He nodded slowly. “Iffen this item be under my watchful care, where might it be found?”

“There was a right tragic incident in town a few weeks back,” Wayne said. “Explosives. People dead. I hear they brought the pieces to you.”

“Bilmy runs the day shift,” Dechamp said. “He brought ’em in. The ones what weren’t claimed, the city put in a nice little grave. They was mostly beggars and whores.”

“And right undeservin’ of death,” Wayne said, taking off his hat and putting it over his breast. “Let’s go see them.”

“You want to go tonight?”

“Iffen it ain’t too much a sweat.”

“Not much sweat, Mister Coins,” Dechamp said, “but your name had better match your intentions.”

Wayne promptly got out a few banknotes and waved them. Dechamp snatched them, sniffed them for some reason, then shoved them in his pocket. “Well, those ain’t coins, but they’ll do. Come on, then.”

He took out an oil lantern, then led them into the mists.

“You changed your accent,” Marasi whispered to Wayne as they followed a short distance behind.

“Aged it back a tad,” Wayne explained softly. “Used the accent of a generation past.”

“There’s a difference?”

He looked shocked. “Of course there is, woman. Made me sound older, like his parents. More authority.” He shook his head, as if he couldn’t believe she’d even asked.

Dechamp’s lantern reflected off the mists as they walked, and that actually made it harder to see in the night, but he’d probably need it when digging. It did little to dispel the eeriness of gravestones broken by the occasional twisted mistwraith image. She understood, logically, why the tradition would have grown up. If there was one place you wanted to keep scavengers away from, it would be the graveyard. Except that the place had its own set of human scavengers, so the statues weren’t working.

“Now,” Dechamp said, and Wayne caught up to listen, “I’ll have you know that I am an honest man.”

“Of course,” Wayne said.

“But I’m also a thrifty man.”

“Ain’t we all,” Wayne said. “I never buys the fancy beer, even when it’s last call and the bartender halves it to empty the barrel.”

“You’re a man after my own heart, then,” Dechamp said. “Thrifty. What’s the good of lettin’ things rot and waste away, I says. The Survivor, he didn’t waste nothing useful.”

“Except noblemen,” Wayne said. “Wasted a fair number o’ them.”

“Wasn’t a waste,” Dechamp said, chuckling. “That there was weapons testing. Gotta make sure your knives is workin’.”

“Indeed,” Wayne said. “Why, sometimes the sharp ends on mine need lotsa testin’. To make sure they don’t break down in the middle of a good killin’.”

They shared a laugh, and Marasi shook her head. Wayne was in his element—he could talk about stabbing rich people all day long. Never mind that he himself was wealthier, now, than most of Elendel.

She didn’t much care to listen to them as they continued to laugh and joke, but unfortunately she also didn’t want to get too far away in this darkness. Yes, the mists were supposed to belong to the Survivor, but rusts, every second tombstone looked like a figure stumbling toward her in the night.