I was there, one sheet read. Nobody, said another. It was, said another. He started laying them out. TenSoon—whom he’d almost forgotten—sniffed in the doorway.
Wax glanced back. “Did you see these?”
“Yes,” TenSoon said.
“What do you make of them?”
“I … did not stay long,” the kandra said, then looked to the side. “I do not spend time in this room, human. I am not fond of it.”
This room … Wax felt cold. Was this the prison that TenSoon had been trapped in, locked away without bones, awaiting execution?
Rusts. He was kneeling in a place that had decided the fate of the world.
Wax stretched down, grabbing more of the sheets. It seemed like Bleeder had ripped apart an entire set of the Words of Founding—the unabridged version. Old edition too, judging by the fact that it had been handwritten instead of printed.
“You really knew her, didn’t you?” Wax asked. “The Ascendant Warrior?”
“I knew her,” TenSoon said softly. “Near the end, I spent over an hour without my spikes, and so my memories degraded. However, most of what I lost was from the time right before my fall. Most of my memories of her are crisp.”
Wax hesitated with stacks of pages in his hands. “What was she like? As a person, I mean.”
“She was strong and vulnerable all at once,” TenSoon whispered. “She was my last master, and my greatest. She had a way of pouring everything of herself into what she did. When she fought, she was the blade. When she loved, she was the kiss. In that regard, she was far more … human than any I have known.”
Wax found himself nodding as he settled the pages about him, in stacks based on whether they had words or not. The ones with fingerprints he set in their own stack. Perhaps they would be useful. Probably not. Bleeder was a shapeshifter, after all.
TenSoon eventually padded up to him. “They look,” TenSoon said, inspecting the sheets, “like they might say something if you string them together.”
“Yeah,” Wax said, dissatisfied.
“What is wrong?”
“It’s too much,” Wax said, waving his hand at it. “Too convoluted, too sensational. Why would she write on a bunch of pages, then rip them out and leave them here?”
“Because she’s mad.”
“No,” Wax said. “She’s not that kind of mad. The way she’s been working is too deliberate, too focused. Her motives might be insane, but her methods have been careful.” How could he explain it? This case had his instincts fighting with one another.
He tried again. “When someone leaves something like this behind, it means one of two things. They’re sloppy, or they’re trying too hard. She’s not sloppy, but I don’t think she’s trying to be cute either, dangling clues and playing games. When I talked to her…”
“You spoke with Paalm?” TenSoon demanded, his ears perking up. “When?”
“Earlier tonight,” Wax said. “There was something regretful about her. She claimed to not be playing games, but this seems like a game. A thousand discarded pages, left to be put back together and form a clue?” He shook his head. “I don’t buy it. Madness or not, she had to know that other kandra would eventually find this.”
“Very well,” TenSoon said, settling back down. “But she spoke to you as herself, not an imitation?”
“Yes. Is that odd? You’re doing it right now, and MeLaan seems to be acting no specific role either.”
“We are not Paalm,” TenSoon said. “As long as I’ve known her, she’s been subject to the performance. I was like that too, years ago. I didn’t know who I was if I was not imitating someone.”
Wax looked across the sheets. Freedom, one of them said in a scrawl across the page. Will give you freedom whether you, said another, only half of a thought.
“What was she like?” Wax asked. “Who is she, Guardian?”
“Hard to say,” TenSoon replied. “Paalm was the Lord Ruler’s pet kandra, a slave to his will and the contract we made with him. She ignored events surrounding the end of the World of Ash; she vanished, didn’t return to the Homeland. I assumed her dead, until she appeared among the survivors. Even then she separated herself from us, though she served Harmony as we all did. Until … nothing. Absence.”
“Freedom,” Wax said, tapping the page. “She talked about that with me. What does it mean?”
“I don’t know,” TenSoon said, voice even more a growl than before. “She has betrayed everything we are. But then, so did I. So perhaps we are a pair, she and I. Two of the oldest monsters remaining on this planet, now that many of the Seconds have taken the escape of ending their own lives.”
“Freedom…” Wax whispered. “Someone else moves us.… She left a note for me in the governor’s mansion. She removed a politician’s tongue, to stop his lies. Killed a priest through the eyes, to stop him from looking. Seeing. For who? For what?”
She had been the Lord Ruler’s kandra, moved about and danced at his whims. And then … Harmony’s servant? She lived with his voice inside her head, knowing all along that he could take control of her. How would that feel?
Would it make you remove one of your spikes? Would you be trying to bring that freedom to everyone? Misguided, in your insanity, certain that the world needed saving?
Wax stood up slowly. “It’s about Harmony.”
“Lawman?”
“She’s trying to bring down God Himself.”
“That’s insane.”
“Yes,” Wax said, turning to the kandra. “It is.” He started to pace in the small room. “Speak to Harmony and find out something for me. Did Bleeder first leave because Harmony tried to take control of her at some point? Did that set her off?”
A moment of silence. “Yes,” TenSoon replied. “Harmony says He didn’t try to control her directly, but He did push her very hard to do something she didn’t want to do.”
“She’s been persistent about this idea that all people are controlled.” Harmony … was she Bloody Tan? Was she wearing his body, even back then? Was she there when I shot Lessie? “She sees everyone as Harmony’s puppets—in her eyes, the politicians are His mouth. She’s bringing down the government for that reason. Religion? Harmony’s eyes, to watch over the people. She works to undermine that by creating strife between the religious sects.”
“Yes…” TenSoon said. “In a way, it could be seen as a continuation of the First Contract. Serve the Lord Ruler. Bring down the force that he worked to defeat. Harmony is half of that.”
“But what am I in this?” Wax continued, only half listening to TenSoon. “Why me? Why focus on—”
No, wrong question.
What was she going to do next? Eyes, tongue … ears, maybe? Pretend she’s a step ahead of you, Wax told himself. Prepare for the worst.
He looked again at the sheets on the floor. She wanted Wax out of the way. An elaborate puzzle? It was a time waster, a distraction. She’d ripped out these sheets not to tease him, but to remove him from the investigation long enough to accomplish the next phase of her plan. She’d led him here with that dust on her robe. She’d planted it there for that purpose.
“She knows,” Wax said softly. “She knows what you’re going to do, TenSoon. What you’ve done.” He felt cold, and met the kandra’s inhuman eyes. “She’s planned that you would send your kandra to try to win back the hearts and minds of the people. That exposes you. Her next step is to bring them down.”