“And one wonders,” the butler said from behind, “how His Grace’s life can be threatened, when we’re letting every dust rat in the city saunter up and—”

He cut off as Ranette spun, her pistol out. Wayne caught her arm in time to stop her from firing.

“Dust rat?” she muttered.

“When’s the last time you bathed?” Wayne said. Then winced. “Just… you know, curious.”

“Guns don’t care if I stink, Wayne. I have things to do. And I don’t like being ordered around.” She shook a little cloth pouch in her left hand. Behind, the butler had grown very pale.

Wayne got her into the sitting room. She didn’t stink, despite what she said—she smelled of grease and gunpowder. Good scents. Ranette scents.

“What is it?” Wayne asked, snatching the pouch once they were out of sight.

“Something Wax asked me to make,” Ranette said. “Who got killed over there?” She pointed toward the still-open secret door down to the saferoom. Murder always caught her attention, if only because she’d want to see the bodies and judge how well the bullets tore up the flesh.

Wayne rolled a small metal object from the pouch onto his palm.

A bullet.

His hand started to shake.

“Oh, for Harmony’s sake,” Ranette said, plucking the bullet from his hand before he could drop it. “It’s not a gun, you idiot.”

“It’s a part of one,” Wayne said, shoving his hand in his pocket and breathing deeply. He could hold a bullet. He did that all the time, for Wax. The shaking subsided. Something seemed odd about that bullet though.

“So if I gave you a splinter of wood, and told you it had once been in a rifle stock, you’d go to pieces then too?”

“Dunno,” Wayne said. “You think I understand how my brain works?”

“I’d say there’s a logical fallacy in that statement,” Ranette said. “Maybe two.” She tucked the bullet back into the pouch. “Wax here?”

“No. He’s off detectiving.”

“Then you’ll have to take this,” she said, handing him the pouch. “His note insisted it was important. Half powder as he asked, piercing bullet, forged not to shatter.”

He could hold a bullet. He took it, then tucked it away immediately in his duster. See?

“So, uh, want to go get a drink?” he said. “You know, when the city is safe. Or maybe before it’s safe? I don’t mind none if the pub’s a little on fire while we drink.”

“You know I’d sooner shoot myself, Wayne,” she said with a sigh. “And Misra would shoot me if—by chance—I did go, come to think of it.”

Wayne frowned. That was nowhere near the vitriol he normally got from her. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

She shook her head, glancing back toward the entryway. “It’s bad out there, Wayne. People still on the streets, thronging together, shouting. I’ve seen crowds like this before, in the Roughs. Usually right before a man got strung up, law or no law. Those were towns of five hundred. What happens when it’s five million who start acting like that…”