On the second day of the city’s recovery, Steris finally got to bring Waxillium home from the hospital. They limped out of Hoid’s car, Wax on crutches, then looked up at the enormous skyscraper that held their suite. Wax stared at it, his eyes faintly haunted.
“Thinking of the Shaw?” Steris asked softly.
He nodded. “On that rooftop, Wayne made me get him a spike. If I hadn’t listened, he wouldn’t have been able to Push me away.”
“So you could have done what?” she said gently. “Stayed with him to die? He knew what he needed to do.”
Wax looked to her, and she saw the same pain in his eyes that she’dseen after Lessie’s second death. Tempered this time, but haunting nonetheless. She hated seeing him in pain. It happened far too often.
“I should have at least said goodbye,” Wax whispered. “He left the Roughs because of me…”
“And he lived because you gave him a second chance,” Steris said. As he was staring up at the roof, she covertly consulted her notes from the books on trauma she’dbeen reading. “This wasn’t your fault, Waxillium. You need to allow Wayne his agency, allow him to have made his own choice. You would have sacrificed yourself for the city; we both know it. So lethimhave the same decision.”
He was silent for a moment, and she tried—anxiously—to figure out what he was feeling. Was that scrunched-up face annoyance? Or was it pain? Ruin, had she made it worse?
“You’re right,” he said softly, then blinked tears from his eyes. “You’re right, Steris. I need to let him be the hero, don’t I? Harmony… he reallyisgone.”
She slipped her notebook into her pocket and held him close, ignoring the world around them. She dimmed everything else, like an old gas lantern with a dial. Turned it down until only the two of them remained. Only the two of them mattered.
He held to her, then took a long, deep breath. “Marasi still doesn’t believe he’s gone. She thinks he’s going to come sauntering back in a few months, wearing a straw hat and telling us how great the fruity drinks are in the Malwish Consortium. But she’s wrong. This time it’s over.”
“Yes,” Steris whispered. “He’s gone. Butnothingisover,Wax. You said the same thing when Lessie died. It wasn’t true then. It’s not true now. It will take time for you to believe, but you can trust that it will happen.”
He squeezed her hand. “Again, you’re right. Howdidyou get so good at this, Steris?”
“I learned from Wayne.”
“About… helping people deal with pain?”
“No,” she said, then slipped out her notebook. “About cheating.”
Waxillium smiled. The first genuine one she’dseen from him since the incident. Then he handed her his crutches and dropped a spent bullet casing to the ground.
“Oh!” she said. “Are you sure this is wise?”
“I might be getting old, but I’m not frail,” he said, then grabbed hold of her. “You ready?”
“Always,” she said, feeling an exquisite thrill from anticipating the flight. She leaned into him.
He propelled them upward, using the metal installations he’dhad erected here to give him a series of appropriate anchors. A rushing, exhilarating ascent with wind in her hair, and the insignificant world became more tiny. Until it was only the two of them and the sky.
Wax landed them carefully on the platform outside their suite. As he took back his crutches, Steris fished for her notebook.
“I think…” Wax said. “I think I’m going to be all right.”
“Good,” she said, flipping a few pages. “I have a Wayne quote for the moment.”
“A what?”
“I figured,” she said, “it would be a way of remembering him. To keep a few appropriate lines handy. Is that… morbid? That’s morbid, isn’t it? I’m sorry.”
“No,” he said. “I mean, it might be, but he’dapprove.”
She grinned. “‘Oi,’” she said. “‘Here you carried a girl all that way, mate, and you didn’t grab ’er butt, even a little?’”
“You just made that one up.”
She proffered the notebook, showing the line written there.