“More explosives?” she said, feeling faint.
“Yeah. We missed them on the first pass. Were rigged to blow when the latch was opened on a chest in the corner.”
“Was there anything in the chest?”
“Yeah. Explosives. Weren’t you listening?”
She gave him a flat stare.
“No,” he said, chuckling. “I don’t know what Wax expects us to find in this place. Swept it clean, they did.”
By the light of the open window, she could make out a low-ceilinged room. Well, more of a loft. She and Wayne could walk in it without bending over, but him just barely. Waxillium would have to stoop.
The floorboards were warped and there were nails sticking out in places. She had images of prying one up and finding some stash of hidden clues, but as she felt across the floor, she realized she could see between the boards to the floor below. There wasn’t really any space for hiding things.
Wayne poked through some cupboards built into the wall, checking for explosives, then knocking for hidden compartments. Marasi looked around, but quickly determined that there wasn’t anything to find here. Other than, perhaps, the explosives.
Explosives.
“Wayne, what kind of explosives are those?”
“Hum? Oh, ordinary stuff. They call it dynamite, used for blowing holes in rock out in the Roughs. Pretty easy to get, even in the city. These are smaller sticks than I’ve seen, but basically the same stuff.”
“Oh.” She frowned. “Were they in anything?”
He hesitated, then looked back at the trunk. “Huh.” He reached in and held up something. “They weren’t in anything, but someone used this to prop up the fuse and the detonator.”
“What is it?” she asked, hurrying over.
“Cigar box,” he said, letting her see it. “Citizen Magistrates. Expensive brand. Very expensive.”
She looked over the box. The top was painted gold and red, with the brand splayed across in large letters. There weren’t any cigars left, though it did look like some numbers had been scribbled across the inside of the lid in pencil. The sequence didn’t make any sense to her.
“We’ll show it to Wax,” Wayne said. “This is just the sort of thing he likes. It’ll probably lead him to some grand theory about how our boss smokes cigars, and that’ll somehow let him pick the guy out of a crowd. He’s always doing stuff like that, ever since we started working together.” Wayne smiled, taking the cigar box back, then returned to poking around the cupboards.
“Wayne,” Marasi said. “How did you end up with Waxillium, anyway?”
“That wasn’t in your reports?” he asked, knocking at the side of a cupboard.
“No. It’s considered a bit of a mystery.”
“We don’t talk about it much,” Wayne said, voice muffled, head inside the cupboard. “He saved my life.”
She smiled, sitting down on the floor, resting her back against the wall. “That’s probably a good story.”
“It’s not what you’re thinking,” he said, pulling his head out. “I was to be hanged over in Far Dorest, by the lawkeeper there.”
“Wrongfully, I assume?”
“Depends on your definition of that particular word and all,” Wayne said. “I shot a man. Innocent one.”
“Was it an accident?”
“Yeah,” Wayne said. “I only meant to rob him.” He paused, looking at the cupboard, seeming distant. He shook his head, then crawled inside, pushing hard and breaking in the back wall.
That wasn’t what she’d expected to hear. She sat back, hands around her legs. “You were a criminal?”
“Not a very capable one,” Wayne said from inside the cupboard. “I’ve always had a problem not taking things. I just grab stuff, you know? And then it’s there, in my fingers. Anyway, I was getting good at it, and I had some friends … they convinced me that I should go a little farther. Really take hold of my destiny, they said. Start going for coin, get into robbing with guns and the like. So I tried it out. Left a man dead. Father of three.”
He pulled out of the broken cupboard, then held something up. It looked like cards of some sort.
“Clues?” she asked eagerly.
“Nudes,” he said, flipping through them. “Old ones. Probably from before our bandits bought this place.” He flipped through a few more, then tossed them back into the hole. “At least it will give the conners something fun to find.” He looked back at her, seeming … haunted, his eyes lying in shadow, face lit on one side by the open window.
“So what happened?” she asked softly. “With you, I mean. Unless you don’t want to tell.”
He shrugged. “I didn’t really know what I was doing, and I panicked. I think maybe I wanted to be caught. Never wanted to shoot that bloke. Just wanted his purse, you know? Old Deadfinger caught me easy. He didn’t even have to beat a confession out of me.” Wayne was quiet for a moment. “I cried the whole time. I was sixteen. Just a kid.”
“Did you know you were an Allomancer?” she asked.
“Sure. That was kinda why I was in the Roughs in the first place, but that’s another story. Anyway, bendalloy is hard to make. Bismuth and cadmium aren’t the kinds of metals you find in your corner store. Didn’t know much about Feruchemy yet, though my father was a Feruchemist, so I had an idea. But storing health, it takes gold.”
He walked over, sitting down on the floor beside her. “Still don’t know why Wax saved me. I shoulda hanged, you know. Killed a good man. He wasn’t even rich. He was a bookkeeper. Did charity work for anyone who needed it—wills drawn up, letters read. Every week, he transcribed letters for the mine workers who couldn’t write, so they could send them home to their families in the city. Found out a lot about him in the trial, you see. Got to see his kids crying. And his wife…”
Wayne reached into his pocket, then unfolded something. A sheet of paper. “Got a letter from them a few months back.”
“They write you letters?” Marasi said.
“Sure. I send them half of what I make. Keeps the kids fed, you know. Figure it makes sense, seein’ as to how I killed their daddy. One went to university.” He hesitated. “They still hate me. Write me the letters to let me know they haven’t forgiven me, that no money will bring back their daddy. They’re right. But they do take the money, so that’s something.”
“Wayne…” Marasi said. “I’m so sorry.”
“Yeah. Me too. Some mistakes, though, you can’t fix by being sorry. Can’t fix them, no matter what you do. Guns and me, we haven’t gotten along ever since. My hand starts shaking when I hold one, wobbling about like a damn fish dumped on the docks. Ain’t that the funniest thing? Like my hand thinks by itself.”
The sound of footsteps came from the stairwell and a few moments later Waxillium walked in. He raised an eyebrow at the two of them sitting there on the floor.
“See now,” Wayne said. “We’re having a heart-to-heart, here. Don’t go stomping in and making a mess of things.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Waxillium said. “I spoke with the local beggars. The Vanishers have been moving something large in and out of the building and onto a canal boat. They did it on several occasions, always at night. It seems to have been bigger than just cargo; some kind of machinery, I suspect.”
“Huh,” Wayne said.
“Huh indeed,” Waxillium said. “You?”
“Found a box,” Wayne said, holding out the cigar box. “Oh, and some more dynamite. In case you want to blast out a new canal or something.”
“Bring it,” Waxillium said. “Might be useful.” He took the cigar box.
“There’s some nudie pictures too,” Wayne noted, pointing at the cupboard. “They’re so faded you can barely make out the good parts, though.” He hesitated. “The ladies ain’t wearing any guns, so you probably wouldn’t be interested anyway.”
Waxillium snorted.
“The cigar box is of an expensive variety,” Marasi said, standing up. “Unlikely to be from one of the common thieves, unless they took it from someone. But look. Someone wrote some numbers on the inside.”
“Indeed,” Waxillium said. He narrowed his eyes, then looked at Wayne, who nodded.
“What?” she said. “You know something?”
Waxillium tossed the box back to Wayne, who tucked it away inside the pocket of his coat. It was large enough that it hung out. “Have you ever heard the name Miles Dagouter?”
“Sure,” she said. “Miles Hundredlives. He’s a lawkeeper, out in the Roughs.”
“Yes,” Waxillium said somberly. “Come on. I think it’s time for us to take a trip. While we go, I’ll tell you a few stories.”
11
Miles stood by the railing and lit his cigar. He puffed on it a few times to get it going, then slowly released a stream of pungent smoke from between his lips.
“They’ve been spotted, boss,” Tarson said as he walked up. Tarson’s arm was in a sling; most men would still be in bed after taking a shot like he had. But Tarson was a Pewterarm and koloss-blooded. He’d heal quickly.
“Where?” Miles asked, looking down and surveying the setup of the new hideout. Besides Tarson, the only one up here with him was Clamps, third-in-command.
“They’re at the old foundry,” Tarson said. He was still wearing Wayne’s hat. “Were talking to the beggars there.”
“Should have dumped the lot of them in the canal,” Clamps grumbled, scratching at the scar on his neck.
“I’m not going to start killing beggars, Clamps,” Miles said softly. He wore a pair of aluminum revolvers; they gleamed in the electric lights of the large chamber. “You’d be surprised at how quickly something like that can backfire; turn the city’s underclass against us, and all kinds of inconvenient information will find its way to the constables.”
“Yeah, sure,” Clamps said. “Of course. But, I mean, those beggars … they saw things, boss.”
“Wax would have figured it out regardless,” Miles said. “He is like a rat. Wherever you least wish him to be, there you will find him. In a way, that makes him predictable. I assume your explosive traps—foolproof though you promised they would be—were ineffective?”
Clamps coughed into his hand.
“Pity,” Miles said. He took his silver lighter, still in his hand from lighting the cigar, and put it back in his pocket. It bore the seal of the lawkeepers of True Madil. It made the other men uncomfortable to see that. Miles kept it anyway.
The space before them was completely windowless. Big, glaring electric lights hung from the ceiling, and men were setting up forging and casting equipment. Miles was skeptical. A foundry below the ground? But Mister Suit promised that his ducts and electric fans would pull the smoke away and circulate the air. It helped that there was a lot less smoke with the electric furnaces they’d be using down here.