With his steel, he could see lines pointing toward four different figures in front of him. Even as he landed—the men muttering curses and spinning toward him—he raised his Sterrion and sighted on the first of the street thugs. The man had a patchy beard and eyes as dark as the night itself.

Wax heard a woman whimpering.

He froze, hand steady, but unable to move. The memories, so carefully dammed up in his head, crashed through and flooded his mind. Lessie, held with a garrote around her neck. A single shot. Blood on the redbrick walls.

The street thug jerked his rifle toward Wax and fired. The steel bubble barely deflected it, and the bullet tugged through the fabric of Wax’s coat, just missing his ribs.

He tried to fire, but that whimpering…

Oh, Harmony, he thought, appalled at himself. He pointed his gun downward and fired into the ground, then Pushed on the bullet and threw himself backward, up out of the alleyway.

Bullets pierced the mists all around him. Steel bubble or not, he should have fallen to one of them. It was pure luck that saved his life as he landed on another roof and rolled to a stop, prone, protected from the gunfire by a parapet wall.

Wax gasped for breath, hand on his revolver. Idiot, he thought to himself. Fool. He’d never frozen in combat before, even when he’d been green. Never. This, however, was the first time he’d tried to shoot someone since the disaster in the ruined church.

He wanted to duck away in shame, but he gritted his teeth and crawled forward to the edge of the roof. The men were still down there. He could see them better now, gathering and preparing to make a run for it. They probably wanted nothing to do with an Allomancer.

He aimed at the apparent leader. However, before Wax could fire, the man fell to gunfire from the constables. In moments, the alleyway swarmed with men in uniforms. Wax raised his Sterrion beside his head, breathing deeply.

I could have fired that time, he told himself. It was just that one moment where I froze. It wouldn’t have happened again. He told himself this several times as the constables pulled the malefactors out of the alley one at a time.

There was no woman. The whimpering he’d heard had been a gang member who’d taken a bullet before Wax arrived. The man was still groaning in pain as they took him away.

The constables hadn’t seen Wax. He turned and disappeared into the night.

A short time later, Wax arrived at Ladrian Mansion. His residence in the city, his ancestral home. He didn’t feel like he belonged there, but he used it anyway.

The stately home lacked expansive grounds, though it did have four elegant stories, with balconies and a nice patio garden out back. Wax dropped a coin and bounded over the front fence, landing atop the gatehouse. My carriage is back, he noticed. Not surprising. They were getting used to him; he wasn’t certain whether to be pleased by that or ashamed of it.