“I will wait,” Marasi said. “Thank you.”

He seemed pleased by her response; perhaps others had been less understanding. As he was called away, Marasi idled in the doorway, staring into the mists. That orange haze over the city wasn’t normal. Fires were burning out there. If they were lucky, those flames would only be massed lanterns and torches, not buildings.

Standing there strongly reminded her of something that she couldn’t put her finger on. She shook her head and walked back into the mansion with half a mind to find Wayne and see what he thought of recent events. In the large sitting room beyond the entryway, she passed a weary serving man scrubbing the wooden floor. The bloodstains were stubborn, it appeared. The man had already discreetly rolled the rug up against the wall for disposal.

Marasi passed him and, changing her mind about finding Wayne, instead walked down the stairs toward the hidden chamber. A city close to breaking, she thought as she reached the bottom. This has happened before.

In the confined space, the air still smelled of the soap that had been used to clean up the blood. The empty saferoom had a quiet, scholastic feel about it, with all those books on the walls. There was no overhead lighting, just the lamps, shaded a soft red-orange. She walked around the room, noting the many volumes of the full Words of Founding when she passed it on the wall. The leather-bound books seemed pristine, and on a whim, she pulled the first one out and checked it. The pages were uncut, as sometimes happened in new books. This volume had obviously never been read.

Long ago the Survivor had pushed a city to the brink of destruction, then channeled that fury into a rebellion that had overthrown a millennium-long dictatorship. Every student learned of those days, but Marasi had read the detailed accounts, including of the night when it had all come to a head. She could imagine it had been a night very much like this one.

Only instead of the Survivor, this time it had been induced by a psychotic murderer.

She has to be doing it on purpose, Marasi thought, walking through the room. Trying to echo that night when the Lord Ruler fell. A people on the brink of insurrection. Noble houses at each other’s throats. And now…

Now a speech. The governor would have his moment before the crowd, and they would sense the resonance even if they couldn’t put their finger on it. They’d been taught about that night since childhood. They would listen to him, and expect him to be like the Last Emperor, who had spoken long ago on the night of the Lord Ruler’s death. The Last Emperor had come to power because of his heartfelt words that night.

But Governor Innate was not Elend Venture. Far from it.

Marasi suddenly stopped and backed up a few steps. She’d been walking beside the built-in bookcases, paying little conscious attention to them, but just enough to have noticed something off. Here, on this long shelf of pristine books, were three in a row with spines scuffed at the bottom. What distinguished these books? They were part of a seven-volume collection of dry political treatises written long ago by the Counselor of Gods.