Marasi gasped, immediately going to his side. Waxillium spun, looking at Tillaume just as the butler turned from his supposed tea preparations and leveled a pistol at Waxillium.
There was no time for thought. Waxillium burned steel—he kept it in him when he thought he might be in danger—and Pushed on the third button of his vest. He always wore one made of steel there, to use either for restoring his metal reserves or as a weapon.
It burst from his vest, streaking across the room and striking Tillaume in the chest just as he pulled the trigger. The shot went wild. Neither the bullet nor the gun registered as metal to Waxillium’s Allomantic senses. Aluminum, then.
Tillaume stumbled to the side and dropped the gun, pulling himself along the bookshelf in an attempt to flee. He left a line of blood on the floor before collapsing at the door.
Waxillium dropped to his knees beside Wayne. Marasi had jumped at the gunshot, and was staring at the gasping butler.
“Wayne?” Waxillium said, lifting his friend’s head.
Wayne’s eyes fluttered open. “Poison. I hate poison. Worse than losin’ a finger, I tell you.”
“Lord Waxillium!” Marasi said, alarmed.
“Wayne will be fine,” Waxillium said, relaxing back. “So long as he can talk and he has some Feruchemical reserves, he can pull through just about anything.”
“I’m not talking about him. The butler!”
Waxillium looked up with a start, realizing that the dying Tillaume was fiddling with the basket he’d brought in—the man reached a bloodied hand into it and pulled on something.
“Wayne!” Waxillium cried. “Bubble. Now!”
Tillaume fell back. The basket erupted in a blossoming ball of fire.
And then froze.
“Aw, hell,” Wayne said, rolling over to look at the explosion in progress. “I warned you. I said things are always blowing up around you.”
“I refuse to take responsibility for this one.”
“He’s your butler,” Wayne said, coughing and crawling to his knees. “Blarek! It wasn’t even good tea.”
“It’s getting bigger!” Marasi said, alarmed as she pointed at the explosion.
The fire blast had vaporized the basket before Wayne got his bubble up. The blast wave was slowly expanding outward, burning away the carpet, destroying the doorframe and the bookshelves. The butler himself had already been engulfed.
“Damn,” Wayne said. “That’s a big one.”
“Probably meant to look like an accident with my metallurgy equipment,” Waxillium said. “Burning our bodies, covering the murder.”
“Shall we go out the windows, then?”
“That blast is going to be hard to outrun,” Waxillium said thoughtfully.
“You could do it. Just gotta Push hard enough.”
“Against what, Wayne? I don’t see any good anchors in that direction. Besides, if I launch us backward that fast, going out the window is going to shred us and rip our bodies apart.”
“Gentlemen,” Marasi said, voice growing frantic, “it’s getting bigger.”
“Wayne can’t stop time,” Waxillium said. “Just slow it greatly. And he can’t move the bubble once he’s made it.”
“Look,” Wayne said. “Just blow the wall out. Push against the nails in the window frames and blast open the side of the building. Then you can shoot us out that direction without us running into anything.”
“Do you even listen to yourself when you say these things?” Waxillium asked, hands on hips as he regarded his friend. “That’s brick and stone. If I Push too hard, I’ll just throw myself backward into the explosion.”
“It’s getting really, really close!” Marasi said.
“So make yourself heavier,” Wayne said.
“Heavy enough so that I don’t move when an entire wall—a well-built, extremely heavy one—is ripped off a building?”
“Sure.”
“The floor would never be able to take it,” Waxillium said. “It would shatter, and…”
He trailed off.
Both of them looked down.
Snapping into motion, Waxillium grabbed Marasi, pulling her over with a yelp. He rolled onto his back, holding her tightly atop him.
The explosion was taking up most of their field of vision now, having consumed a large portion of the room. It swelled closer and closer, glowing with angry yellow light, like a bubbling, bursting pastry expanding in an enormous oven.
“What are we—” Marasi said.
“Hold on!” Waxillium said.
He amplified his weight.
Feruchemy didn’t work like Allomancy. The two categories of power were often lumped together, but in many ways, they were opposites. In Allomancy, the power came from the metal itself, and there was a limit to how much you could do at once. Wayne couldn’t compress time beyond a certain amount; Waxillium could Push only so hard on a piece of metal.
Feruchemy was powered by a sort of cannibalism, where you consumed part of yourself for later use. Make yourself weigh half as much for ten days, and you could make yourself one and a half times as heavy for a near-equal amount of time. Or you could make yourself twice as heavy for half that time. Or four times as heavy for a quarter of that time.
Or extremely heavy for a few brief moments.
Waxillium drew into himself weight he’d stored in his metalminds across days spent going around at three-quarters weight. He became heavy as a boulder, then as heavy as a building, then heavier. All this weight was focused on one small section of the floor.
The wood crunched, then burst, exploding downward. Waxillium dropped out of Wayne’s bubble of speed and hit real time, the shift jostling him. The next few moments were a blur. He heard the awesome sound of the explosion above—it hit with a wave of force. He released his metalmind and Pushed against the nails in the floor below them, trying to slow himself and Marasi.
He didn’t have enough time to do it well. They crashed into the floor of the next story down, and something heavy landed on them, driving the breath from Waxillium’s lungs. There was glaring brightness and a burst of heat.
Then it was over.
Waxillium lay dazed, ears ringing. He groaned, then realized that Marasi was clinging to him, shaking. He held her close for a moment, blinking. Were they still in danger? What had fallen on them?
Wayne, he thought. He forced himself to move, rolling over and setting Marasi aside. The floor beneath them had been crushed practically to splinters, the nails flattened to little disks. Part of his downward Push must have been while he still had the increased weight.
They were covered with chips of wood and plaster dust. The ceiling was a wreck, sections of wood smoldering, bits of ash and debris wafting down. There was nothing left of the hole he’d broken; the blast had consumed it and the floor around it.
Wincing, he moved Wayne. His friend had fallen on them and blocked the brunt of the explosion from above. His duster had been shredded, his back exposed, blackened and burned, blood dribbling down his sides.
Marasi raised a hand to her mouth. She was still trembling, her dark brown hair tangled, eyes wide.
No, Waxillium thought, uncertain if he should try to turn his friend over or not. Please, no. Wayne had used a portion of his health to recover from the poison. And last night, he’d said he only had enough left for one bullet wound.…
Anxious, he felt at Wayne’s neck. There was a faint pulse. Waxillium closed his eyes and let out a deep breath. As he watched, the wounds on Wayne’s back began to draw closed. It was a slow process. A Bloodmaker using Feruchemical healing was limited by how fast he wanted the power to work—recovering quickly required a much greater expenditure of health. If Wayne didn’t have much left, he’d need to work at a slow pace.
Waxillium left him to it. Wayne would be suffering great pain, but there was nothing he could do. Instead, he took Marasi’s arm. She was still trembling.
“It’s all right,” Waxillium said, his voice sounding odd and muffled because of the explosion’s effect on his hearing. “Wayne is healing. Are you injured?”
“I…” She looked dazed. “Two in three sufferers of great trauma are unable to correctly identify their own injuries as a result of stress or the body’s own natural coping mechanisms covering the pain.”
“Tell me if any of this hurts,” Waxillium said, feeling at her ankles, then legs, then arms for breaks. He carefully prodded her sides for broken ribs, though it was difficult through the thick cloth of her dress.
She slowly came out of her daze, then looked at him and pulled him close, tucking her head against his chest. He hesitated, then wrapped his arms around her and held her as she steadied her breath, obviously trying to get hold of her emotions.
Behind them, Wayne started coughing. He stirred, then groaned and lay still, letting the healing continue. They’d fallen into a spare bedroom. The building was burning, but not too badly. Likely the constables would soon be called.
Nobody has come running, Waxillium thought. The other staff. Are they all right?
Or were they part of it? His mind was still trying to catch up. Tillaume—a man who, as far as he knew, had served his uncle faithfully for decades—had tried to kill him. Three times.
Marasi pulled back. “I think I … I think I’ve composed myself. Thank you.”
He nodded to her, pulling out his handkerchief and handing it over, then knelt by Wayne. The man’s back was crusted with blood and burned skin, but it had been lifted and raised as scabs, new skin forming underneath.
“Is it bad?” Wayne asked, eyes still closed.
“You’ll pull through.”
“I meant the duster.”
“Oh. Well … you’re gonna need a really big patch this time.”
Wayne snorted, then pushed himself up and moved into a sitting position. He winced several times during the process, then finally opened his eyes. Trails of tears were running down the side of his face. “I told you,” Wayne said. “Innocent things are always exploding around you, Wax.”
“You kept your fingers this time.”
“Great. I can still strangle you.”
Waxillium smiled, resting his hand on his friend’s arm. “Thanks.”
Wayne nodded. “I apologize for havin’ to fall on you two.”
“I’ll forgive you, under the circumstances.” Waxillium glanced at Marasi. She sat with her arms wrapped around herself, hunched forward, face pale. She saw his scrutiny, then lowered her arms, as if forcing herself to be strong, and began to stand up.
“It’s all right,” Waxillium said. “You can take more time.”
“I’ll be well,” she said, though it was hard to make out the words, as his hearing was still dulled. “I just … I’m unaccustomed to people trying to kill me.”
“You don’t ever get accustomed to it,” Wayne said. “Trust me.” He took a deep breath, then pulled off the remnants of his duster and shirt. Then he turned his burned back to Waxillium. “You mind?”
“You may want to turn away, Marasi,” Waxillium said.