Shadows of Self Read online

  Wax settled down beside his grandmother’s firepit. Some said that Old Terris waited for this people, hidden somewhere in this new world of Harmony’s design. To the faithful, it might as well have been paradise; a frozen, hostile paradise. Living in a land naturally lush with bounteous fruit, where little cultivation was required, could warp one’s vision.

  Grandmother V settled down opposite him, but did not start the fire. “Did you remove your guns before entering the Village this time?”

  “I did not.”

  She snorted. “So insolent. During your long absence, I often wondered if the Roughs might temper you.”

  “They made me more stubborn, is all.”

  “A land of heat and death,” Grandmother V said. She crinkled a handful of herbs, flakes dropping into a tea strainer above her cup. She poured steaming water over them, then placed the lid with a gnarled hand. “Everything about you stinks of death, Asinthew.”

  “That isn’t what my father named me.”

  “Your father didn’t have the right. I would demand you remove the weapons, but it would be meaningless. You could kill with a coin, or with a button, or with this pot.”

  “Allomancy is not so evil as you make it out to be, Grandmother.”

  “Neither power is evil,” she said. “It is mixing those powers that is dangerous. Your nature is not your fault, but I cannot help but see it as a sign. Another tyrant in our future, too powerful. It leads to death.”

  Sitting in this hut … the scent of Grandmother’s tea … Memories grabbed Wax by his collar and shoved him face-first up against his past. A young man who had never been able to decide what he was. Allomancer or Feruchemist, city lord or humble Terrisman? His father and uncle pushing him one way, his grandmother another.

  “A Feruchemist slaughtered people in the Fourth Octant last night, Grandmother,” Wax said. “He was a Steelrunner. I know you track everyone in the city with Feruchemical blood. I need a list of names.”

  Grandmother V swished around her tea. “You’ve visited the Village on … what, a mere three occasions since your return to the city? Nearly two years, and you’ve made time for your grandmother only twice before today.”

  “Can you blame me, considering how these meetings usually go? To be blunt, Grandmother, I know how you feel about me. So why torture either of us?”

  “You cling to your images of me from two decades ago, child. People change. Even one such as I.” She sipped her tea, then added more herbs to the strainer and lowered it back into the water. She would not drink until it was right. “Not one such as you, it appears.”

  “Trying to bait me, Grandmother?”

  “No. I am better at insults than that. You haven’t changed. You still don’t know who you are.”

  An old argument. She’d said it to him both times they’d met during the last two years. “I am not going to start wearing Terris robes, speaking softly, quoting proverbs at people.”

  “You will shoot them instead.”

  Wax took a deep breath. A mixture of scents lingered in the air. From the tea? Scents like that of freshly cut grass. His father’s estates, sitting on the lawn, listening to his father and grandmother argue.

  Wax had lived here in the Village for only a single year. It had been all his father had agreed to give. Even that had been surprising; Uncle Edwarn had wanted Wax and his sister to both stay away from the place. Before his official heir, the late Hinston Ladrian, had been born when Wax was eighteen, Edwarn had basically appropriated his brother’s children and tried to raise them. Even still, it was hard to separate Wax’s parents’ will in his head from that of Edwarn.

  One year among these trees. Wax had been forbidden Allomancy during his days in the Village, but had learned something far greater. That criminals existed, even among the idyllic Terris.

  “The only times I’ve truly known who I am,” Wax said, looking up at his grandmother, meeting her eyes, “are when I’ve put on the mistcoat, strapped guns to my waist, and hunted down men gone rabid.”

  “You should not be defined by what you do, but by what you are.”

  “A man is what he does.”

  “You came looking for a Feruchemist killer? You need only look in the mirror, child. If a man is what he does … think of what you’ve done.”

  “I’ve never killed a man who didn’t deserve it.”

  “Can you be absolutely certain of that?”

  “Reasonably. If I’ve made mistakes, I’ll pay for them someday. You won’t distract me, Grandmother. To fight is not against the Terris way. Harmony killed.”

  “He slew beasts and monsters only. Never our own.”

  Wax breathed out. This again? Rusts. I should have forced Wayne to come here instead of me. He says she actually likes him.

  A new scent struck him. Crushed blossoms. In the darkness of that chamber, he imagined himself again, standing among the trees of the Terris Village. Looking up at a broken window, and feeling the bullet in his hand.

  And he smiled. Once that memory had brought him pain—the pain of isolation. Now he saw only a budding lawman, remembered the sense of purpose he’d felt.

  Wax stood up, grabbing his hat, mistcoat rustling. He almost wanted to believe that the scents to the room, the memories, were his grandmother’s doing. Who knew what she put into that tea?

  “I’m going to hunt down a murderer,” Wax said. “If I do it without your help, and he kills again before I can stop him, you will be partially to blame. See how well you sleep at night then, Grandmother.”

  “Will you kill him?” she asked. “Will you shoot for the chest when you could aim for the leg? People die around you. Do not deny it.”

  “I don’t,” he said. “A man should never pull a trigger unless he’s willing to kill. And if the other fellow is armed, I’m going to aim for the chest. That way, when people do die around me, it’s the right ones.”

  Grandmother V stared at her teapot. “The one you’re looking for is named Idashwy. And she is not a man.”

  “Steelrunner?”

  “Yes. She is not a killer.”

  “But—”

  “She is the only Steelrunner I know of who could possibly be involved in something like this. She vanished about a month ago after acting … very erratically. Claimed that she was being visited by the spirit of her dead brother.”

  “Idashwy,” he said. It was pronounced in the Terris manner, eye-dash-wee. The syllables felt thick in his mouth, another reminder of his days in the Village. The Terris language had been dead once, but Harmony’s records included it, and many Terris now learned to speak it in their youths. “I swear I know that name.”

  “You did know her, long ago,” Grandmother V said. “You were with her that night, actually, before…”

  Ah yes. Slender, golden hair, shy and didn’t speak much. I didn’t know she was a Feruchemist.

  “You don’t even have the decency to look ashamed,” Grandmother V said.

  “I’m not,” Wax said. “Hate me if you must, Grandmother, but coming to live with you changed my life, just as you always promised it would. I’m not going to be ashamed that the transformation wasn’t the one you expected.”

  “Just … try to bring her back, Asinthew. She’s not a killer. She’s confused.”

  “They all are,” Wax said, stepping out of the hut. The three men from before stood outside, glaring at him with displeasure. Wax tipped his hat to them, dropped a coin, then launched himself into the air between two trees, passing their canopies and seeking the sky.

  * * *

  Each time Marasi entered the precinct offices, she got a little thrill.

  It was the thrill of bucked expectations, of a future denied. Even though this room didn’t look like she’d imagined—as the clerical and organizational center for the octant’s constables, it felt more like a business office than anything else—the mere fact that she was here excited her.

  This wasn’t supposed to have been her life. She’d grown up readi
ng stories of the Roughs, of lawmen and villains. She’d dreamed of six-guns and stagecoaches. She’d even taken up horseback riding and rifle shooting. And then, real life had intervened.

  She’d been born into privilege. Yes, she was illegitimate, but the generous stipend from her father had set her and her mother up in a fine home. Money for an education had been guaranteed for her. With that kind of promise—and with her mother’s determination that Marasi should enter society and prove herself to her father—one did not choose a profession so lowly as that of a constable.

  Yet here she was. It was wonderful.

  She passed through the room full of people at desks. Though a jail was attached to the building, it had its own entrance, and she rarely visited it. Many of the constables she passed on her way through the main chamber were the type who spent most of their days at a desk. Her own spot was a comfortable nook near Captain Aradel’s office. His room felt like a closet inside, and Aradel rarely spent time there. Instead, he stalked through the main chamber like a prowling lion, always in motion.

  Marasi set her handbag on her desk next to a stack of last year’s crime reports—in her spare time, she was trying to judge to what extent petty crimes in a region foretold greater ones. Better that than reading the politely angry letters from her mother, which lay underneath. She peeked into the captain’s office and found his waistcoat thrown across his desk, right beside the pile of expense reports he was supposed to be initialing. She smiled and shook her head, dug his pocket watch out of his waistcoat, then went hunting.

  The offices were busy, but they didn’t have the bustle of the prosecutor’s offices. During her internship there beneath Daius, everyone had always seemed so frantic. People worked all hours, and when a new case was posted, every junior solicitor in the room rushed over in a flurry of papers, coats, and skirts, craning to see who had posted the case and how many assistants they would be taking.

  The opportunities for prestige, and even wealth, had been bountiful. And yet she hadn’t been able to shake the feeling that nobody was actually doing anything. Cases that could make a difference languished because they weren’t high-profile enough, while anything under the patronage of a prominent lord or lady was seen to immediately. The rush had been less about fixing the city’s problems, and more about making certain the senior solicitors saw how much more eager you were than your colleagues.

  She’d probably still be there, if she hadn’t met Waxillium. She’d have done as her mother wanted, seeking validation through her child. Proof, perhaps, that she could have married Lord Harms, if it had been in the cards, despite her low birth. Marasi shook her head. She loved her mother, but the woman simply had too much time on her hands.

  The constables’ offices were so different from the solicitors’. Here, there was a true sense of purpose, but it was measured, even thoughtful. Constables leaned back in chairs and described evidence to other officers, looking for help on a case. Junior corporals moved through the room, delivering cups of tea, fetching files, or running some other errand. The competition she’d felt among the solicitors barely existed here. Perhaps that was because there was little prestige, and even less wealth, to go around.

  She found Aradel with sleeves rolled up, one foot on a chair, bothering Lieutenant Caberel. “No, no,” Aradel said. “I’m telling you, we need more men on the streets. Near the pubs, at nights, where the foundry workers congregate after the strike line breaks up. Don’t bother guarding them during the day.”

  Caberel nodded placidly, though she gave Marasi a roll of the eyes as she walked up. Aradel did tend to micromanage, but at least he was earnest. In Marasi’s experience, they were almost all fond of him, eyerolls notwithstanding.

  She plucked a cup of tea off the plate of a passing corporal, who was delivering them to the desks. He quickly moved on, eyes forward, but she could almost feel him glaring at her. Well, it wasn’t her fault she’d landed this position, and the rank of lieutenant, without ever having to deliver tea.

  All right, she admitted to herself, sipping the tea and stepping up beside Aradel. Maybe there is a bit of competition around here.

  “You’ll see this done, then?” Aradel asked.

  “Of course, sir,” Caberel said. She was one of the few in the place who treated Marasi with any measure of respect. Perhaps it was because they were both women.

  There were fewer women in the constabulary than among the solicitors. One might have guessed that the reason for this was that ladies weren’t interested in the violence—but having done both jobs, Marasi felt she knew which profession was bloodier. And it wasn’t the one where people carried guns.

  “Good, good,” Aradel said. “I have a debriefing with Captain Reddi in…” He patted at his pocket.

  Marasi held out his watch, which he grabbed and checked for the time.

  “… fifteen minutes. Huh. More time than I expected. Where’d you get that tea, Colms?”

  “Want me to have someone fetch you some?” she asked.

  “No, no. I can do it.” He bustled off, and Marasi nodded to Caberel, then hurried after him.

  “Sir,” she said, “have you seen the afternoon broadsheets?”

  He held out his hand, which she filled with paper. He held up the stack of broadsheets, and almost ran over three different constables on his way to the stove and the tea. “Bad,” he muttered. “I’d hoped they’d spin this against us.”

  “Us, sir?” Marasi asked, surprised.

  “Sure,” he said. “Nobleman dead, constables not giving the press details. This reads like they started to pin the death on the constables, but then changed their minds. By the end, the tone is far more outraged against Winsting than us.”

  “And that’s worse than outrage at us for a cover-up?”

  “Far worse, Lieutenant,” he said with a grimace, reaching for a cup. “People are used to hating conners. We’re a magnet for it, a lightning rod. Better us than the governor.”

  “Unless the governor deserves it, sir.”

  “Dangerous words, Lieutenant,” Aradel said, filling his cup with steaming tea from the large urn kept warm atop the coal stove. “And likely inappropriate.”

  “You know there are rumors that he’s corrupt,” Marasi said softly.

  “What I know is that we are civil servants,” Aradel said. “There are enough people out there with the mindset and the moral position to monitor the government. Our job is to keep the peace.”

  Marasi frowned, but said nothing. Governor Innate was corrupt, she was almost sure of it. There were too many coincidences, too many small oddities in his policy decisions. It wasn’t by any means obvious, but trends were Marasi’s specialty, and her passion.

  It wasn’t as if she’d wanted to discover that the leader of Elendel was trading favors with the city’s elite, but once she’d spotted the signs, she’d felt compelled to dig in. On her desk, carefully hidden under a stack of ordinary reports, was a ledger in which she’d assembled all the information. Nothing concrete, but the picture it drew was clear to her—even though she understood that it would look innocent to anyone else.

  Aradel studied her. “You disagree with my opinion, Lieutenant?”

  “One doesn’t change the world by avoiding the hard questions, sir.”

  “Feel free to ask them, then. In your head, Lieutenant, and not out loud—particularly not to people outside the precinct. We can’t have the men we work for thinking we are trying to undermine them.”

  “Funny, sir,” Marasi said. “I thought we worked for the people of the city, not their leaders.”

  Aradel stopped, cup of steaming tea halfway to his lips. “Suppose I deserved that,” he said, then took a gulp, shaking his head. He didn’t flinch at the heat. People in the office figured he’d seared his taste buds off years ago. “Let’s go.”

  They wove through the room toward Aradel’s office, passing Captain Reddi at his desk. The lanky man rose, but Aradel waved him down, pulling out his watch. “I still have …
five minutes until I have to deal with you, Reddi.”

  Marasi shot the captain an apologetic smile. She got a scowl in return.

  “Someday,” she noted, “I’m going to figure out why that man hates me.”

  “Hmmm?” Aradel said. “Oh, you stole his job.”

  Marasi missed a step, stumbling into Lieutenant Ahlstrom’s desk. “What?” she demanded, hurrying after Aradel. “Sir?”

  “Reddi was going to be my assistant,” Aradel said as they reached his office. “Had a damn fine bid for the job; I was all but priced into hiring him, until I got your application.”

  Marasi blushed deeply. “Why would Reddi want to be your assistant, sir? He’s a field constable, a senior detective.”

  “Everyone has this idea that in order to move up, you need to spend more time in the office and less on the street,” Aradel said. “Stupid tradition, even if the other octants follow it. I don’t want my best men and women turning into desk slugs. I want the assistant position to be for nurturing someone fresh who shows promise, rather than letting some practiced constable gather moss.”

  The realization made a lot of things lock into place for Marasi. The hostility she felt from many of the others wasn’t just because she’d skipped the lower ranks—many with noble titles did that. It was because they’d solidified behind Reddi, their friend who’d been slighted.

  “So…” Marasi said, taking a deep breath and grasping for something to keep her from a panic. “You think I show promise then?”

  “Of course I do. Why would I have hired you otherwise?” Corporal Maindew walked by, saluting, and Aradel threw the wadded broadsheets into his face. “No saluting indoors, Maindew. You’ll knock yourself unconscious slapping your forehead every time I walk past.” He glanced back at Marasi as Maindew mumbled an apology and rushed off.

  “There’s something in you, Colms,” Aradel told her. “Not the gloss and glint of the application. I don’t care about your grades, or what those zinctongues in the solicitors’ office thought of you. The words you wrote about changing the city, those made sense. They impressed me.”