He grinned. Wax kept staring into the flames. Wayne’s face fell.
“She’d have wanted you to stop her, you know,” Wayne said softly. “If she’d been able to talk to you, been able to think straight, she’d have demanded you kill her. Just like I’d have wanted it. Just like you’d want the same, if you’d lost your copper. You did what you hadda do, mate. And you did it well.”
He made a fist at Wax and nodded, then hobbled off, approaching a short young woman with long golden hair. A teenage girl? Wax didn’t recognize her.
“I know you, don’t I?” Wayne said. “Daughter of Remmingtel Tarcsel? The guy what invented the incandescent lightbulb?”
The girl’s jaw dropped. “You know him?” She seized Wayne by the arms. “You know about my father?”
“Sure do!” Wayne said. “He was robbed, I gotta say. Genius. Word is, you’re just as smart. That device you whipped up for making speeches sure is nice.”
She regarded Wayne, then leaned in. “That’s only the start. They’ve brought it into their houses. Don’t you see? It’s all around.”
“What?” Wayne said.
“Electricity,” the girl said. “And I’m going to be the first to use it.”
“Huh,” Wayne said. “Need some money?”
“Do I…” She towed Wayne away through the party, aglow, speaking so quickly Wax couldn’t pick out the words.
He didn’t care to. He just stared at the fire.
The guests were polite enough not to imply that he was ruining the party by his indifference. Clotide passed by, swapping his cold cup of tea out for a warm one. For all Wax cared, this comfortable chair could have been a hard bench. He didn’t feel it, or the warmth of the fire, or the joy of the victory.
How could you hear a bee buzzing in the middle of a thunderstorm?
The guests eventually found excuses to leave, their sedate revels accomplished. Some bade farewell to him. Others did not. About halfway through the protracted death of the party, Marasi settled down on his footstool. She wore her constable’s uniform. Odd thing to do at a party, though as he thought about it, the men in the constabulary did it all the time.
Marasi took his tea and sipped it, then placed something else onto the table where the cup had been. Wax’s eyes flicked toward it. A small spike, long as a finger, made of some silvery metal with dark red spots, like rusted bits.
“That’s one of the spikes she was using, Waxillium,” Marasi said softly. “MeLaan wanted me to show it to you.”
Wax closed his eyes. They thought he wanted to see something like that?
“Waxillium,” Marasi said. “We can’t identify the metal. It’s nothing we’ve ever seen before. It certainly wasn’t one of the spikes she started with. That means she removed both, and stuck one like this in instead. Where did she get them? Who gave them to her?”
“I don’t care,” he whispered, opening his eyes.
Marasi grew quiet. “Wax…”
“He sent her to me, Marasi. He sent a kandra to seduce me.”
“No,” Marasi said, firm. “He sent a bodyguard to watch over you in the Roughs. I spoke to TenSoon. The seduction was her idea. And yours, presumably.”
“Harmony knew,” Wax said hoarsely. “He saw what would happen.”
“Maybe He didn’t.”
“Then what kind of God is He? What good is a God like Him, Marasi? Tell me that.”
Marasi fidgeted, then she sighed and took the strange spike back. She dropped something else onto the table as she rose. A small earring, just a stud with the back bent over. “They sent this for you.”
Wax didn’t look at it. He left that earring right where it was, as Marasi made her farewells and stepped out of the party. Others came to him, offered bland encouragement, of the type you might write on a card.
He nodded, but didn’t listen.
Marasi stopped by the precinct offices on her way home from the party at Ladrian Mansion, intent on retrieving her copy of the Lord Mistborn’s Hemalurgy book, which she’d locked in her drawer. The offices were dark and quiet—a direct contrast to the chaos of a few nights back. Though some constables were out on patrol, most had been given time off. Only those with jail watch would be on duty.
So it surprised her when she found lights on at the back of the main chamber. She walked up and leaned against the doorframe, looking in at Aradel, who had a stack of papers out and was working on them by candlelight.
“I find it hard to believe,” Marasi noted, “that there’s nothing better for the governor to do on his first day in office than equipment-depreciation reports. Not that I mind. You’ve been ignoring those for … how long?”
Aradel’s expression soured. “I’m not governor,” he said. “Not really.”
“The title ‘Interim Governor’ has the word ‘Governor’ in it, sir.”
“They’ll vote someone else into office next month at the proper hearing.”
“Frankly, sir, I doubt that.”
He slapped one page down on the stack, signed and sealed, then sat there staring at it. Finally he ran a hand through his hair. “Oh, Preservation. What have I done? And why the hell didn’t any of you stop me?”
Marasi smiled. “You didn’t exactly give us a chance, sir.”
“I’ll run away,” he said. “I’ll refuse the appointment. I’ll…” He looked up at her, and then sighed. “I can’t be happy in this position, Colms.”
“The ones who are happy in the role, sir, seem to have had their chance. I’m excited to see where it goes from here. You just changed the world.”
“Didn’t mean to.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Marasi said, glancing to the side as someone else moved through the darkened chamber, approaching. Another constable coming in to catch up on work? “Oh no.”
Governor Innate stepped up to the door, holding a belt. “Either of you know how to tie one of these?” the former governor said in MeLaan’s voice.
“You don’t tie a belt, kandra,” Aradel said. “You buckle it.”
“No, no,” MeLaan said, pulling it tight. “I mean, in making a noose. People always talk about guys hanging themselves in their cells, but I’ll be damned if I can figure it out. Hung there for a good ten minutes, and I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t have killed even the most frail mortal. I’ve got it wrong somehow.”
She looked up at the two of them, then frowned at their appalled expressions. “What?”
“Hang yourself?” Marasi sputtered, finally finding her voice. “You’re our linchpin witness!”
“You really think,” MeLaan said dryly, “that Harmony would let me sit at trial and testify falsely against people I don’t even know? It would make a mockery of justice, kids.”
“No,” Marasi said. “We have the letters. We know the truth.”
“Do you?” MeLaan asked, pulling the belt tight again. “You know for certain Paalm didn’t forge those letters, or that Innate himself didn’t do it before she took him? You know that those lords and ladies went through with the plans, rather than backing out? You know they weren’t just talking about possibilities?”
“We’ve got good cases, holy immortal,” Aradel said. “Lieutenant Colms has done her research. We’re pretty sure this is all correct.”
“Then convince the judge and jury,” MeLaan said with a shrug. “We don’t do things like this. People have to be able to trust the law; I’m a lot of things, but I’m not going to be the one who sets the precedent that the kandra can lie in order to get someone convicted, even if you’re ‘pretty sure’ you’ve got the right evidence.”