Shadows of Self (22 page)

“And you are ever a gentleman,” Steris replied, giving him a genuine smile. Steris liked the governor, though politically they were opposites—Steris calculatedly progressive, as she figured would be expected of new money looking to advance, while Innate was conservative. But that sort of thing didn’t bother Steris. She liked people whose motives made sense, and she felt Innate’s political record was orderly. “I hope Lady Allri will recover soon.”

“It is an ailment of nerves more than anything else,” Innate said. “She did not react well to what happened today.”

“You seem to be doing remarkably,” Wax said. “All things considered.”

“The would-be assassin was one of our newer guards, and was mentally unhinged. He had terrible aim, and likely didn’t even
actually
intend to kill me.” The governor chuckled. “Would that the Survivor would always send such enemies to me, and often around election season.”

Wax cracked a forced smile, then glanced to the side. That woman from before, the pretty one with the large eyes, stood nearby. Who else was suspiciously near?

Bleeder won’t be someone I can spot easily,
Wax thought.
The Faceless Immortals have centuries of practice blending into human society.

“What is your take on it, Lord Waxillium?” Innate asked. “What were the man’s motives?”

“He was provoked to the attack,” Wax said. “It was a distraction. Someone else killed your brother; they will try again for you.”

Nearby, Drim stood up straight, glancing at him.

“Curious,” Innate said. “But you’re known for jumping at shadows, are you not?”

“Every lawman follows a bum lead on occasion.”

“I believe you’ll find Lord Waxillium to be right far more often than he is wrong, my lord,” Steris said. “If he warns of danger, I would listen.”

“I will,” Innate said.

“I want to meet with you,” Wax said, “so we can discuss important matters. Tomorrow at the latest. You need to hear what we’re dealing with.”

“I will schedule it.” From Innate, that was a promise. Wax would have his meeting. “Lady Harms, might I ask after your cousin? I’ve yet to thank her for what she did today, even if the man’s aim was off, and I would have been safe anyway.”

“Marasi is well,” Steris said. “She should be coming up here tonight to—”

Look at them.

The thought forced its way into Wax’s head. Steris and the governor continued to speak, but he froze.

They dress in painted sequins. They drink wine. They laugh, and smile, and play, and dance, and eat, and quietly kill. All part of Harmony’s plan. All actors on a stage. That’s what you are too, Waxillium Ladrian. It’s what all men are.

A chill moved over Wax, like ants running across his skin. The thoughts in his head were a voice, like Harmony’s, but rasping and crude. Brutal. A terrible whisper.

Wax was still wearing his earring. Bleeder had found out how to communicate with someone wearing a Hemalurgic spike.

The murderer was in his head.

10

Wayne turned as the sausage lady passed. He intended to reach for another handful. Instead he got slapped.

He blinked, at first assuming that the servers had finally gotten tired of him outthinking them. But the slapper hadn’t been one of them. It was a child. He fixed his stare on the young girl as Marasi hurried back to his side. Why, this child couldn’t be more than fifteen. And she’d
slapped
him!

“You,” the girl said, “are a
monster
.”

“I—”

“Remmingtel Tarcsel!” the girl said. “Do you think anyone in this party has heard that name before?”

“Well—”

“No, they haven’t. I’ve asked. They all stand here using my father’s incandescent lights—which he toiled for
years
to create—and nobody knows his name. Do you know why, Mister Hanlanaze?”

“I suspect I don’t—”

“Because you stole his designs, and with them his life. My father died clipless, destitute and depressed, because of men like you. You aren’t a scientist, Mister Hanlanaze, whatever you claim. You’re not an inventor. You’re a thief.”

“That part’s right. I—”

“I’ll have the better of you,” the girl hissed, stepping up to him and poking him right in the gut, almost where he’d hidden his dueling canes. “I have
plans
. And unlike my father, I know that this world isn’t just about who has the best ideas. It’s about the people who can market those ideas. I’m going to find investors and change this city. And when you’re crying, destitute and discredited, you remember my father’s name and what you did.”

She spun on her heel—long, straight blonde hair slapping him in the face—and stalked away.

“What the hell was that?” Wayne whispered.

“The price of wearing someone else’s likeness, I guess,” Marasi said. Rusting woman sounded
amused
!

“Her daddy,” Wayne said. “She said … I killed her daddy…”

“Yeah. Sounds like Hanlanaze has some dirt in his past.”

Hanlanaze. Right. Hanlanaze. The professor.

“I’ve read broadsheet columns by that girl,” Marasi said. “It’s a real shame, if it’s true those inventions were stolen.”

“Yeah,” Wayne said, rubbing his cheek. “Shame.” He eyed the plate of little sausages as it passed, but couldn’t find the will to chase it down. The fun was gone, for some reason.

Instead he went looking for Wax.

*   *   *

“Excuse me,” Wax said to the governor and Steris.

Both turned astonished eyes on him as he walked away. A rude move. He didn’t let himself care. He stepped into the center of the room, instincts screaming at him.

Guns out!

Firefight coming!

Find cover!

Run.

He did none of those things, but he couldn’t keep his eye from twitching. With his steel burning, a spray of small, translucent blue lines connected him to nearby sources of metal. He was in the habit of ignoring those.

Now he watched them. Quivering, shifting, the rhythm and pulse of a hundred people in a room. Trays for food, jewelry, spectacles. Metal parts in the tables and chairs. So much metal that made the framework for the lives of men and women. They were the flesh of civilization, and steel was now its skeleton.

So, you realize what I am,
the voice said in his mind. Feminine, but rasping.

No, what are you?
Wax sent back. A test.

Harmony spoke to you. I know that he did.

You’re a koloss,
Wax said, using the wrong word on purpose.

You dance for Harmony,
the voice replied.
You bend and move at his direction. You don’t care how poor an excuse for a god he is.

Wax wasn’t certain—there was no way to be certain—but it seemed that Bleeder couldn’t read his mind. The kandra could only send out thoughts. What was it Harmony had said? That hearing thoughts had come from Preservation, but inserting them from Ruin?

Wax turned slowly about the room, watching those lines. Bleeder wouldn’t have any metal on her. People who were metallically aware were more careful about things like that. The governor’s guards, for example. Half of them carried guns, but the other half only dueling canes.

How do you stand it, Wax?
Bleeder asked.
Dwelling among them. Like living up to your knees in sewage.

“Why did you kill Winsting?” Wax asked out loud.

I killed him because he had to die. I killed him because nobody else would.

“So you’re a hero,” Wax said, turning about.
She’s close by,
he thought.
Watching me. Who? Which one?

And if he thought he’d figured it out … did he dare fire first?

The strike of lightning is not a hero,
Bleeder said.
The earthquake is not a hero. These things simply exist.

Wax started walking through the room. Perhaps Bleeder would try to move along with him. He kept his hands to the sides, a coin in each fist. No guns yet. That would provoke a panic. “Why the governor?” Wax asked. “He is a good man.”

There are no good men,
Bleeder said.
Choice is an illusion, lawman. There are those created to be selfish and there are those created to be selfless. This does not make them good or evil, any more than the ravaging lion is evil when compared to the placid rabbit.

“You called them sewage.”

Sewage is not evil. That does not make it desirable.

Bleeder’s voice in his mind seemed to take on more personality as she spoke. Soft, haunting, morose. Like Bloody Tan had been.

Someone else moves us.…

“And you?” Wax asked. “Which are you? Wolf or rabbit?”

I am the surgeon.

The woman, the beauty in red, followed him. She tried to be surreptitious about it, walking over to a group to meet them and chat—but she moved parallel to Wax. There was another person following too. A short man in a server’s outfit carrying a tray of food. He made his rounds, but the other servers moved clockwise. Wax was going counterclockwise.

Were they close enough to hear him speaking? Not with natural ears. Perhaps Bleeder could burn tin. If that was the power she’d chosen for the evening.

You are a surgeon too,
Bleeder said.
They call you lord, they smile at you, but you aren’t one of them. If only you could be truly free. If only …

“I follow the law,” Wax whispered. “What do you follow?”

Bleeder gave no reply to that. The whisper, perhaps, had kept her from hearing.

The governor is corrupt,
Bleeder said.
He spent years covering for his brother, but in truth he would have done better covering for himself.

Wax looked to the side. He’d circled the room at this point, almost back to where he’d started. That server had followed all the way.

I have much work to do,
Bleeder said.
I need to free everyone in this city. Harmony crushes his palm against society, smothering it. He claims to not interfere, but then moves us like pieces on a board.

“So you’ll kill the governor?” Wax said. “That will somehow free the city?”

Yes, it will,
Bleeder said.
But of course I can’t kill him yet, Wax. I haven’t even murdered your father yet.

Wax felt suddenly cold. But his father was already dead. He spun, hand on his gun, and met the eyes of the server. The man froze, his eyes wide.

Then he ran.

Wax cursed, dashing after and flipping a coin out in front of himself. It spun in the air, but the waiter ducked behind a group of people. Wax gritted his teeth and let the coin drop without Pushing on it, instead unslinging Vindication. This prompted cries of worry from those in the party. The waiter ducked behind groups of people, ready to dodge Wax.

Fortunately, he—or she, or whatever—wasn’t ready for Wayne, who surged out between two plump women with cups of wine and flung himself at the waiter. Both went down in a heap. Wax slowed, raising his gun, taking aim. He couldn’t give Bleeder a chance to use Allomancy or Feruchemy, particularly if he was wrong about her using tin right now. A shot to the head wouldn’t kill a kandra, he guessed, but it should slow her down. Wax just had to be certain not to hit Wayne in the wrong—

The governor’s guards piled on top of Wayne and Bleeder. Wax cursed, dashing forward, Vindication up beside his head and mistcoat flapping behind him. He leaped over cowering partygoers—Pushing off tacks in the floor to get some height—and came down near the group of struggling guards.

Wayne, wearing a false beard and swearing like a canal worker with a headache, flailed about as five security guards held him.

“Let him go!” Wax said. “That’s my deputy. Where’s the other one?”

The guards stumbled about, all but one, who lay on the floor. Bleeding from the gut.

Wax snapped his head up, spotting a man in a waiter’s outfit pushing his way toward the room’s outer wall nearby. Wax leveled Vindication and took aim.

You should know,
Bleeder said,
that I was sad about your lover’s death. I hated that it was necessary.

Wax’s hand froze. Lessie. Dead.

Damn it, I’m past that!
Wax squeezed the trigger anyway, but Bleeder ducked, skidding to the ground. The bullet punched a hole in the window above the man’s head.

Bleeder threw a chair at the weakened window, shattering it. Then, as Wax fired again, he leaped through.

Twenty-plus stories in the air.

Wax bellowed, charging toward the window. Wayne joined him, grabbing Wax by the arm. “I’ll hold on tightly, mate. Let’s go.”

“Stay,” Wax said, forcing himself to think through his turmoil of emotions. “Watch the governor. This might be a distraction, like the attempt earlier.”

Wax didn’t give Wayne a chance to complain. He shook out of the man’s grip, then threw himself into the mists.