Suit continued on past, tossing the fake Bands of Mourning into the snow and leaving the troops to—hopefully—slow down Waxillium’s minions. He eagerly marched aboard the new airship. Now this device, this was an advantage. The Bands could serve one man, make a deity out of him. A fleet of ships like this could deify an entire army.

The wooden hallway inside had gaslights set into lamps with austere metal housings. It was all distinctly plainer than the ship that had crashed in Dulsing—the wood here was unornamented, unpolished. The other ship had felt decorated like a den. This one, a warehouse.

Probably cheaper to build this way, he thought, nodding his head in approval.

Footsteps clattered above as men charged through one of the corridors on another deck, and Suit brushed the snow from his arms as a technician ran up to him, bearing the red uniform of the Set’s Hidden Guard.

“My lord,” the man said, proffering one of the medallions. “You’ll need this.”

Suit took it and rolled up his sleeve to strap it to his upper arm. “Is this ship operational?”

The man’s eyes lit up. “Yes, sir! The machinery is operational, sheltered as it was from the weather. Sir… it’s amazing. You can feel the energy pulsing off that metal. We did have to send men out to unclog the fans—a few of the Coinshots helped—and we have them moving now. Fed is down below, priming the weight-changing machinery with her Feruchemy, to lighten the ship. That should be the last step!”

“Then lift us off,” Suit said, walking toward where he assumed the bridge would be found.

“My lord Suit?” the man called after him. “Aren’t we waiting for the Sequence?”

He hesitated only briefly. Where had she gotten to?

Another advantage? he thought. He could stand being Sequence.

“She will join us aloft if she can,” he said. “Our priority is to get this ship, and its secrets, to a secure location.”

As the technician saluted and ran to obey, Suit filled his medallion, becoming lighter. So much easier than getting his spikes had been. It was hard not to feel that their experiments in Hemalurgy had been a waste, a dead end.

The ship quivered, and the fans started up with a much louder sound than he had expected. Before he reached the bridge, the thing rocked, and he heard ice cracking above the sound of the fans. He leaned over to a porthole, looking out as the ground retreated.

It worked. Immediately, implications flooded his mind. Travel. Shipping. Warfare. New regions could be settled. New types of buildings and docks would be needed.

It would all flow through him.