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He’dbeen at this all day, having left Elendel a few hours before dawn, but fatigue felt distant regardless. As four fifteen hit, Wax burst into motion. Wayne should have his distraction going in full, which gave Wax the opportunity to bolt across the springy grass to the mayor’s mansion. He dropped a bullet and Pushed up to the second floor.

There, he grabbed the outer windowsill and gave a quick Push to the mechanism inside, which should undo the latch…

The window rattled, but didn’t unlatch. Drat. It had a full lock, one a Push couldn’t undo.

All right. He increased his weight manyfold, and a quickPushcracked the window and bent the lock, letting him force the window open and pull himself inside.

His boots thumped down on a carpeted floor. The place was messy, but not cluttered. Piles of papers occupied the desk and the nearby tables. A small bar held a collection of spirits, half the tops off, the otherhalf put haphazardly back on the wrong bottle. Books lined a shelf, some put in spine first, others reversed, and a good third of them slumped to the side because the ones at the far end had been removed, leaving the whole thing to slouch like sleepy guards on watch duty.

It was in many ways the opposite of Copper’s flat. That had been sterile, pristine. This was lived in. It had the air of a place full of secrets—because a man as important as Gave would employ a fleet of maids and servants to keep things tidy. Except in this room.

Wax didn’t have a lot to go on. But the lord mayorwasinvolved in whatever the Set was planning—and involvement on that level would leave traces. A bomb somewhere in this city was pointed at Elendel, and this room held the clues that would lead him to it. But where?

Wax sorted quickly through the pages on the desk. Wayne was probably doing Grandma’s Been at the Vodka, his favorite ploy for drawing attention but not gunfire. Unfortunately, the Set would be on the lookout for his tricks. They’dcreated a Metalborn designed specifically to face Wayne. They would know about his propensity for disguises.

The papers didn’t give him much. Some shipping manifests to a factory on the outskirts of town. A stack of broadsheets with editorials circled that were critical of Gave. And another, newer stack of them with no such problems. He opened the desk, and there found a curious number of letters from noblemen and noblewomen in Elendel.

Wax recognized several of the names, including Vennis Hasting—one of the more powerful senators. He scanned a letter from him, and it touched on nothing incriminating. Though it mentioned trade negotiations, most of it was pleasantries.

Frowning, Wax fished in his coat pocket and brought out another letter, the extremely incriminating one—also from Vennis Hasting—that Maraga had given him. He was missing pieces here. When had they moved from pleasantries to discussing the destruction of the world?

For now, he stuffed both letters into his pocket. Gave and Vennis were colluding, but he had already known that. He needed a lead on where to find the bomb. Fortunately, after a little more hunting he struck gold. Gave Entrone’s calendar.

People usually made certain to hide the most important documents and information. They’dlock up their plans and schemes, but often forgot simple things like calendars. To a trained detective, knowing where you’dbeen—and where you planned to be—could be incriminating. Back inthe Roughs, he’doften had to piece a person’s schedule together through interviews and interrogations. But in a modern city, people tended to write it down for him.

The desk calendar was the wide and flat type that displayed an entire month, one day to a box. Previous months had been folded back behind, and were covered in notations in two hands: A sloppier one that, from the letters, Wax assumed was Gave’s. And a neater hand that likely belonged to a secretary.

Lots of visits to something called the lab,Wax thought.With tight scheduling between meetings here at the mansion. So the lab is close, or he has some direct method of getting to it…

Another spot listedtrajectory and distance tests, and that was surrounded by several empty days. So he’dneeded to travel some way for that. Curious. Where could they have launched delivery devices a long distance without drawing attention?

Wax looked up as he heard some muffled shouts. Wayne’s distraction was working. He kept searching, scanning for anything suspicious, and something struck him a moment later.

There were no appointments after today.

A coldness spread through Wax as he looked at the last appointment, in Gave’s own hand. It simply said,They arrive.Rusts. What did that mean?

There wasn’t the time for analysis, so he ripped off the sheets—even though that would reveal he’dbeen here—and moved on. Confident he’dlearned what he could from the desk, he tried an old Coinshot’s trick: burning steel.

Little blue lines spread from his chest toward viable sources of metal. Most of these were faint, indicating nails in the walls and furniture. Light fixtures, doorknobs, even unseen wires for electricity. More and more, their lives were surrounded by metal—glints of it facilitating everything from the incandescent bulb to the nib in the pen on the desk. He knew some people felt that the day of the Metalborn was over, that modern advances would equalize all people and diminish the advantages of Allomancer and Feruchemist.

Yet he had trained himself—with practice—to put out the lights in a room by distorting the wires in the walls. His versatility improved with each new discovery. And as more metal outlined their lives, he was able to see more and more details of rooms.

He spotted no hidden chambers in the desk, but he did locate the room’s safe. Hidden not behind a picture or a bookshelf, but in the floor under a couch—which was a more common spot than the other two, despite popular lore.

Wax set to it quickly. For all his levity, Wayne would be in serious danger during this distraction. Wax didn’t want to leave him too long—indeed, Wax heard more cries and shouts as he shoved the couch aside. They were getting louder. The enemy might already be on to him.

The safe had an Allomantic lock. No visible keyhole or combination. It would be opened with Pushes if he was lucky, Pulls if he was unlucky. Wax squinted, judging the metal lines. There was the giant blue one leading to the safe itself, of course. Many Allomancers would stop with that, never realizing that if you peered closer—if you let the lines start to drift and separate…

One giant line became many smaller ones, all connecting him to the various mechanisms inside. Pins you could Push in a specific order to unlock the thing. He got to work as the shouts outside grew more urgent. These kinds of locks were secure against most people, and even most Allomancers. But there was a weakness. Wax carefully, subtly Pushed each pin in turn, wiggling them until he found the one that activated a tumbler.

That would be the first. He nudged it and was rewarded when it locked into place. He was in luck—this was a mechanism meant for one who could Push, not Pull. He should be able to open it, though even many Coinshots would have trouble with something this subtle.

First tumbler in place, he wiggled each remaining pin to find the second. Easy. He quickly located the third, Pushed it, and—

And the lock reset.

Wax froze, a bead of sweat trickling down his cheek. What had he done wrong? He forced himself, despite the growing noise outside, to go through it again. Again, the lock reset after he Pushed the third pin.