Poor Allik huddled beside Steris. He’d stopped shivering, and his skin was turning blue. Steris met her eyes, and looked resigned.

Suit strode past. He looked far more intimidating dropping through the air using Allomantic abilities than he had bundled up for the weather and standing on the steps of the temple.

“Is my brother dead?” Telsin demanded, turning from her group of engineers nearby.

“Yes,” Suit said. “Though I encountered the short one.”

“You killed him?”

“Left him distracted,” Suit said. “I thought you’d want to see what I found.” He held up something that gleamed in the powerful lights the crew had set up. Two silvery bracers, each as long as a forearm. “There was a hidden chamber down there, Sequence. And my, what a secret it contained.”

Telsin shoved between her scientists and scrambled up to Suit. She took the bracers, awed.

“They don’t work,” Suit noted.

“What do you mean?”

“They’re out of attributes, I think. Their reserves gone.”

“But they grant Allomancy too,” Telsin said, putting them on and waving toward one of the guards, who tossed her a vial of metals. She downed it, eager.

“Well?” Suit asked.

“Nothing.”

A decoy, Marasi thought. Like the glass case and the empty pedestal… yes, that had been one too. She could see now why Waxillium had been doing his measuring.

Waxillium. He couldn’t really be…

No. What could she do? Not fight. But think. These Bands were a decoy. A second layer of falsehood to confuse intruders.

So where were the real ones?

Candles in a dark room.

They’re another decoy, Wax thought, mind muddled. Those bracers were too perfect, just like the stories. They were left to fool us.

Like the symbols of Wax’s old adversary, painted on the door of a mansion. Meant to distract. Delay.

This place was made for the Lord Ruler, Wax thought. Those traps… those traps are stupid. What if one did catch him? The whole thing has to be a decoy.

So what? There was another temple out there? Maybe they had hidden it in a cave?

He could barely see anymore. Wayne held his hand, tears streaming down his face. Everything was fading. The cold… coming… like darkness…

No, Wax thought, it wouldn’t be somewhere else. He’d need to be able to find it. He’d recognize it…

It was.

It was here!

Wax gasped, and tried to form the words, eyes wide. Wayne gripped his hand, knuckles white.

He couldn’t feel it.

The darkness arrived, and Wax died.

28

Wax stilled.

Wayne let the hand fall limp. He wanted to just sit here. Stare at nothing like those fellows in rows nearby, the ones that weren’t crushed. Sit and become nothing.

All his life, only one man had believed in him. Only one man had forgiven him, had encouraged him. The rest of this damned race could burn away and become ash, for all Wayne cared. He hated them all.