“Wellid, what do you think we’re doing?”
“Delivering a payload,” he said. “To Elendel. It’s a weapon, right? We drop it off, then we get out of there?”
Another uncomfortable pause. “Yes,” she said. “Get out of there. That’s right. But I’m not doing it for the reward.”
He should have expected that. The others, well, they were all a little bit more… diligent about all of this. Trell. The impending war with Elendel. They’dhave probably volunteered for this mission even if it hadn’t been aboard a giant indestructible warship.
“Keep that lantern shielded,” Gabria said, “and fetch me if you hear or see something suspicious.Crediblysuspicious.”
She stalked off across the deck, leaving him alone with the cold mists and indifferent waters. He was supposed to patrol, but they hadn’t given him a specific route. So after listening to those waves, and feeling like he could hear the darkness watching him, he walked in the direction Gabria had gone. Logically he’dneed to stick close to—
What was that?
That thump against the hullsurelyhadn’t just been his imagination. He was near the back of the ship—um, the aft of the ship, sir—and the sound had come from farther along. He inched forward, wielding his lantern in a shaking hand. Even shielded, it let out atiny bitof light. Letting him better make out the ship’s back railing.
That noise was nothing,he told himself forcibly. You heard things in the mists. Everyone knew that. He shouldn’t say anything, because Gabria had—
A hand reached up from the darkness below and seized the top bar of the railing. A shape followed, pitch black, vaguely human, heaving itself onto the deck. It hadtentacleswaving behind it, a hundred of them curling like the mists. In that shadow, Wellid saw a misbegotten shape. A thing that wasn’t human, a thing thatcouldn’tbe human. The mists seemed to know this, for while they played with the waving tentacles, they stayed away from the figure. Itrepelledthe mist.
It was a mistwraith, Wellid knew. A terror from the deep, a relic of ancient times. A thing of stories and legend come to claim his soul.
He found his voice and screamed. With fumbling fingers, he threw open the shield on the lantern, bathing the deck in light. Revealing…
A man. Tall, with prominent sideburns, his vest and cravat peeking from underneath a thick duster—mistcoat tassels spraying out behind him in the wind.
Dawnshot was here. On theship.
Gabria spun from farther down the walkway. “Wellid, why—” She cut off immediately, seeing Dawnshot there. She gaped long enough for a second man to climb up over the railing, land with a thump, then pull on a damp bowler hat.
“No!” Gabria finally said. “How?”
Dawnshot flung wide his mistcoat, revealing what had been obscured before: a large metal spike protruding from his lower chest, where it had been pounded right through his clothing to pierce him directly between two ribs.
***
Slowly, awareness returned to Telsin.
She found herself on the rooftop, near her failed decoy. Even before Wax’s arrival, she’dbeen worried. Autonomy’s deadline was today. Maybe she could have gotten more time—made the rocket work—except… except forhim.
She growled softly and rolled over to find one of the engineers shaking her arm. What had happened? Her Investment from Autonomy should have prevented a blackout like that. She felt… wrung out. Her core cold, her arms sore from scraping the rooftop, her skin clammy. Rusts. She felt practicallymortalagain.
What is happening?she asked Autonomy.
You,the distant—too distant—voice said,are failing me.
No. The bomb is being delivered! I’m… I’m…
For the first time, she took in the wreckage around her. A broken rooftop. Bent steel girders. A smashed remnant of her missile-launching construction.
“What… what happened?” she hissed.
“They took spikes from the bodies,” the woman said, pointing. “Ordinary ones, not made of your metal. But one granted… duralumin.”
No.
Telsin heaved herself to her feet and stumbled to the edge of the building to stare out over the bay. The force of Wax’s Push had bent and crushed the very underlying girders of the skyscraper here, leaving the rooftop cracked and sloped.
Your failure begins,Autonomy said, voice increasingly distant.You are not worthy.