“Thanks,” the lady said, taking the sandwich from Marasi’s hand and taking a bite. “I was hungry.”
“Wayne,” Marasi said with a sigh, looking closer at his face. “What are you doing?”
“Hidin’ from those bean counters.”
“The two men with the suits and bowlers?” Marasi said. “They bothered Captain Reddi about you again, Wayne. Who do you owe money to this time?”
“None of your business,” he said around another bite of her sandwich. One might have thought he’dlook silly in a serving woman’s apron and cap, but—with the fake breasts—he wore it well. Wayne could never be accused of poor fashion sense. Just poor taste.
“I think itismy business,” Marasi said.
“No, itain’t,” Wayne said. “I’ll make sure they don’t bother old Reddi no more. You contacted Wax?”
“I sent him a note. Meeting at three o’clock.”
“Then why are we wasting time playin’ dress-up?” Wayne said. “We got work to do!”
11
Wax landed at the front doors to Ladrian Mansion, his ancestral home. Steris let go of his waist—as always, she’dclung to him with a death grip while flying, but had worn a gleeful grin the entire time.
They walked up the steps, and Wax undid the locks with a few Steelpushes in a specific sequence, causing the door to swing open before them. Others could use a set of keys, but few occupied the place any longer. The staff had moved to the tower along with Wax and Steris. These days the place had a single tenant, who stayed there off and on.
Wax called out, “It’s just us, Allik!”
Aside from giving the Malwish man a place to stay, the mansion had—over the years—undergone a small transformation. Space in the Ahlstrom Tower penthouse was tight, so Wax and Steris kept their projects and hobbies here.
Upstairs, Steris hadthreerooms for her ledgers, notebooks, and catalogues—which she liked to look through in her spare time. The things she thought they’dneed—delivered these days via mail order—might have overwhelmed a lesser household. However, having repeatedly benefited from her preparations, Wax didn’t feel he had reason to object.
Steris went to the washroom to fix her hair after the flight, but Wax paused next to the door, where a pair of long Roughs dusters hung on the wall. One was white, and the other—his old one—was sliced intotwo layers of thick ribbons. A mistcoat. Each coat had a Roughs hat on a peg above it. It wasn’t quite a shrine. Because one of the people it represented wasn’t dead; he’djust moved on to a different kind of adventure. Still, Wax paused, kissed his fingertips, then pressed them to the wood beneath Lessie’s hat. Again, it wasn’t quite a ritual. It was merely something he did.
A moment later, a masked head popped out above the banister on the second level. “Oh, hi!” Allik said. His current mask was bright red, with flakes of yellow paint radiating from the center. It always made him look eager, like his face was sweating sunlight. Then he raised it, and his toothy grin beamed even more brightly.
For all his short, spindly figure and somewhat embarrassing beard, Allik was a force to be reckoned with. At least when it came to his pastries.
“A new batch is almost done!” he called to Wax. “O Hungry One!”
“Don’t start that again, Allik,” Wax snapped. “And I didn’t come here because I’m hungry.”
“But you’ll still eat, yah?”
“Yah,” Wax admitted.
“Great!” He slammed his mask back down and disappeared into his room on the second floor, where he kept the fireplace running overtime. He’dhad an oven installed as well, because the Malwish could never have too much heat. He was technically a “junior goodwill ambassador” to the Basin, a title he’dearned two years ago by being willing to take up semipermanent residence in Elendel. Wax had been glad to see it. Allik had been fooling no one with his constant “coincidental” trips up here to see Marasi.
Besides. His pastries were… well, they werereallygood.
Marasi and Wayne were apparently running late, so Wax went to brew some tea while Steris fetched “a few” of her ledgers from upstairs. She came wobbling back balancing some two dozen of them, then plopped down on a couch in the sitting room. Wax gave her a cup of tea, then—frowning—went looking for the source of an odd smell.
He’djust found half an old meat bun in the pocket of his mistcoat when a dog came trotting in through the front door. A large grey- and-white short-haired animal that almost reached Wax’s waist.
“Hey,” it said with a feminine voice. “Did you bring Max?”
“No,” Wax said. “I wanted to run some experiments, and you know how those get.”
“Explody?” the dog—MeLaan—asked. “Well, damn. I kept this body on for no good reason.”
“Do you actuallylikeplaying fetch?” Wax asked, disposing of the moldy meat bun. “From what I can gather, most of you hate nonhuman bodies.”