Waxillium sat up with care, one eye swelling closed, lip bleeding, side aching. Marasi knelt beside him, anxious.

“You shouldn’t have confronted him,” Waxillium said, tasting blood. “If he’d knocked you out, that would have been the end of it.”

“Oh, hush,” she said. “You aren’t the only one who can take risks.”

The backup plan had been straightforward, if difficult. It had begun with eliminating all of Miles’s lackeys. Even one of them, left alive, could have noticed what the speed bubble meant and shot Waxillium and Marasi from the outside. There wouldn’t have been anything they could have done to prevent it.

But if the lackeys were gone, and if Miles could be distracted long enough while the bubble was up, Wayne could go to gather a large force to surround Miles while he was helpless. He’d never have let it happen if he’d suspected. But within the speed bubble…

“No!” Miles screamed. “Unhand me. I defy your oppression!”

“You are a fool,” Waxillium said to him, then spat blood to the side. “You let yourself get isolated and distracted, Miles. You forgot the first rule of the Roughs.”

Miles screamed, one of the constables pulling a gag over his mouth as he was tied tightly.

“The more alone you are,” Waxillium said softly, “the more important it is to have someone you can rely upon.”

20

The constable-general has decided not to charge your associate for impersonating an officer of the law,” Reddi said.

Waxillium dabbed at his lip with the handkerchief. He sat in the precinct office nearest the Vanisher lair. He felt like slag, with broken ribs and half his body wrapped in bandages. He’d have scars from this.

“The constable-general,” Marasi said, voice hard, “should be glad for Lord Waxillium’s aid—in fact, he should have begged for Lord Waxillium’s help all along.” She sat beside him on the bench, hovering protectively.

“He actually does seem glad,” Reddi said. Now that Waxillium paid closer attention, he noticed how the constable kept glancing through the precinct room toward Brettin, the constable-general. Reddi’s eyes narrowed slightly, lips turning down. He was baffled by his superior’s calm reaction to events.

Waxillium was too exhausted at the moment to bother with the anomaly. In fact, it was nice to hear of something happening in his favor.

Reddi was called over by one of the other constables, and he left. Marasi laid a hand on Waxillium’s good arm. He could practically feel her concern for him physically in the way she hesitated, the way her brow wrinkled.

“You did well,” Waxillium said. “Miles was your catch, Lady Marasi.”

“I’m not the one who had to be beaten bloody.”

“Wounds heal,” Waxillium said, “even on an old horse like me. Watching him attack me and doing nothing… I’ll bet that was excruciating. I don’t think I could have stood it, if our places had been reversed.”

“You’d have done it. You’re like that. You’re every bit the man I thought you might be, yet somehow more real at the same time.” She looked at him, eyes wide, lips pursed. As if she wanted to say more. He could read her intent in those eyes.