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Getting some trellium to play with had awakened that again. But now, staring at this board, he remembered the rest of the experience. The slow, steady realization that he wasn’t going to crack this particular puzzle. He’dworked on enough hopeless cases to realize when one was growing cold.

He was a hobbyist, not an expert. He’dshared his notes with the people at the university, and they’dthanked him—but had plainly already made the same observations. If a breakthrough with ettmetal was going to happen, it would come from those dedicated scientists working to build Elendel its own airships, Allomantic grenades, and Feruchemical medallions.

He would probably have to turn the trellium spike over to them. He’dhave his fun for a few days, but this was too important to keep from the real experts.

“Waxillium?” Steris said from behind. “You should come look at this.”

“What?” he asked, turning.

“The trellium spike,” she said, “isreactingto the harmonium.”

14

Wayne ducked into the alley just in time. Those two fellows with the bowler hats passed by on the sidewalk a moment later. Wayne crouched there, heart pounding, and counted to a hundred before letting himself relax. Close call.

He’dmostly recovered from the meeting with MeLaan. In fact, he figured he’dhandled it quite well. Nothingwas broken, nobodywas broken but him, and he’donly needed three shots of whiskey to get moving after. Plus, he’drealized what his day was going to be.

It was a rusting funeral.

You could take quests and flush them away. He was having a funeral today, and that was that. He had worn his nice jacket and a matching hat, all fancy and proper. He even had a flower in the lapel, which he’dpaidfor. With actual money. Fancy is as fancy does.

He rejoined the procession on the street outside. Yes, they all seemed to know it was a funeral day, they did. So many heads down rather than looking up at the sun. So many dull faces, like they were the dead, still up and moving because… well, in the city, there were jobs to do.

Did dead people think funerals were celebrations? Initiation parties? Reverse birthdays?

He kept his head down, acting like a member of the masses on the sidewalk. This city, it just had so many people. Floods of them on the streets in this part of the octant, the financial district, all in their funeral finest. Itshould have been easy for anyone to fit in since there was basically every sort of person you might want to meet. But somehow the financial district mashed people up into a similar ball of cravats and heels. You could almost not notice that some were Terris and others were koloss-blooded.

Hard to miss that rusting airship dominating the sky, but keeping your head down helped. Maybe today’s funeral was for the city itself. Or at least its naiveté.

The Drunken Spur was on Feder Way, right on the corner of Seventy-Third. You couldn’t miss it, what with the swinging wooden sign outside and the mannequins in Roughs gear in the window. Not a lot of upscale cafés used mannequins, but this place was special. Kind of like how a kid who ate mud was special. But Jaxy liked it, so one made accommodations. Wayne was an accommodating kind of person, he was.

He stepped inside and tried not to cringetoohard at what the serving staff was wearing. Roughs hats. Bright red shirts. Chaps? Oh, Ruin. He was going to gag. At least the greeter at the host’s stand was in a proper suit.

“Your hat, sir?” the man said, and Wayne handed it over, then swiped the bell off the stand.

“Um, sir?” the greeter asked, looking at the bell.

“You’ll get it back when you return my hat,” Wayne said. “A man gots to have insurance.”

“Uh…”

“Where’s my table? It’s got two pretty women at it, and one of them’s nice, but the other probably threatened to shoot you when she was bein’ seated.”

The host pointed. Ah, there they were. Wayne nodded and stalked that direction. Rusting terrible attire for them to all wear on a day like this. You didn’t go to a funeral in chaps unless you rode there on a horse. Or unless you were old Three-Tooth Dag, who liked that sort of thing.

Ranette was Ranette: curvaceous—though he wasn’t supposed to talk about it—and wearing slacks. Jaxy was in a fine white dress, with short white-blonde hair in very tight curls, accented by diamond barrettes. She liked sparkles. He didn’t blame her. Far too few sparkles in life. Adults was supposed to be able to wear what they wanted, so why did so few choose sparkles?

He sat down with Ranette and Jaxy, then thumped his forehead down on the table, making the silverware rattle.

“Oh, delightful,” Ranette said in a dry voice. “Drama.”

“Wayne?” Jaxy asked. “You all right?”

“Mumble mumble,” he said into the tablecloth. “Mumble.”

“Don’t humor him,” Ranette said.

“Yes, humor him,” Wayne grumbled. “He needs it right now.”