Steris started sniffling. She pulled her hand free of his and wiped her eyes.

“Is that… good crying or bad?” Wax asked. All these years dealing with women, and he still couldn’t tell the difference sometimes.

“Well, this wasn’t on any of my lists, you see.”

“Ah.” He felt his heart lurch.

“And,” she continued, “I can’t remember a time when I missed something for one of my lists, only to have it be so wonderful.” She nodded, red-nosed and sniffly. “And it is. Thank you, Lord Waxillium.” She paused. “But tonight! So soon? Don’t the others deserve to attend a wedding?”

“They did attend one,” Wax said. “It’s not our fault there wasn’t a marriage at the end. So… what do you think? I mean, if you’re tired from the trip, don’t let me pressure you. I just thought—”

In response, she kissed him.

EPILOGUE

Marasi found it invigorating to work by candlelight. Perhaps it was the primordial danger of it. Electric lights felt safe, contained, harnessed—but an open flame, well, that was something raw. Alive. A little spark of fury which, if released, could destroy her and everything she worked on.

She worked with a lot of such sparks these days.

Spread on her desk in the octant constabulary headquarters were notes, files, interviews. She’d been present for most of them over the last two weeks, advising Constable-General Reddi. The two of them worked so closely these days, it was sometimes hard to remember how difficult he’d been to her during her early days in the constabulary.

Though Suit himself hadn’t broken, many of his men had talked. They knew just enough to be infuriating. They’d been recruited from among the dissident young men of the outer cities—their ears stuffed with stories of the Survivor and his fight against imperial rule. They’d been trained in cities like Rashekin and Bilming, far from central rule. In closed compounds that were much more extensive than anyone had known.

Aradel and the others had focused on these details. Troops, timetables, technology—like the long-distance speaking device Waxillium had stolen from Lady Kelesina’s mansion. They geared up for war, all the while talking peace.

They were scared, and legitimately so. Decades of not-so-benign neglect had created this snarl. Hopefully it could still be peacefully untangled. Marasi left that to politicians. She cut through the jingoism, the rhetoric, and turned her attention to something else. Stories among the men of something unusual, beyond the rumors of airships and new Allomantic metals.

She held up one sheet covered in notes. Half mentions, admissions made with sideways glances, always spoken of in whispers. Tales of men with red eyes who visited in the night. She added the stories to her files of research about Trell, the ancient god that people were somehow worshipping again. A god that had crafted spikes to corrupt the kandra Paalm, and whose name was on the lips of many of the prisoners.