“I knew it couldn’t last,” he said. “Rustin’ knew it, you know? She’s like, what, a thousand years old?”
“Roughly two-thirds that,” Marasi said.
“And I’m not quite forty,” Wayne said. “More like sixteen if you take account of my spry youthful physique.”
“And your sense of humor.”
“Damn right,” he said, then sighed. “Things have been … tough lately. With Wax gettin’ all fancy and MeLaan being gone for months at a time. Feel like nobody wants me around. Maybe I belong in a sewer, you know?”
“You don’t,” she said. “You’re the best partner I’ve ever had.”
“Only partner.”
“Only? Gorglen doesn’t count?”
“Nope. He’s not human. I gots papers what prove he’s a giraffe in disguise.” Then he smiled. “But … thanks for askin’. Thanks for carin’.”
She nodded, then led the way onward. When she’d imagined her life as a top detective and lawwoman, she hadn’t envisioned this. At least the smell was getting better — or she was getting used to it.
It was extremely gratifying to find, at the exact spot marked on the map, an old metal door set into the sewer wall. Wayne held up the lantern, and one didn’t need a keen detective’s eye to see the door had been used recently. Silvery scrapes on one side of the frame, the handle rubbed clean of the pervasive filth and cobwebs.
The people who had built the sewers had discovered it, and highlighted it as a site of potential historical significance. But the note had been lost due to bureaucratic nonsense.
“Nice,” Wayne said, leaning in beside her. “Some first-rate detectivin’, Marasi. How many old surveys did you have to read to find this?”
“Too many,” she said. “People would be surprised how much of my time is spent in the documents library.”
“They leave the research outta the stories.”
“You did this sort of thing back in the Roughs?”
“Well, the Roughs variety of it,” Wayne said. “Usually involved holdin’ some bloke’s face down in the trough until he remembered whose old prospectin’ claim he’d been filchin’, but it’s the same principle. With more swearin’.”
She handed him her rifle and investigated the door. He didn’t like her to make a big deal out of it, but he could hold guns these days without his hands shaking. She’d never seen him fire one, but he said he could if he needed to.
The door was shut tight and had no lock on this side. But it seemed the people she was hunting had found it closed too — there were a bunch of marks along one edge. There was enough room to slip something between door and frame.
“I need a knife to get through this,” she said.
“You can use my razor-sharp wit.”
“Alas, Wayne, you aren’t the type of tool I need at the moment.”
“Ha!” he said. “I like that one.”
He handed her a knife from his backpack where they kept supplies like rope, and extra metals in case they faced Metalborn. This kind of gang shouldn’t have an Allomancer — they were your basic “shake down shopkeepers for protection money” types. Yet she had reports that made her wary, and she was increasingly sure this group was funded by the Set.
Years later, and she was still hunting answers to questions that had plagued her from the very start of her career as a lawwoman. The group known as the Set, once run by Wax’s Uncle Edwarn, then revealed to involve his sister, Telsin, as well. A group that followed, or worshipped, or somehow furthered the machinations of a dark figure known as Trell. A god, she thought. From ancient times.
If she caught the right people, she might finally get the answers. But she perpetually fell short. The closest she’d gotten to answers had been six years ago, but then everyone they’d captured — including Wax’s uncle — had been killed in an explosion. Leaving her to chase at shadows again, and the rest of Elendel’s elite fully committed to ignoring the threat. Without evidence, she and Wax had been unable to prove that the Set even existed beyond Edwarn’s lackeys.
Using the knife, she managed to undo the bar holding the door closed from the other side. The bar swung free with a soft clang, and she eased the door open to reveal a rough-hewn tunnel leading downward. One of the many that dotted this region, dating back to the ancient days before the Catacendre. To the time of myths and heroes, ashfalls and tyrants.
Together she and Wayne slipped inside, leaving the door as they’d found it. They dimmed their lantern as a precaution, then started into the depths.
2
“Cravat?” Steris said, reading from the list.
“Tied and pinned,” Wax said, pulling it tight.
“Shoes?”
“Polished.”
“First piece of evidence?”
Wax flipped a silvery medallion in the air, then caught it.
“Second piece of evidence?” Steris asked, making a mark on her list.
He pulled a small folded stack of papers from his pocket. “Right here.”
“Third piece of evidence?”
Wax checked another pocket, then paused, looking around the small office — his senator’s chamber in the House of Proceedings. Had he left them … “On the desk back home,” he said, smacking his head.
“I brought a spare,” Steris said, digging in her bag.
Wax grinned. “Of course you did.”
“Two, actually,” Steris said, handing over a sheet of paper, which he tucked away. Then she consulted her list again.
Little Maxillium stepped up beside his mother, looking very serious as he scanned his own list of scribbles. At five years old he knew his letters, but preferred to make up his own.
“Dog picture,” Max said, as if reading from his list.
“I might need one of those,” Wax said. “Quite useful.”
Max solemnly presented it, then said, “Cat picture.”
“Need one of those too.”
“I’m bad at cats,” Max said, handing him another sheet. “So it looks like a squirrel.”
Wax hugged his son, then put the sheets away reverently with the others. The boy’s sister — Tindwyl, as Steris liked traditional names — babbled in the corner, where Kath, the governess, was watching her.
Finally, Steris handed him his pistols one at a time. Long-barreled and weighty, they had been designed by Ranette to look menacing — but they had two safeties and were unloaded. It had been a while since he’d needed to shoot anyone, but he continued to make good use of his reputation as the “Lawman Senator of the Roughs.” City folk, particularly politicians, were intimidated by small arms. They preferred to kill people with more modern weapons, like poverty and despair.
“Is a kiss for my wife on that list?” Wax asked.
“Actually, no,” she said, surprised.
“A rare oversight,” he said, then gave her a lingering kiss. “You should be the one going out there today, Steris. You did more preparation than I.”
“You’re the house lord.”
“I could appoint you as a representative to speak for us.”
“Please, no,” she said. “You know how I am with people.”
“You’re good with the right people.”
“And are politicians ever right about anything?”
“I hope so,” he said, straightening his suit coat and turning toward the door. “Since I am one.”
He pushed out of his chambers and walked down to the Senate floor. Steris would watch from her seat in the observation balcony — by now, everyone knew how particular she was about getting the same one.
As Wax stepped into the vast chamber — which buzzed with activity as senators returned from the short recess — he didn’t go to his seat. Over the last few days, senators had debated the current bill, and his was the last speech in line. He had secured this spot with many promises and much trading, as he hoped it would give his arguments the advantage, give him the best chance to avert a terrible decision.