“That’s still remarkable,” Marasi said.

“And disturbing,” Wax said, staring at that innocent-looking loop. The only way to have created this would involve using a Feruchemist with two powers. So either the Set had access to full-blooded Feruchemists, or his fears were coming true. They’d figured out how to use Hemalurgy.

Or it’s a relic, he thought. There’s that possibility. Perhaps this and the box were artifacts of another time.

He tossed the bracelet back to Wayne. “How much is in it?”

“A heap,” Wayne said. “But it’s not endless. The reservoir got smaller when I healed that cut.”

“Hang on to it, then,” Wax said, turning as he heard his name. MeLaan was at the edge of the glade, waving. Wax left Wayne and Marasi, striding over to the tall, slender kandra woman, still worried about what these discoveries meant. What did the bracelet indicate? Was there more to be discovered? Metalminds that granted anyone who touched them incredible powers? For the first time, he really started to wonder. What if the Bands were real? What would happen to society if Metalborn powers were simply something you could purchase?

He trudged up to MeLaan. “I think you’ll want to see this,” she said, waving for him to follow her up the side of a steep hill covered in foliage. At the top, they had a view of the land to the northeast. Some was cultivated in rows and rings, but much was like what they’d just left—wilderness blooming with random patches of fruits or vegetables. A cool breeze blew across him, barely enough to temper the heat of the sunlight above.

Seeing it all, feeling that perfect breeze, made Wax realize what annoyed him so much about the problems between Elendel and the outer cities. Did these people comprehend what life was like out in the Roughs, where planting was fraught with uncertainty, and the danger of starvation was real?

They think people are foolish for living in the Roughs, Wax thought, taking the old-fashioned spyglass that MeLaan handed him. They don’t understand what it’s like to get trapped out there for generations, too poor—or too stubborn—to return to the Basin.

Freedom in the Roughs came at a cost. Either way, the Basin was—literally—paradise, crafted for men by a God who wanted to compensate the world for a millennium of ashes and ruin. It seemed that even in paradise, men would find reasons to squabble and fight.

Wax raised the spyglass. “What am I looking for?”

“Check the road about a mile up,” MeLaan said. “By that creek with the bridge over it.”

He spotted a couple of men lounging in a field with axes. From the looks of it, they’d been cutting at the trunk of a dead tree. Another fallen tree crossed the roadway.

“What do you see?” MeLaan asked.

“A roadblock that doesn’t want to look like one,” Wax said. “That tree across the road is arranged to seem as if it just fell there, but the furrows on the ground indicate it was dragged there intentionally, and has been moved a time or two since being placed.”