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“Unless you’re doing shots in a drinking contest,” Marasi said.

“Damn right,” he said.

Together they peeked out from around the equipment—which was for nailing lids to crates. Wayne immediately yanked her back under cover. Abullet moving in slow motion hit the perimeter of the speed bubble, then zipped through the air above them in a flash before hitting the other side and slowing again. Bullets behaved erratically when they hit speed bubbles, and you could never tell which way they’dturn when entering one.

“Guy in the suit is escaping out the back,” Wayne said. “You want to grab him, or do you want to stay here and fight the rest of them?”

She bit her lip, considering. “We’ll have to split up,” she said. “You’re better with groups. You think you can handle this lot?”

“Aren’t most of these boxes full of stuff what goes boom?”

“Yes…”

“Sounds like fun to be had!”

“You should have another eight minutes or so on the grenades.”

“Great,” he said. “I’ll see if I can take those sods alive. I can grab them one at a time from their slowness bubbles, using my bubbles to counteract. See, I’ve been practicing, been gettin’ good at making mine bigger and smaller. Should be able to walk to the edge of one of your bubbles, put up mine in a way to overlap one person, then pull them out.”

“Wayne!” she said. “That’s amazing. Have you told Wax? It’s really hard to control the size of your bubbles like that.”

He shrugged. “You ready?”

She retrieved the flash-bangs from her pouch and handed one to him. Then she pulled the pin on the other to light the fuse. “Ready,” she said. Even if he had “plenty,” bendalloy was rare and expensive. They needed to be careful with it.

Wayne dropped the bubble, and she tossed the flash-bang. After it detonated, they scrambled out on opposite sides of the machine. Wayne went for the last group of gangsters while she dashed after the Cycle, who vanished through a reinforced metal door at the rear of the cavern. She reached it a moment later and picked the lock fairly easily. She spared a glance for Wayne—who was quickly being surrounded by enemies. He’dfound cover behind a box markedEXPLOSIVES. He winked at her, then pulled the pin on his flash-bang and dropped it inside.

Delightful. Hopefully he knew what he was doing. Wayne’s healing abilities were extraordinary—but it was still possible for him to take so much damage he couldn’t heal. Any blast that separated his metalminds from the bulk of his body would leave Wayne dead, just like the Lord Ruler when he’dlost the Bands of Mourning centuries before.

Well, she couldn’t monitor Wayne all the time. Andshemost certainlycouldn’tsurvive an explosion of… well, of any size. She slipped through the door and pulled it closed with a loudthump.The entire cavern complex shook a few moments later, but she focused on her task: heading into the dark cavern tunnel after the Cycle, who—among everyone in the cavern—was most likely to have answers for her.

5

Wax trudged across the floor of the Senate, and others gave him space. They seemed to not want to face him—even those who had voted with him. They turned away as he passed, stretching and chatting.

In the hall, he headed toward his chambers, crossing over inlaid floors and beneath a row of chandeliers. Crystal and marble. This was his life now. Everything he’dfled as a young man ornamented each footstep, and the shadows seemed darker now, despite the twinkling light from above.

He believed his accomplishments as a senator could far outshine his accomplishments as a lawman, in terms of the raw good done to help the most people possible. That meant his failures carried much higher stakes. In the Roughs you depended on your gun, your instincts, and your ability to ask the right questions. Here he had to depend on others to do the right thing. And so far there had been no greater test of his faith in humanity—serial killers included—than working with politicians.

He shoved into his chambers and found his family and Kath, the governess, there already. He tried not to let his displeasure show, but Max still sensed the mood, staying back with Kath and playing with his Soonie pup.

“Well,” Wax snapped, throwing himself into his seat, “there goes over a year of work.”

“We did everything we could,” Steris said, settling down beside him.

“Did we?” Wax asked, glancing at her stack of notebooks. “I know youhavesixof those full of new ways to try to persuade individual senators. If we’dhad more time…”

“We did everything it wasreasonablefor us to do,” she said, “accounting for our other obligations.” Then she hesitated. “Didn’t we, Wax?”

He met her eyes, and saw she was trembling. Hell. This would be just as hard for her, wouldn’t it?Pay attention, you rusting idiot.He took her hands and squeezed them.

“We did,” he said. “We tried with everything we had, Steris. In the end though, it wasn’t our decision.”

He squeezed her hands tightly. Steris was incredibly stable—she’dbeen there for him ever since his return to Elendel, though he’dnever imagined how much she would come to mean to him. In that moment though, he felt her shaking. And… rust him if he wasn’t doing the same himself. They’dpouredso muchinto stopping this bill. And everysinglerusting senator he’dtalked to had said they needed more time. Now they voted like this? Now they—

No. It’s done.

“We need to move forward,” he said.