spokes radiated from it, extending out into the bountiful hinterlands, and the river divided around it. Streets and blocks were laid out in an orderly way, with large streets—wider than anyone would once have assumed they’d need. Yet now they almost seemed insufficient.
The carriage was approaching the bridge to the Field of Rebirth; the blanket of green grass and blooming Marewill flowers rose in a gradual hillside slope. The statues of the Last Emperor and the Ascendant Warrior dominated the top, capping their tomb. There was a museum there. Marasi had been there several times as a girl to look at the relics of the World of Ash that had been saved by the Originators, those who had been nurtured in wombs of the earth and reborn to build society.
The carriage turned along the tree-shaded drive around the Field of Rebirth. Asphalt paving was used here instead of stones to quiet the clatter of steel-shod hooves, and also smoothed the way for the occasional motorcar. Those were still rare, but one of her professors claimed that they would eventually replace horses.
She tried to keep her mind on their task. There was more to the Vanishers than just the kidnappings and the robberies. What of the way the trains’ cargo disappeared so abruptly, giving the Vanishers their name? And what of the extremely well-made weapons? And then there was the major effort to kill Waxillium, both with poison and that bomb.
“Lord Waxillium?” she said.
“Yes?”
“How did your uncle die?”
“Carriage accident,” he said, looking thoughtful. “He, his wife, and my sister were riding in the Outer Estates. This was mere weeks after my cousin—the heir—had succumbed to disease. The trip was supposed to help ease their grief.
“Uncle Ladrian wanted to visit a particular peak to get a view of the landscape, but my aunt was too weak for the hike. They took a carriage. Along the way, the horse bolted. The hitchings snapped. The carriage went off the cliffside.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I am as well,” he said softly. “I hadn’t been to see any of them in years. I feel a strange guilt, as if I should be more crushed to lose them.”
“I think that story involves enough crushed people already,” Wayne murmured.
Waxillium gave him a glare, though Wayne didn’t see it, as his eyes were still closed, the cap resting on his face.
Marasi kicked him in the shin, causing him to yelp. Then she blushed. “Be respectful of the dead,” she said.
Wayne rubbed his leg. “Already she starts orderin’ me around. Women.” He put his cap back on his face and settled back.
“Lord Waxillium,” she said. “Did you ever wonder if…”
“If someone might have killed my uncle?” Waxillium asked. “I am a lawkeeper. I wonder, if just briefly, about every death I hear of. But the reports I received indicated nothing suspicious. One of the things I learned early in my career was that sometimes, accidents simply do happen. My uncle was a risk taker. His gambling youth led to a middle age where he sought thrills. I eventually dismissed the tragedy as an accident.”
“And now?”
“And now,” Waxillium said, “I wonder if the reports sent to me were a little too clean. In retrospect, everything might have been carefully crafted not to arouse my suspicions. Beyond that, Tillaume was there, though he remained behind at the manor house the day of the accident.”
“Why would they kill your uncle?” Marasi asked. “Shouldn’t they have been worried about bringing you, an experienced lawkeeper, back to town? Removing your uncle and accidentally putting Waxillium Dawnshot onto them…”
“Waxillium Dawnshot?” Wayne asked, cracking an eye. He sniffled softly and wiped his nose with his handkerchief.
She blushed. “Sorry. But it’s what the reports call him.”
“That’s what they should call me,” Wayne said. “I’m the one who likes a good shot of whiskey in the morning.”
“‘Morning’ to you is well past noon, Wayne,” Waxillium said. “I doubt you’ve ever seen the dawn.”
“That’s right unfair. See it all the time, when I stay up too late.…” He grinned underneath his hat. “Wax, when are we going to go see Ranette?”
“We’re not,” Waxillium said. “What makes you think we will?”
“Well, we’re in town. She’s in town too—moved here before you did, and all. Our house exploded. We could go see her, you know. Be
all friendly, like.”
“No,” Waxillium said. “I wouldn’t even know where to find her. The City is a big place.”
“She lives over in the Third Octant,” Wayne said absently. “Redbrick house. Two stories.”
Waxillium gave Wayne a flat stare, which Marasi found curious. “Who is this person?”
“Nobody,” Waxillium said. “How are you with a pistol?”
“Not good,” she admitted. “The target club uses rifles.”
“Well, a rifle doesn’t fit in a handbag,” Waxillium said, taking a pistol out of his shoulder holster. It was small, with a slim barrel. The entire weapon was only about as long as her hand.
She took the gun hesitantly.
“The trick to shooting with a pistol is to be steady,” Waxillium said. “Use both hands, find low cover if you can and set your arms on it. Don’t shake, take your time, and be sure to sight. Pistols are much harder to hit with, but that’s partially because people tend to be wilder with them. The very nature of a rifle encourages you to take aim, while people’s first impulse with a pistol seems to be to just point vaguely and pull the trigger.”
“Yes,” she said, hefting the gun. It was deceptively heavy. “Eight of ten of constables firing a handgun at a criminal ten feet away miss.”
“Really?”
She nodded.
“Well,” Waxillium said, “I guess Wayne doesn’t need to feel so bad.”
“Hey!”
Waxillium eyed her. “I once saw him try to shoot someone three paces away. He ended up hitting the wall behind himself.”
“’S not my fault,” Wayne grumbled. “Bullets are devious buggers. They shouldn’t be allowed to bounce. Metal don’t bounce, and that’s true as titanium.”
She checked the small revolver to make sure the safety was on, then tucked it into her singed handbag.
The Vanishers’ hideout turned out to be an innocent-looking building near a canal dock. Two stories tall, it was flat-topped and wide, with numerous chimneys. Piles of dark ashes and slag were heaped along one wall of the building, and the windows looked like they hadn’t been cleaned since the Final Ascension.
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