Wayne stood and wandered over to him, pulling his box of gum from his pocket and tapping it against his palm to settle the powder inside. “These thieves, did one of them happen to shoot her when you weren’t lookin’? ’Cuz she’s sure gotten stiff all of a sudden.”

“She was just worried about you,” Wax said. “I’ll talk to her after she’s cooled down.”

MeLaan left her position by the door. “Was there anything strange about the attack?”

“Plenty of things,” Wax said, standing and stretching. Rusts. Was he really getting too old for all this, as Lessie always joked with him? He usually felt exhilarated after a fight.

It’s the deaths, he thought. Only one passenger had died, an older man. But they’d lost half a dozen payroll guards, not to mention the many wounded.

“One of the bandits,” he said to MeLaan, “he did something that dampened my Allomancy.”

“A Leecher?” she asked.

Wax shook his head. “He didn’t touch me.”

Leechers who burned chromium could blank another Allomancer’s metals—but it required touch. “It did feel the same. My steel was there one moment, then gone the next. But MeLaan, there was some kind of device involved. A little metal cube.”

“Wait,” a voice said. Marasi appeared in the doorway. “A cube?”

All three of them looked at her, and she blushed in the harsh electric light. “What?”

“You stalked away,” Wayne pointed, “indigenously.”

“And now I’m stalking back in,” Marasi said, striding toward Wax and fishing in her pocket. “I can be indigen—indignant in here just as easily.” She pulled her hand out, holding a small metal cube.

The same cube he’d seen before his steel was drained. Wax plucked it from her palm. “Where’d you get this?”

“The guy with the cane dropped it,” Marasi said. “He moved as if to pull a gun on me, and raised this.”

Wax turned it toward MeLaan, and she shook her head.

“That’s a real strange gun,” Wayne noted.

“Is there anything in that lore VenDell talked about,” Wax said, “that mentions a device that negates Allomancy?”

“Nothing I’ve heard,” MeLaan said.

“I mean,” Wayne said, “it ain’t even got a barrel.”

“But you said you don’t pay attention to the research, MeLaan,” Marasi said, taking the cube back.

“That’s true.”

“And if they could shoot the rusting thing,” Wayne added, “the bullet would be small as a flea.”

Marasi sighed. “Wayne, can’t you ever let a joke die?”

“Hon, that joke started dead,” he said. “I’m just givin’ it a proper burial.”

“We need another train south,” Marasi said, turning to the others.

“These bandits might have information,” Wayne said. “Chasin’ them down could be useful. ’Sides, I didn’t get to stomp none of them, on account of some untimely snogging.”

“At least it was good snogging,” MeLaan added. Then, to Marasi’s glare, she added, “What? It was. Poor guy hadn’t had a proper snog in years. Had a lot of pent-up energy.”

“You’re not even human,” Marasi said. “You should be ashamed. Not to mention that you’re six hundred years old.”