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“Yeah, they’re demeaning,” MeLaan said, settling down on her haunches. “Except a body… influences you. It’s hard to explain to mortals. Think of it like an outfit. If you’re dressed up all fancy in a glittering gown, you want to dance and twirl. If you’re wearing trousers with an axe over your shoulder, well, you’re going to want to smash something. I only put bodies like this on when a mission requires it. But once I’ve got it on…” She shrugged, a gesture that looked distinctly odd in the dog’s body. “But no fetch for me today. I’ll go change.”

She wandered off toward the room where Wax let her store her other bodies: bones, hair, nails. Most of the bones weren’t real, fortunately. She much preferred what the kandra called True Bodies, made of stone, crystal, or metal.

He had joined Steris in the sitting room and was halfway through the latest broadsheet—a boy delivered some each day for Allik—when he heard Marasi and Wayne tromp into the foyer. Loud as a freight train, those two could be. He shook his head, sipping his tea.

“In here!” Steris called, and Wayne burst in a moment later. “Wayne. Could yousometimeremember to brush your feet off before you track mud in? This isn’t the Roughs.”

“Be glad it’s just mud,” he said. “We been through the bowels of the earth today, Steris, and it was full o’ stuff what’s normally in bowels.”

“A perfectly awful description,” she said.

“Oh, stop complainin’ at me,” he said, hopping from one foot to the other. “We got news. We got news!”

Marasi strode up and pulled something long and thin from her pouch. A single delicate spike, like a long nail with a needle point. The otherwise silvery metal had reddish patches to it, especially visible when it caught the light.

Wax breathed in sharply. “You got one. How?”

“Remember that lead in the sewers I told you about?” Marasi said. “Found a member of the Set there, augmented with Hemalurgy, heading up a gang of ruffians.”

“Fortunately,” Wayne said, “he didn’t have any use for the spike once Marasi was finished with him.”

“Technically, hedidstill have a use for it,” she said. “Which is why I had to remove it. Wax, he had four spikes. Isn’t that supposed to give Harmony control over a person?”

“Supposedly,” he said. That had been the whole issue with Lessie. Though the numbers varied by species, the principle was the same: spike yourself too many times, and Harmony could control you. It was an exploit to Hemalurgy that went back to the ancient days, when Ruin had directly controlled the Inquisitors, like Death himself.

But lately, Marasi had begun to encounter members of the Set with too many powers. Wax hadn’t believed at first, but if she’dconfirmed it…

“The limitation has been circumvented somehow,” Wax said, inspecting the trellium spike. “Perhaps it has to do with the placement of this spike, as a linchpin?”

“Wax,” Marasi said, “this group was packing supplies for Bilming. Weapons and field rations.”

He shared a look with Steris. Rusts… the Outer Cities apparently thought war was inevitable. And with the vote today, it very well might be.

Still, to have another trellium spike after all these years… It reminded him of what had happened to Lessie, but he forced himself to hold it anyway. This wasn’t from her body. They didn’t know if her strange trellium spikes had influenced her madness. The kandra all said the spikes hadn’t been to blame, but something had turned her against Harmony, sent her down a paranoid path. Something had taken the woman he loved and turned her into Bleeder. He refused to accept that she’dbeen fully in control of herself.

Those old pains were dead and buried these days, so he was able to pick up the spike and inspect it. This metal was a manifestation—presumably—of the body of a god. Much like harmonium, also called ettmetal. What could he learn from this new sample?

The door swung open, revealing MeLaan wearing stylish blue trousers and a buttoned shirt. She’dbeen going for an androgynous look these days, with very short blonde hair and almost no hint of breasts. For her friends, she often maintained relatively similar features. This face, for example, looked like her—just thinner, less overtly feminine.

As usual she had picked a tall, limber body—this one was at least six foot four. She was toweling off her hair—she liked to wash it after putting on a new body, to better style it and make sure she’dgot the grain right.

“Hey!” she said, seeing the spike in Wax’s fingers. “Is that what I think it is?”

“Yup,” Wayne said. “Marasi turned some bloke into hamburger to get it.”

“Nice!” MeLaan said.

“I didnotturn anyone into hamburger,” Marasi said.

“She’s more a fan of liver,” Wayne said, and earned a glare.

“Speaking of meat,” Wax said, “did you leave a meat bun in the pocket of mymistcoat?”

“Uh…” Wayne said. “It was… um…”

“You realize I’ll have to get that thing laundered,” Wax said. “And you’re going to pay.”

“Hey,” Wayne said. “You don’t got no proof I did that.”