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She hurriedly tucked the letters into her purse. Captain Aradel needed to see this. Marasi quickly shut and locked the safe, put back the key, and then started up the steps. She didn’t want to be in the basement when the footman came looking for her to announce her carriage.

Innate will claim they were planted by Bleeder, Marasi thought as she reached ground level. He’ll have an easy out. Beyond that, if he noticed they were gone, he’d have a pretty good idea of who took them. That same servant was still cleaning up, and he’d seen Marasi go down and return.

But Rust and Ruin, she wasn’t going to just ignore something like this.

*   *   *

Flying through the air at night let Wax see the distinct presence of humankind, as marked by strict boundaries. Where they dwelled, there was illumination. Pinpricks in the darkness, men and women staking a claim on the night. The lights spread like the roots of a tree.

His uncle had left him far from where he wanted to be. Fortunately, for a Coinshot even the vastness of Elendel was manageable. He didn’t immediately turn inward, however, to visit the kandra Homeland. His uncle’s words haunted him, and before those Bleeder’s gibes. They attacked from two different directions, like pins pushed into either temple.

He needed to think, to be alone. Perhaps then he could sort through what this mess meant. He landed on a rooftop overlooking the vast glowing carpet of lights before him. A cat watched him from a nearby flower box, its eyes alight. Below was another row of pubs. Loud, raucous. Surely it was past two in the morning, yet they showed no signs of quieting down.

Rusts, how he hated that one could never feel truly alone in the city. Even in the privacy of his mansion, the quiet was marred by the incessant passage of carriages outside.

He leaped away into the night, frightening the cat. He soared high in a long arc, trying to get far enough away that he couldn’t hear the men shouting drunkenly in the row of pubs. His search took him eastward, toward the edge of the city. As he approached, something emerged from the mists like the bleached spine of some ancient monster. Eastbridge, a massive construction that spanned the Irongate River here.

On one hand, he marveled that humankind could create something like this—an enormous riveted marvel, big enough to let motors pass and also hold railroad tracks. On the other hand, the mists completely engulfed the bridge, giving it an even more skeletal cast. Humankind would create, and take pride in those creations, but Harmony’s presence could make it all seem trivial.

Did He know? Wax landed atop one of the bridge’s towers, boots clanging. Could He have saved Lessie?

The answer was simple. Of course Harmony had known. To believe in a God was to accept that He or She wasn’t going to deliver you from every problem. It wasn’t something Wax had ever dwelled on. Living in the Roughs, he’d accepted that sometimes you just had to weather things on your own. Help didn’t always come. That was life. You dealt with it.

But now, something felt different. He’d spoken to Harmony. Hell, Wax was out here right now because of a request from God Himself. That made it all the more personal. God hadn’t saved Lessie, hadn’t given Wax warning. And now He expected Wax to just hop to it and do as He demanded?

And what would you do? Wax addressed himself, walking along the bridge’s lofty pinnacle. Let the city burn? Let Bleeder keep killing?

Of course he couldn’t. Harmony knew that too. He had Wax by the throat.

Are you there? Wax asked, sending the thought out. Harmony?

He felt at his ear before remembering that he’d taken out his earring. By necessity, yes, but in that moment he was glad not to have it. Not to let God get a purchase on his mind, for the thoughts he had weren’t particularly pious.

Wax strode through the mists, while down below a lone motorcar puttered across the bridge. Bleeder was toying with him. He could feel her fingers sneaking in, piercing his skull, wrapping around his mind. He could see exactly what she was doing, yet couldn’t banish the questions she raised.

Wax paused at one end of the tower’s top. From here he could see the edge of the city, where the lights gave way to the darkness of the countryside. Behind him, the city was a brilliant blaze, thousands upon thousands of lights, but the electric lines hadn’t yet come out past the bridge. On the outskirts of Elendel, the lights stopped. The last few hung on the bridge, like lighthouses looking out at the vast blackness of the sea.

He yearned for that darkness. To leap out into it, escape all this responsibility—stop needing to worry about hundreds of thousands of people he couldn’t know, and get back to helping the few he could.