فصل 19

19

Shooting Miles was, of course, useless. The man could survive a dynamite explosion at close range. He could take a few shotgun blasts.

But the shots caused the Coinshot to Push himself away in alarm. They also left Miles sprayed with metal. Wax increased his weight and Pushed, though he found it hard to get a purchase on the birdshot. Any metal that pierced a person’s body or touched his blood was very difficult to affect with Allomancy.

Fortunately, Miles’s body obliged him by healing itself and spitting out the birdshot. In the instant before it could drop to the floor, Wax’s Push suddenly found anchors, and he threw Miles across the room and into the wall.

The Coinshot landed on the other side of the room. Waxillium dashed forward, mistcoat flapping. Damn, but it felt good to be wearing one of those again. He skidded to a stop beside Marasi, taking cover next to the railcar.

“I almost had him,” Marasi said.

“Waxillium!” Miles bellowed, his voice echoing in the room. “All you do is stall. Well, know this. My men have gone to kill the woman you came here to save. If you want her to live, give yourself to me. We—” His voice cut off strangely. Wax frowned as something moved behind Marasi. She jumped, and Wax pointed a shotgun, but it turned out to be Wayne.

“Hey,” he said, puffing. “Nice gun.”

“Thanks,” Wax said, shouldering it, noting the speed bubble around them. That was what had stopped Miles’s voice. “Your arm?” Wayne glanced down at the bloody bandage around his left arm. “Not so good. I’m outta healing, lost some blood. I’m slowing, Wax. Slowing too much. You look pretty beat-up yourself.” “I’ll survive.” Wax’s leg was throbbing, his face scraped up, but he felt surprisingly good. He always felt that way, in the mists.

“The things he’s saying,” Marasi said. “You think he’s telling the truth?” “He might be, Wax,” Wayne said urgently. “The blokes who was set up in front of the tunnel, they charged off a few shakes back. Looked like they had something important to do.” “Miles did tell them something,” Marasi added.

“Damn,” Wax said, glancing around the corner of the railcar. Miles might be bluffing … but then again, he might not be. It wasn’t a chance Wax could take. “That Coinshot is going to make things difficult. We need to take him down.” “What happened to Ranette’s fancy gun?” Wayne asked.

“Not sure,” Wax said with a grimace.

“Wow. She’s gonna rip out your insides, mate.”

“I’ll be sure to blame you for it,” Wax said, still watching the Coinshot. “He’s good. Dangerous. We’ll never take out Miles unless that Allomancer is dead.” “But you’ve got those special bullets,” Marasi noted.

“One,” Wax said, slipping a shotgun into its holster inside his coat. He pulled out the other Coinshot round. “I don’t think an ordinary revolver will fire this. I…” He trailed off, then looked at Marasi. She was raising an eyebrow at him.

“Right,” Wax said. “Can you two keep Miles busy?”

“No problem,” Wayne said.

“Let’s go, then,” Wax said, taking a deep breath. “One last try.” Wayne met his eyes and nodded. Wax saw tension in his friend’s face. The two of them were battered and bloodied, low on metals, metalminds drained.

But they’d been here before. And this was when they tended to shine their brightest.

As the speed bubble fell, Wax ran out from behind the train car. He tossed the bullet into the air ahead of him, then Pushed on it with a quick snap of power. The Coinshot raised his hand with casual confidence, Pushing it right back at Wax.

The casing and bullet proper broke free and flipped toward Wax, who deflected them easily, but the ceramic tip continued forward. It took the Coinshot right in the eye.

Bless you, Ranette, Wax thought, leaping up and Pushing off the coins in a fallen Vanisher’s pocket. That launched him forward, into the tunnel. There were tracks on the ground here, as if this were built for a train.

Wax frowned in puzzlement, but Pushed on them, heedlessly hurling himself through the darkness until he reached a set of stairs leading upward. The ceiling here was wood; a structure of some sort had been built over the tunnel. He charged into the stairwell, which led up to the wooden building, perhaps a barrack or dormitory.

Wax smiled, the pain of his wounds retreating further as he grew more energetic. He heard footsteps on the wooden floor at the top of the stairwell. They were ready for him. It was a trap, of course.

He found that he didn’t care. He unslung both shotguns, then Pushed on the nails in the steps and blasted up the stairwell. He passed the first floor and continued on toward the second—he’d rather check up first, then down. If Steris was being held here, she’d probably be up at the top.

Now we’re burning, Wax thought, metal flaring, energy rising. He threw his shoulder against the door at the top of the stairs, breaking out into a second-floor hallway. Feet stomped up the steps behind him and men burst out of rooms nearby, fully armed, wearing no metal.

Wax smiled, raising his shotguns. All right. Let’s do this.

Wax Pushed hard against the nails in the boards under the feet of the men leveling aluminum guns at him. Planks ripped free by their nails, making the floor tremble, throwing off the Vanishers’ aim. He dodged right, rolling out of the hallway and into a room to its side. He came up and spun, leveling both shotguns back at the doorway.

Vanishers from the stairwell piled into the hallway after him, and his arms jerked as he fired twin shotgun blasts. He Pushed, slamming the men back and sending himself crashing out the window. This building was more an old warehousing shed; there was no glass in the windows, just shutters.

Wax blasted out into open air. There was a lamppost on the dark street, a little bit to his left. He Pushed on that while at the same time dropping his weight to nearly nothing. The Push sent him back against the outside of the building; he landed and half ran, half leaped parallel to the ground along the wall.

Reaching the next room over from where he’d been, he Pushed on another lamppost and crashed through the window feet-first, splinters spraying around him. He landed and came up in the building, then turned toward the wall between him and the room he’d just left.

He holstered the shotguns and grabbed his revolvers, pulling them out in a cross-armed motion. They were Ranette-made Sterrions, among the best guns he’d ever owned. He raised them and increased his weight, then Pushed hard on the nails in the wall before him.

The cheap wood exploded away, the wall disintegrating into a spray of splinters and planks, nails becoming as deadly as bullets as they ripped into the men in the next room. Wax fired, dropping any that the nails had missed in a storm of splinters, steel, and lead.

A click to his left. Wax spun as a doorknob turned. He didn’t wait to see who was beyond. He Pushed on the doorknob, ripping it out of its frame and through the door, into the chest of the Vanisher trying to get in. The door slammed open, and the unfortunate man crashed through the wall of the hallway—there were no rooms on the other side, just the wall of the narrow building—propelled out into the misty night.

Wax holstered the Sterrions, barrels smoking, chambers empty. He pulled out the shotguns, rolling into the hallway and coming up in a crouch. He raised a shotgun in each direction. A few straggling Vanishers climbed up the stairs to his right; another group were leveling weapons to his left.

He Pushed on the twin metal levers on the sides of his shotguns, cocking them with Allomancy. The spent casings flipped out into the air above the guns, and Waxillium fired while Pushing, driving birdshot and spent casings into the waiting Vanishers on either side.

The floor next to Waxillium exploded.

He cursed, throwing himself to the left as gunfire from below blasted chips of wood into the air. They were getting smart, firing at him from underneath. He turned and ran, firing shotgun blasts down through the floor, mists creeping in through the broken walls.

There had to be another dozen Vanishers below. Too many to fire at without being able to see them. A bullet grazed his thigh. He turned and ducked away, leaping over the bodies of the fallen and dashing down the hallway. Bullets chased him, the floor splintering, men calling below as they fired everything they had up at him.

He hit the door at the end of the hallway. It was locked. A healthy dose of increased weight—along with some momentum and a shoulder—fixed that. He crashed through and found himself in a small windowless room with no other doors.

A short, balding man cowered in one corner. A woman with golden hair and a rumpled ball gown sat on a bench at the back of the room, her eyes red, her face haggard. Steris. She looked utterly dumbfounded as Wax spun through the broken doorway, mistcoat tassels flaring around him. He Pushed on some of the nails in the floor back in the hall, causing the boards there to ripple, drawing much of the gunfire.

“Lord Waxillium?” Steris said, shocked.

“Most of me,” he said, wincing. “I may have left a toe or two in that hallway.” He glanced at the man in the corner. “Who are you?” “Nouxil.”

“The gunsmith,” Wax said, tossing him a shotgun.

“I’m not actually a very good shot,” the man said, looking terrified. A few bullets blasted up through the floor between them. The Vanishers had realized they’d been tricked. They knew what he was looking for.

“It doesn’t matter if you’re a good shot,” Wax said, raising his empty hand to the back wall and breaking it open with an increased-weight Push. “It matters if you can swim or not.” “What? Of course I can. But why—”

“Hang on tightly,” Wax said as more gunshots erupted around him. He Pushed on the shotgun in the gunsmith’s hands, flinging him out the opening, throwing him some thirty feet in an arc toward the canal outside.

Wax spun, grabbing Steris as she stood up. “The other girls?” he asked.

“I haven’t seen any other captives,” she said. “The Vanishers implied they were sent somewhere.” Blast, he thought. Well, he was lucky to find even Steris. He Pushed lightly off the nails in the floor, propelling the two of them toward the ceiling. As they approached, he took advantage of the fact that it didn’t matter how heavy an object was when it came to falling. All objects fell at the same rate. That meant that increasing his weight manyfold would not affect his motion.

Raising his shotgun, he shot a concentrated blast of pellets into the ceiling. Then he Pushed on them sharply, his increased weight meaning the Push didn’t really move him much—just as when he was lighter, a Push affected him greatly.

The result was that he continued his momentum upward—but his Push blasted a hole in the ceiling. He made himself incredibly light and Pushed more strongly off the nails below. The two of them shot up through the hole he’d made, propelled some forty or fifty feet into the air. He spun in the night, mistcoat tassels splaying outward, smoking shotgun clutched tightly in one arm, Steris in the other. Bullets from below left streaks in the mist as it swirled around them.

Steris gasped, clinging to him. Wax drew every bit of weight he had left, draining his metalminds completely. That was hundreds upon hundreds of hours of weight, enough to make him crush paving stones if he tried to walk on them. In the strange way of Feruchemy, he didn’t grow more dense—bullets would still cut through him easily if they hit. But with this incredible conflux of weight, his ability to Push grew incredible.

He used that weight to Push downward with everything he had. There were numerous lines of metal below. Nails. Doorknobs. Guns. Personal effects.

The building trembled, then undulated, then ripped apart as every nail in its frame was driven downward as if propelled by a rotary gun. There was an enormous crash. The building was crushed down into the railroad tunnel on top of which it had been built.

The weight was gone from him in an instant, compounded upon itself in that moment, his metalminds drained all at once. Wax let gravity take him, and he dropped through the mists, Steris clinging to him. They landed in the middle of the wreckage at the bottom of the railroad tunnel. Smashed lumber and fragments of furniture were strewn across the floor.

Three Vanishers stood in the mouth of the tunnel, openmouthed. Wax raised the shotgun and cocked it with Allomancy, then laid into them with shotgun blasts. They were the only ones that had still been standing. Everyone else had been crushed down into the tunnel.

A small fire flickered in the corner where a lantern had fallen. By its light, he checked on Steris, the mists pouring down around them and filling the tunnel.

“Oh Survivor of Mists!” Steris breathed, cheeks flushed, eyes wide, lips parted as she held to him. She didn’t look terrified. If anything, she seemed aroused.

You are a bizarre woman, Steris, Wax thought.

“Do you realize that you have missed your calling, Waxillium?” a voice yelled from within the blackened tunnel. It was Miles. “You are an army unto yourself. You are wasted in the life you’ve taken upon yourself.” “Take this,” Wax said softly to Steris, handing her the shotgun. He cocked it. One shell left. “Hold it tightly. I want you to run for the precinct station. It’s at Fifteenth and Ruman. If one of the Vanishers comes for you, fire the shotgun.” “But—”

“I don’t expect you to hit him,” Wax said. “I’ll listen for the sound of the shot.” She tried to comment further, but Wax ducked down to get his center of mass beneath her, then carefully Pushed the shotgun up into her middle. He used it to launch her up and out of the pit. She landed awkwardly, but safely, and hesitated only a moment before running off into the mists.

Wax scrambled to the side, making sure he wasn’t backlit by the fire. He pulled a Sterrion from its holster and fished out some rounds. He reloaded as he crouched down.

“Waxillium?” Miles called from deep inside the tunnel. “If you’re done playing, perhaps you’d like to come settle things.” Wax crept up to the tunnel mouth, then stepped inside. The mists had filled it, making it difficult to see—which would work equally against Miles. He made his way forward cautiously until he saw the light from the big workshop at the end, where fires still burned.

By that light, he could faintly make out the silhouette of a figure standing in the tunnel, holding a gun to the head of a slender woman. Marasi.

Waxillium froze, pulse accelerating. But no, this was part of the plan. It was perfect. Except … “I know you’re in there,” Miles’s voice said. Another figure moved, tossing a few improvised torches into the darkness.

With a freezing sense of horror, Waxillium realized that Miles wasn’t the one holding Marasi. He stood too far back. The man holding Marasi was the one named Tarson, the koloss-blooded Pewterarm.

Her face illuminated by wavering torchlight, Marasi looked terrified. Waxillium’s fingers felt slick on the revolver’s grip. The Pewterarm was careful to keep Marasi between himself and Waxillium’s side of the tunnel, gun to the back of her head. He was squat and tough, but not very tall. He was only in his twenties—like all koloss-blooded, he’d continue growing taller throughout his life.

Either way, at the moment, Waxillium couldn’t get a bead on him. Oh, Harmony, he thought. It’s happening again.

Something rustled in the darkness nearby. He jumped and nearly shot it until he caught the outline of Wayne’s face.

“Sorry about this,” Wayne whispered. “When she got grabbed, I thought it was Miles. And so I—” “It’s all right,” Waxillium said softly.

“What do we do?” Wayne asked.

“I don’t know.”

“You always know.”

Waxillium was silent.

“I can hear you whispering!” Miles called. He walked forward and tossed another torch.

Just a few steps more, Waxillium thought.

Miles stopped where he was, eyeing the creeping mists with what seemed like distrust. Marasi whimpered. Then she tried jerking, the way she had back at the wedding dinner.

“None of that,” Tarson said, holding her carefully. He fired a shot right in front of her face, then brought the gun back to her head. She froze.

Waxillium raised his revolver.

I can’t do this. I can’t watch another one die. Not by my hand.

“All right,” Miles called. “Fine. You want to test me, Wax? I’m counting to three. If I reach three, Tarson shoots, no other warnings. One.” He’ll do it, Waxillium realized, feeling helpless, guilty, overwhelmed. He really will. Miles didn’t need a hostage. If threatening her wouldn’t bring Waxillium out, then he wouldn’t bother with her.

“Two.”

Blood on the bricks. A smiling face.

“Wax?” Wayne whispered, sounding urgent.

Oh, Harmony, if I’ve ever needed you …

Mist curled around his legs.

“Th—”

“Wayne!” Waxillium yelled, standing.

The speed bubble went up. Tarson would fire in mere moments. Miles behind him, pointing angrily. Torchfire frozen. It was like watching an explosion in slow motion again. Waxillium raised his Sterrion, and found his arm incredibly still.

It had been still on the day he’d shot Lessie, too.

He’d shot her with this very gun.

Sweating, trying to banish the images from his head, he tried to find a clear shot at Tarson. There wasn’t one. Oh, he could hit Tarson, but not anywhere that would drop him immediately. And if Waxillium didn’t hit just right, the man would shoot Marasi by reflex.

The head was the best way to drop a Pewterarm. Only, Waxillium couldn’t see the head. Could he shoot the gun? Marasi’s face was in the way. The knees? He might be able to hit a knee. No. A Pewterarm would ignore most hits—if the damage wasn’t immediately lethal, he’d stay up, and he’d shoot.

It had to be the head.

Waxillium held his breath. This is the most accurate gun I’ve ever fired, he thought. I can’t sit here, frozen. I have to act.

I have to do something.

Sweat dripped off his chin. He raised his hand with a quick motion in front of him, then pointed the Sterrion to the side, off center from Marasi or Tarson. Wax fired.

The bullet shot out of the bubble in an instant, then hit slower time. It deflected, as bullets always did when fired from within a speed bubble. He watched it go, judging its new trajectory. It moved forward sluggishly, spinning as it cut through the air.

Wax took careful aim, waited several excruciating moments. Then he readied his steel.

“Drop it on my mark,” he whispered.

Wayne nodded.

“Go.”

Wax fired and Pushed.

The speed bubble fell.

“—ee!” Miles called.

A small shower of sparks exploded in the air as Wax’s second bullet, propelled with incredible speed by his Steelpush, clipped the other one in midair and deflected it to the side: behind Marasi, into Tarson’s head.

The Pewterarm dropped immediately, gun slapping to the ground, eyes staring dully upward. Miles gaped. Marasi blinked, then turned about, raising her arms to her chest.

“Aw, biscuits,” Wayne said. “Did you have to hit him in the head? That was my lucky hat he was wearin’.” Miles recovered his wits and raised his revolver toward Wax. Wax turned and fired first, hitting Miles’s hand, dropping his gun to the ground. Wax shot it, knocking it backward into the other room.

“Stop doing that!” Miles screamed. “You bast—”

Wax shot him in the mouth, driving him backward a step, throwing out chips of tooth. Miles still wore only the tattered remnants of his trousers.

“Somebody shoulda done that ages ago,” Wayne muttered.

“It won’t last,” Wax said, plugging Miles in the face again to try to keep him disoriented. “Time for you to be off, Wayne. Backup plan is still a go.” “You sure you got them all, mate?”

“Tarson was the last.” And I’d better not be wrong.…

“Grab my hat if you get the chance,” Wayne said, scrambling away as Wax shot Miles in the face again. This hit barely bothered him, and the half-naked man lurched forward. Toward Marasi. Miles was unarmed, but there was murder in his eyes.

Wax dashed forward, throwing the empty gun at Miles, then fishing out a handful of bullets. He Pushed them toward the former lawman. One sliced him in the arm, one cut through his gut and came out the other side, but none lodged in a way that Wax could push them to shove Miles back.

Wax hit Miles just before he reached Marasi. The two went down in a heap on the dirty ground, under the mists rolling across the floor.

Wax grabbed Miles by the shoulder and started punching. Just … keep … him busy … Miles showed a flash of amusement through the annoyance. He took a few of the punches, Wax’s fist growing sore in the process. Wax could punch until his knuckles broke and his hand was reduced to a bloody mess, and Miles would be no worse for the wear.

“I knew you’d go for the girl,” Wax said, holding Miles’s attention. “You talk grandly about justice, but in the end, you’re just a petty criminal.” Miles snorted, then kicked Wax free. Pain flared in Wax’s chest as he was thrown back into a muddy portion of the tunnel, cold water splashing around him, soaking his mistcoat.

Miles stood up, wiping some blood off his lip where it had split, then healed. “You know the really sad thing, Wax? I understand you. I’ve felt like you, I’ve thought like you. But there was always that distant, rumbling dissatisfaction within. Like a storm on the horizon.” Wax got to his feet and rammed a fist into Miles’s kidney. It didn’t even get a grunt. Miles grabbed him by the arm, twisting it, causing his shoulder to flare with pain. Wax gasped, and Miles kicked the back of his knee, sending him to the ground again.

As Wax tried to roll over, Miles grabbed him by the front of his shirt and hauled him up, then laid into him with a fist to the face. Marasi gasped, though she had been told to stay back. She did her part.

The punch slammed Wax down to the ground, and he tasted blood. Rust and Ruin … he’d be lucky if his jaw wasn’t broken. He also felt like he’d ripped something in his shoulder.

His wounds suddenly seemed to crash down upon him. He didn’t know if it was the mists, some action of Harmony, or simple adrenaline that had helped him ignore them for a time. But he hadn’t been healed. His side screamed from where he’d been shot, and his leg and arm had been burned and scraped raw by the explosion. He’d been clipped by bullets in the thigh and the arm. And now, Miles’s beating.

It overwhelmed him, and he groaned, slumping down, struggling to merely remain conscious. Miles pulled him up again, and Wax managed to get in one thrashing swing that connected. And did nothing. It was very, very difficult to brawl with a man who didn’t flinch when you hit him.

Another punch sent Wax to the ground again, head ringing, eyes seeing stars and flashes of light.

Miles leaned down, speaking in his ear. “Thing is, Waxillium, I know you feel it too. A part of you knows that you’re being used, that nobody cares about the downtrodden. You’re just a puppet. People are murdered every day this city. At least one a day. Did you know that?” “I…” Keep him talking. He rolled onto his back, aching, meeting Miles’s eyes.

“People murdered every day,” Miles repeated, “and what was it that brought you out of your ‘retirement’? When I shot an old, would-be aristocratic wolfhound in the head. Did you ever stop to think of all the other people being killed in the streets? The beggars, the whores, the orphans? Dead because of lack of food, or because they were in the wrong place, or because they tried something stupid.” “You’re trying to invoke the Survivor’s mandate,” Wax whispered. “But it won’t work, Miles. This isn’t the Final Empire of legend. A rich man can’t kill a poor one just because he feels like it. We’ve gotten better than that.” “Bah!” Miles said. “They pretend and lie to make a good show.” “No,” Waxillium said. “They have good intentions, and make laws that prevent the worst of it—but those laws still fall short. It’s not the same thing.” Miles kicked him in the side to keep him down. “I don’t care about the Survivor’s mandate. I’ve found something better. That doesn’t matter to you. You’re just a sword, a tool that goes where it’s pointed. It rips you apart that you can’t stop the things that you know you should. Doesn’t it?” They met eyes. And, shockingly—despite the agony—Waxillium found himself nodding. Truthfully nodding. He did feel it. That was why what had happened to Miles terrified him.

“Well, someone has to do something about it,” Miles said.

Harmony, Waxillium thought. If Miles had been born back then, in the days before, he’d have been a hero. “I’ll start helping them, Miles,” Waxillium said. “I promise it to you.” Miles shook his head. “You won’t live that long, Wax. Sorry.” He kicked again. And again. And again.

Waxillium curled around himself, hands over his face. He couldn’t fight. He just had to last. But the pain was mounting. It was terrible.

“Stop it!” Marasi’s voice. “Stop it, you monster!”

The kicks stopped falling. Waxillium felt her beside him, kneeling, hand on his shoulder.

Fool woman. Stay back. Unnoticed. That was the plan.

Miles cracked his knuckles audibly. “I suppose I should deliver you to Suit, girl. You’re on his list, and you can replace the one Waxillium set free. I’ll probably have to track her down.” “Why is it,” Marasi said angrily, “that small-minded men must destroy that which they know is better, and greater, than they?” “Better than me?” Miles said. “This? He isn’t great, child.”

“The greatest of men can be taken down by the simplest of things. A lowly bullet can end the life of the most powerful, most capable, most secure of men.” “Not me,” Miles said. “Bullets are nothing to me.”

“No,” she replied. “You’ll be brought down by something even more lowly.” “Which is?” he asked, amused, voice growing closer.

“Me,” Marasi replied.

Miles laughed. “I’d like to see…” He trailed off.

Waxillium cracked his eyes, looking down the length of the tunnel toward the broken ceiling where the building had stood. Light flooded that pit from above, growing brighter at a remarkable rate.

“Who have you brought?” Miles asked, sounding unimpressed. “They won’t arrive quickly enough.” He paused. Waxillium rolled his head to the side and saw the sudden horror in Miles’s face. He had seen it, finally: a shimmering border nearby, a slight difference in the air. Like the distortion caused by heat rising from a hot street.

A speed bubble.

Miles spun on Marasi. Then he ran for the bubble’s border, away from the light. Trying to escape.

The light at the other end of the tunnel became bright, and a group of blurs moved down it, so quickly it was impossible to distinguish what was causing them.

Marasi dropped her bubble. The sunlight of full day streamed in from the distant pit, and filling the tunnel—right outside where the bubble had been—was a force of over a hundred constables in uniform. Wayne stood at their head, grinning, wearing a constable’s uniform and hat, a false mustache on his face.

“Get ‘im, boys!” he said, pointing.

They moved in with clubs, not bothering with guns. Miles screamed in denial, trying to dodge past the first few, then punching at the group that laid hands on him. He wasn’t fast enough, and there were far too many of them. In minutes, they had him held down against the ground and were wrapping ropes around his arms.

Waxillium sat up with care, one eye swelling closed, lip bleeding, side aching. Marasi knelt beside him, anxious.

“You shouldn’t have confronted him,” Waxillium said, tasting blood. “If he’d knocked you out, that would have been the end of it.” “Oh, hush,” she said. “You aren’t the only one who can take risks.” The backup plan had been straightforward, if difficult. It had begun with eliminating all of Miles’s lackeys. Even one of them, left alive, could have noticed what the speed bubble meant and shot Waxillium and Marasi from the outside. There wouldn’t have been anything they could have done to prevent it.

But if the lackeys were gone, and if Miles could be distracted long enough while the bubble was up, Wayne could go to gather a large force to surround Miles while he was helpless. He’d never have let it happen if he’d suspected. But within the speed bubble … “No!” Miles screamed. “Unhand me. I defy your oppression!”

“You are a fool,” Waxillium said to him, then spat blood to the side. “You let yourself get isolated and distracted, Miles. You forgot the first rule of the Roughs.” Miles screamed, one of the constables pulling a gag over his mouth as he was tied tightly.

“The more alone you are,” Waxillium said softly, “the more important it is to have someone you can rely upon.”