She handed it over and Wax settled back in his seat, Steris peeking over his shoulder as he read through dated entries in the notebook. “Looks like…” he said. “Annotated shipping records, into Elendel? ‘Box one yard square, stamped with foodstuff labels, inspected four out of six times. Larger crate with warning labels, inspected and quarantined. Crate, two yards across, detained every time…’”
Steris frowned. “It looks like they’re recording what gets inspected when shipped into the city.”
“Which is odd, right?” Marasi said. “It’s not hard to get shipments into Elendel. Only outgoing shipments are taxed for using our railway stations. That’s the entire problem; the Outer Cities are tired of paying us to ship their goods to one another.”
“Right,” Wax said. “Why is the Set so interested in what they can get into the city?”
“Maybe they’re planning to supply a rebel force inside it?” Steris said.
“But the whole point of their smuggling operation,” Marasi said, “is to get weapons out of Elendel. They don’t have any trouble giving weapons to the people inside Elendel.”
They sat in silence, considering. Wax glanced at Steris, who shook her head. No thoughts at the moment. Finally, he returned the book to Marasi. As Allik continued distributing pastries, Wax went over to Wayne, who had uncharacteristically passed up a mug of chocolate. Allik handed it to Wax instead.
“Hey,” Wax said to Wayne. “How much health do you have stored up? I might need your help with some experiments today.”
“Sorry, mate,” he said. “I gots an appointment.”
“You’re not going to get into trouble, are you?”
“The reverse,” Wayne proclaimed, then checked his pocket watch. Which was one of Wax’s. “Actually, I gotta get moving. I don’t wanna get shot for arriving late.”
“A moment, Wayne?” MeLaan said.
“I really—” he began.
“It’s important. Very important.”
Wayne wilted, then nodded, his eyes sorrowful. Wax gripped his shoulder, as if to impart some strength. This had been coming. MeLaan was a wanderer.
Wayne and MeLaan left, and Wax tried to focus on the wonderful gift Marasi had brought him. A whole trellium spike.
“I,” he said, “am going to need my goggles.”
12
Wayne sometimes pretended he was a hero. Some rusting old figure from the stories, off on some nonsense quest about slaying a monster or traveling to Death’s domain.
Lately it was hard to wear that hat. Especially when the truth stared him in the face every time he looked in a mirror. He’d made a whole career out of pretending. People just thought it was a talent. They never asked what he was hiding from.
Today, he’d have given almost anything to be someone else. MeLaan, wearing that fetching body — they were all fetching, honestly — led him through the entry hall to a small private sitting room on the other side. He made a swipe for his lucky hat, hanging on the wall outside the room, as they passed. But he missed it.
Inside, she sat him down in an overstuffed chair that made him feel like a child. Didn’t help that she was as tall as Wax was, in that body. Then she took his hand and crouched down, meeting his eyes.
“I’m sorry, Wayne,” she said softly. “I need to leave you. Today. It’s over. I tried to prepare you for this … but it was probably more painful to string it out, wasn’t it?”
“Dunno,” he said. “Never had my heart broke before. So I ain’t got no experience.”
She winced. “Wayne…”
“Sorry,” he said. “You gotta do your thing. I know that. A fellow doesn’t date an immortal agent of God himself without suspectin’ that one day he’ll take second place to the fellow what glows.” Wayne frowned. “Does he glow?”
“I thought,” she said, squeezing his hand, “that there would be fewer attachments with you.”
“Where’d you get that idea?” he asked. “I get so attached, I wind up with all sorts of things what don’t belong to me.”
She grimaced.
“Was it … nothing to you, then?” he asked. “Six years?”
“It wasn’t nothing,” she said. “Just … not what it was to you. I know I should have expected that. TenSoon warned me, Ulaam warned me. Mortals see time differently. They told me. I’m sorry, Wayne.”
“You ain’t gotta apologize for somethin’ you don’t feel, MeLaan,” Wayne said. “It ain’t your fault.”
It’s mine.
“I … asked for this mission,” she admitted. “Because I realized I was leading you on, and I knew the longer it went, the more painful it would be to break off. That’s why I can’t stay and help. I’ve got to go now. Before I lose my nerve.”
“Would that … be so bad?”
“Yes,” she said. “Because it’s a lie, Wayne. I’d be staying because I didn’t want to hurt you. Not because I actually wanted to stay.”
He shouldn’t want her to stay in those circumstances. But he did. Damn him, he did.
Still, he held his tongue. Sometimes you just had to stand there and get shot.
“It is an exciting mission,” she said. “I get to cross the misted unknown, the dark vastness that Harmony calls ‘Shadesmar.’ I’ll be the first kandra to go out there long-term, with an official mission.
“I get to explore the cosmere, Wayne. I get to go and see everything there is — worlds we can only imagine. I get to help those who need it — not one or two people, but entire peoples.”
He nodded dully.
She stood, then leaned in to kiss him. He wanted to pull away, but … well, he would have regretted that. One long, last kiss, as could be delivered only by someone with a tongue that didn’t confine itself to normal bounds of physiology.
“I did want to tell you something important,” she whispered as she pulled away. “Something meaningful.”
“Yeah?”
“You,” she said, squeezing his hand one last time, “were a really good lay, Wayne.”
“Really?”
“Really. To be honest, you were the best I’ve known.”
“You’re seven hundred years old,” he said. “And I was the best?”
She nodded.
Well now, that was something. Something indeed.
“Thanks,” he said. “That was sweet of you to tell me. It … helps.”
“I thought it might,” she said. “Goodbye, Wayne.”
She let go of his hand and walked out. Knowing her, she’d send someone to box up the rest of her bodies. She’d picked the emerald today because it was one of her favorites — she’d probably take it and the aluminum one on her mission and leave the rest.
He sat staring at the door for a long time. He wasn’t wearing a hat, which meant he had to just be himself. The true him, the one that knew this pain. They’d ridden together on many a dusty path. This pain had been his invisible friend since childhood.
The pain of knowing what he really was.
The pain of being worthless.
13
Wax led the way down to the basement, feet thumping on steps behind him as he was followed by Steris and Marasi. While the upper floors of the mansion were dedicated to Steris’s hobbies and the various needs of his friends, the basement belonged to Wax. And he’d made some modifications.
He’d begun pursuing metallurgy in the Roughs, where the mining towns often had equipment to test metal purities and the like. He’d been surprised at how useful the hobby had turned out to be. For example, few criminals realized you could track their suppliers by testing bullet casings.