“I’ll have the better of you,” the girl hissed, stepping up to him and poking him right in the gut, almost where he’d hidden his dueling canes. “I have plans. And unlike my father, I know that this world isn’t just about who has the best ideas. It’s about the people who can market those ideas. I’m going to find investors and change this city. And when you’re crying, destitute and discredited, you remember my father’s name and what you did.”

She spun on her heel—long, straight blonde hair slapping him in the face—and stalked away.

“What the hell was that?” Wayne whispered.

“The price of wearing someone else’s likeness, I guess,” Marasi said. Rusting woman sounded amused!

“Her daddy,” Wayne said. “She said… I killed her daddy…”

“Yeah. Sounds like Hanlanaze has some dirt in his past.”

Hanlanaze. Right. Hanlanaze. The professor.

“I’ve read broadsheet columns by that girl,” Marasi said. “It’s a real shame, if it’s true those inventions were stolen.”

“Yeah,” Wayne said, rubbing his cheek. “Shame.” He eyed the plate of little sausages as it passed, but couldn’t find the will to chase it down. The fun was gone, for some reason.

Instead he went looking for Wax.

“Excuse me,” Wax said to the governor and Steris.

Both turned astonished eyes on him as he walked away. A rude move. He didn’t let himself care. He stepped into the center of the room, instincts screaming at him.

Guns out!

Firefight coming!

Find cover!

Run.

He did none of those things, but he couldn’t keep his eye from twitching. With his steel burning, a spray of small, translucent blue lines connected him to nearby sources of metal. He was in the habit of ignoring those.

Now he watched them. Quivering, shifting, the rhythm and pulse of a hundred people in a room. Trays for food, jewelry, spectacles. Metal parts in the tables and chairs. So much metal that made the framework for the lives of men and women. They were the flesh of civilization, and steel was now its skeleton.

So, you realize what I am, the voice said in his mind. Feminine, but rasping.

No, what are you? Wax sent back. A test.

Harmony spoke to you. I know that he did.

You’re a koloss, Wax said, using the wrong word on purpose.

You dance for Harmony, the voice replied. You bend and move at his direction. You don’t care how poor an excuse for a god he is.

Wax wasn’t certain—there was no way to be certain—but it seemed that Bleeder couldn’t read his mind. The kandra could only send out thoughts. What was it Harmony had said? That hearing thoughts had come from Preservation, but inserting them from Ruin?