The Bands of Mourning (29 page)

“In fact,” Marasi said, “he’s quite articulate, and not at all ‘grindy.’ And the accent is strange—not like anything I’ve heard before.”

Wayne grunted, taking off his head spikes. “Can you do it for me?”

“What? The accent?”

Wayne nodded eagerly.

“No. Not a chance.”

“Well, next time you meet that guy, tell ’im he’s gotta come talk to me. I need to hear what he sounds like.”

“What does it matter?”

“I gotta hear,” Wayne said. “For next time.”

“Next time? How often do you expect you’ll be imitating Death?”

Wayne shrugged. “This is the fourth so far. So you never can tell.” He took the last swig of Dechamp’s brandy, then slung his cloak over his shoulder and started through the mists back toward the road.

“Dulsing,” Marasi said.

“You know it?”

“It’s a little farming settlement,” Marasi said. “Maybe fifty miles northeast of New Seran. I read about it in my textbooks—there was a landmark water rights case there—but it’s isolated and tiny, barely worth anyone’s time. What in the world does the Set want with it?”

“Maybe they like their tomatoes real fresh,” Wayne said. “I know I do.”

Marasi grew silent, obviously deep in thought, worried for some reason. Wayne left her to it, digging out his tin of gum, tapping it, then flipping it open and selecting one of the soft, powder-covered balls to chew. So far as he was concerned, this had been a bang-up night. Dynamite, a nice brawl, free brandy, and getting to scare the piss out of someone.

It was the simple things that made his life worth living.

*   *   *

Wax had little luck with the first set of rooms he scouted. Though they supposedly belonged to Kelesina, they proved to be empty. He was tempted to ransack them for information, but decided that would take too long—and would be too incriminating at the moment. Being discovered lost in a hallway was excusable; being discovered going through a lady’s desk drawers was another thing entirely.

He prowled back to the atrium and checked on Steris, gave her a wave, then continued down another hallway. This one bordered the outer wall and had windows open to the mists, which streamed in with their own miniature waterfalls. Likely some servant had the duty to close those windows on a misty night, but had gotten distracted by the party.

He listened at a set of doors, and heard nothing other than a voice drifting in from the window—the voice of Lord Severington, still plowing through his speech in the ballroom. With the amplification devices, Wax could make out a word here and there.

“… suffer the rule … new Lord Ruler?… improper taxation … era must end…”

I will have to give that more attention,
Wax thought, prowling through the hallway toward the next set of rooms. Severington was mayor of Bilming, the port city west of Elendel. It was the only major one in the Basin besides Elendel itself—and was an industrial powerhouse. If conflict
did
come, they’d be spearheading it.

They’re spearheading it now,
Wax realized as more words drifted up to him.

He continued down the hallway, listening at the next set of doors. He was about to turn away, when he heard a voice. There was someone inside. Wax crouched down, ear to the door, wishing he had a Tineye along to listen for him. That voice …

That was his uncle.

Wax pressed his ear up against the door, heedless of how he’d look to someone entering the hallway. Rusts … he couldn’t make out much. A half word here and there. But it
was
Edwarn. Another voice spoke, and that was almost certainly Kelesina.

The gap under the door was dark. Wax put his hand to his pocket and the handgun secreted there, then turned the door’s knob and eased it open. Beyond was some kind of study, completely dark but for the thin strip of light under the door on the far side. Wax slipped inside, closed the door behind him, and scuttled through the room—stifling a curse as he smacked his arm on an end table. Heart thumping, he put his back to the wall beside the other door.

“Never mind that,” his uncle was saying. His voice was muffled, as if he were speaking through a cloth or a mask or something. “Why have you interrupted me? You know the importance of my work.”

“Waxillium knows about the project,” Kelesina said. “And he’s found one of the coins. He’s acting stupid, but he
knows
.”

“The diversions?”

“He’s not biting.”

“You’re not trying hard enough then,” Suit said. “Kidnap one of his friends and leave a letter, purportedly from one of his old enemies. Challenge his wits, draw him into an investigation. Waxillium cannot resist a personal grudge. It will work.”

“The train robbery didn’t,” Kelesina said. “What of that, Suit? We wasted vital resources, important connections I had spent years cultivating, on that attack. You promised that if we attacked while he was on board, he wouldn’t be able to resist investigating. Yet he ignored it. Left Ironstand that same night.”

Wax felt a chill as a whole set of assumptions shifted within him. The train robbery … had it been a
distraction,
intended to draw his attention away from pursuing the Set?

“Recovering the device,” Suit said, “was worth the risk.”

“You mean the device Irich immediately lost?” Kelesina demanded. “That one shouldn’t be trusted with important missions. He’s too eager. You should have let me recover the item once Waxillium was off the train.”

“There was a good chance he’d take the bait,” Edwarn said. “I know my nephew; he’s probably still itching to go after those bandits. If he’s at your party instead, then you aren’t doing your duty properly. I haven’t time to hold your hand on this, Kelesina. I need to be off to the second site.”

Wax frowned. The train hadn’t been just a distraction, it seemed. But the words left him with a deeper sense of worry. He’d chased half a dozen leads during the last year, anticipating that he was close on the heels of his uncle. How many of those had been plants? And how many of his other cases had been intentional distractions? And Ape Manton? Was he really even in New Seran? Likely not.

Edwarn spoke a truth. He knew Wax well. Too well, for a man he’d barely seen in the last twenty years.

“Well,” Suit said, “you have your chance now to recover the device, as you promised you could. How is that going?”

“It wasn’t in the things he checked at the party,” Kelesina said. “We snuck a spy among the hotel staff, and she will search for it in his rooms. I’m telling you, Irich—”

“Irich was punished,” Suit said. Why did his voice sound so much smaller than Kelesina’s? “That is all you need know. Recover it for me, and other mistakes might be forgiven. It is only a matter of time before they accidentally use Allomancy near it.”

“And
then
will we see this ‘miracle’ you keep promising, Suit?” she demanded. “A few more speeches like this one, and Severington will have the entirety of the Basin whipped into a frenzy. Completely ignoring that Elendel has us outmanned and outgunned.”

“Patience!” Suit said, sounding amused.

“
You
try to be patient. They’re bleeding us dry. You promised to crush that city, provide an army, and—”

“Patience,” Suit repeated softly. “Stop Waxillium. That is your part of the bargain now. Keep him in the city; keep him distracted.”

“That’s
not
going to work, Suit,” Kelesina said. “He knows too much already. That damn shapeshifter must have told him—”

“You let it escape?”

Kelesina was silent.

“I thought,” Suit said, voice growing cold, “that you had disposed of the creature. You presented its spike to me, claiming the other had been destroyed.”

“We … may have assumed too quickly.”

“I see,” Suit said.

The two did not speak for a protracted moment. Wax raised his gun beside his head, sweat trickling down his brow in the dark room. He toyed with breaking in right then. He had evidence on Kelesina in the form of the wounded kandra and his own testimony. Several people died in that blast. Murder.

But did he have enough against Edwarn? Would his uncle just slip away again? Rusts, an army? They spoke of destroying Elendel. Dared he wait? If he took her and Suit right now, she might break, testify against him—

Footsteps.

They came from the hallway outside. As they approached the door, he made a snap decision, dropping a coin—it wasn’t the special one, he had that in a different pocket—and Pushing.

Light from the hallway poured into the room as the door opened, revealing the steward from before. She crossed the room in a rush, and blessedly didn’t turn on the room’s lights—instead walking straight to the doorway that Wax had been listening at.

She didn’t look up and see Wax pressed to the ceiling above her, Pushing against a coin she walked right over in her haste to knock on the door. Kelesina called for her to enter.

“My lady,” the steward said in an urgent tone. “Burl sent me word while watching the party for Allomancers. He sensed someone using metals in this direction.”

“Where is Waxillium?”

“His fiancée was sick,” the steward said. “We brought her to a guest room to recover.”

“Curious,” Uncle Edwarn said. “And where is he now?”

Wax dropped to the floor with a thump, leveling his gun at the people inside the room. “He’s right here.”

The steward spun, gasping. Kelesina rose from her seat, eyes wide. And Uncle Edwarn …

Uncle Edwarn wasn’t in the room. The only thing there was a boxy device on the table in front of Kelesina.

16

“Why, Waxillium!” the box said, projecting his uncle’s voice. “So good to hear your dulcet tones. I presume your entrance was properly dramatic?”

“It’s a telegraph for voices,” Wax said, stepping forward. He kept his gun on Kelesina, who backed up to the wall of the small room. She’d gone completely pale.

“Something like that,” Edwarn said, his voice sounding small. The electric mechanism didn’t reproduce it exactly. “How is Lady Harms? I hope her ailment was nothing too distressing.”

“She’s fine,” Wax snapped, “no thanks to the fact that you tried to have us all killed on that train.”

“Now, now,” Edwarn said. “That wasn’t the point. Why, killing you was an afterthought. Tell me, did you look into the casualties on the train? One passenger killed, I believe. Who was he?”

“You’re trying to distract me,” Wax said.

“Yes, I am. But that doesn’t mean I’m lying. In fact, I’ve found that telling you the truth is a far better method in general. You should look into the dead man. You’ll be impressed by what you find.”

No. Stay focused.
“Where are you?” Wax demanded.

“Away,” Suit said, “on matters of
great
import. I do apologize for not being able to meet you in person. I offer up Lady Kelesina as a measure of my condolences.”

“Kelesina can go to hell,” Wax said, grabbing the box and lifting it, nearly yanking the wires in the back from the wall. “Where is my sister!”

“So many impatient people in the world,” Edwarn’s voice said. “You really should have focused on your own city, Nephew, and kept your attention on the little crimes fed to you. I’ve tried being reasonable. I fear I’m going to have to do something drastic. Something that will be certain to divert you.”

Wax felt cold. “What are you going to do, Suit?”

“It’s not about what I’m going to do, Nephew. It’s about what I’m
doing
.”

Wax glanced toward Kelesina, who had been reaching for the pocket of her dress. She raised her hands, frightened, right as something enormous
smashed
into Wax. He stumbled against the table, overturning it.

Wax blinked in shock. The steward! She’d grown to incredible strength, arms bulging beneath her robes, neck thick as a man’s thigh. Wax cursed, raising his gun, which the steward immediately slapped from his hand.

His wrist screamed in pain and he winced,
Pushing
on the nails in the wall to throw himself in a roll across the floor away from the steward. He came up fishing in his pocket for coins, but the steward wasn’t focused on him. She grabbed Wax’s gun off the floor, then turned toward Kelesina, who screamed.

Oh no …

The shot left his ears ringing. Kelesina fell limp to the floor, blood dribbling from the hole in her forehead.

“He killed her!” a voice screamed from the doorway outside. Wax spun to find the maid he’d seen earlier standing there, hands to her face. “Lord Ladrian
killed
our lady!” The woman ran away screaming the words over and over, although she’d obviously had a clear view of the room.

“You bastard!” Wax shouted toward the box.

“Now, now,” the box said. “That’s patently false, Waxillium. You have a very clear understanding of my parentage.”

The steward walked over to Kelesina, fishing at something on Kelesina’s body. Then, for some reason, the steward shot the dead woman again.

Either way, this gave Wax a chance to seize the box, which had fallen from the table near him.

“You’d better be careful, Nephew,” the box said. “I’ve told them to kill you if they can. In this case, a dead scapegoat will work as well as a living one.”