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.