Wax dashed across the room, stopping at the door into the escape tunnel.

“Lawman!” Innate cried. “Help. Please… oh, Harmony. Help!”

Wax hesitated, peering into that empty, dark tunnel. He was reminded of another one like it, dusty and shored up by beams at the sides. Both a tomb and a stage…

Behind, Wayne stumbled into the room, then scrambled to help Innate. Wax remained by the door into the tunnel, rolling a few rounds between his fingers.

“He saved me,” Innate said, weeping. By this point, he was drenched in Drim’s blood. He’d pulled off his shirt, trying to use it to stanch the blood. “He leaped into the way right as the assassin shot,” Innate said. “Tell me you can… Please…”

“He’s gone, mate,” Wayne said, settling back.

“Other casualties upstairs, Wayne,” Wax said, pointing. With reluctance, he shut the door to the escape tunnel. He couldn’t give chase, not and leave the governor alone here.

Wayne rushed out of the room to check on the men who had been shot upstairs. Wax walked over to the governor, who knelt before his bodyguard’s corpse. He’d never seen Innate look so human as he did at that moment, shoulders slumped, head bowed. Exhausted, wrung-out. Could anyone fake that?

He checked anyway. “Leavening on sand,” Wax said.

Innate looked up at him, eyes unfocused. Wax’s heart skipped a beat, but then the governor sighed. “Bones without soup.”

He knew the passphrase. This was really Innate.

Wax knelt beside the governor, looking over Drim’s corpse. Annoying though the man had been at times, he had not deserved this. “I’m sorry.”

“She stopped moving at a blur,” Innate said, his voice strained. “She appeared inside, gun out, but seemed angry about something. Drim leaped for me right before she shot. She was gone a second later. Surely she could have paused to finish me off, rather than running.”

“She obtained Feruchemical powers only two weeks ago,” Wax said. “That time frame greatly limits how much speed she can have stored up, and moving as fast as she has been must have drained her metalmind quickly. She needed to escape before it ran out.”

Of course, there could be another reason. She might have just wanted to frighten them, and the governor. To prod him to do something. But what? She said she intended to kill him, but not until the time was right.

Why? What was the plan?

“So she’s flawed,” Innate said. “She can be beaten.”

“Of course she can,” Wax said. He looked down at the corpse, and the floor stained red. But at what cost? He took a deep breath. “I want you to leave the city.”

“No.”

“That’s stupidity,” Wax snapped. “She will be back.”

“Have you looked out there, lawman?” Innate said, waving a bloody hand in a vaguely upward direction. “Have you seen what’s happening in this city?”

“You can’t do anything about that tonight.”

“I most certainly can.” Innate stood. “I’m the leader of this city; I’m not going to run away. If anything, I need to be seen—need to meet with the chief instigators of this movement, if any can be found. I need to address the crowds, prepare a speech—I need to gather my cabinet, and with them make sure that there’s still a city here in the morning.” He pointed at Wax. “You stop this creature, Ladrian. I don’t have a bodyguard any longer. I’m in your hands.”