“Good. You still have that dynamite?”

“Sure do. Here in my coat pocket.”

“You’re insane,” Waxillium said without missing a beat. “But you brought the pressure detonators?”

“Yup.”

“Try to avoid blowing anything up by accident,” Waxillium said. “But hold on to that dynamite. Marasi, I need you to buy some fishing nets. Strong ones.”

She nodded.

“Ranette,” Waxillium began, “I—”

“I’m not part of your little troop of deputies, Wax,” Ranette said. “Leave me out of this.”

“All I was going to do was ask to borrow a room in your house and some paper,” Waxillium said. “I need to sketch this out.”

“Fine,” she said. “So long as you’re quiet about it. But Wax… you really think you can take Miles? The man is immortal. You’d need a small army to stop him.”

“Good,” Waxillium said. “Because I intend to bring one.”

15

Wax is slippery,” Miles said, walking alongside Mister Suit through the dark tunnel connecting the dorms to the forging hall of the new lair. “He has lived so long precisely by learning to avoid being killed by people who are stronger and craftier than he is.”

“You shouldn’t have revealed yourself,” Suit said sternly.

“I wasn’t about to shoot Wax without him seeing me, Suit,” Miles said. “He deserves more respect than that.” The words gnawed at him as he said them. He hadn’t mentioned the first shot he’d taken at Wax, the one while the man’s back had been turned. Nor had he mentioned the cloth of his mask, pushed back into his flesh by Wax’s bullet, making it hard to heal his eye. He’d needed to pull it free.

Suit snorted. “And it’s said that the Roughs are the place where honor goes to be murdered.”

“It’s the place honor goes to be strung up, flayed within an inch of its life, then cut down and left in a desert. If it survives something like that, it’ll be stronger than hell. Certainly stronger than anything you have at your Elendel dinner parties.”

“That from a man who so readily went to kill a friend?” Suit said. The tone was still suspicious. He thought Miles had intentionally let Wax escape.

He didn’t understand at all. This wasn’t about the robberies any longer. The paths chosen by Wax and Miles had crossed. The future could only continue down one or the other.

Either Wax would die or Miles would. That would settle the matter. Roughs justice. The Roughs weren’t a simple place, but they were a place of simple solutions.

“Wax is not a friend,” Miles said, and truthfully. “We were never friends—no more than two rival kings could ever be friends. We respect each other, we did similar jobs, and we worked together. It ends there. I’ll stop him, Suit.”

They stepped out into the forging room and climbed the stairs up to the balcony that ran along the north side of the large chamber. They walked to the end and stopped beside a doorway, beyond which was the lift. “You are quickly becoming a liability, lawkeeper,” Suit said. “The Set does not like you, though—as of yet—I have continued to vouch for your effectiveness. Do not make me regret that. Many of my colleagues are convinced that you will turn against us.”