“Oh, don’t mind Dawnshot,” Wayne said, nudging Wax. “He gets coy about Jak sometimes.” He leaned toward the woman. “Honestly, he’s a little jealous.”
“Well, who wouldn’t be?” she said, then sighed and began doing up the locks on the door. “Has he ever let you hold the Spear of the Red Sun?”
Wayne looked at Wax, who gritted his teeth. “No,” he forced himself to say. “It’s too powerful. Jak says I might accidentally awaken some… zombies if I’m allowed to touch it.”
The woman nodded, locks secured, then waved for them to follow her into the building.
“Good,” Wayne whispered to Wax. “But the spear wasn’t used for zombies. They was on the Island of Death, with Nicki.”
“How doyouknow?” Wax hissed to him.
“I read every one,” Wayne said. “Why wouldn’t I?”
“You…”
“I thought you couldn’t read,” Marasi said, brushing past them and following the woman.
“Oh, I can read,” Wayne said. “But I’m dumb, see, so I can only read things what are dumb too.”
The woman led them through a corridor crowded with books—stacks of them, taking up almost every available space. In the next room were a large printing press, some buckets of ink, and boxes of lead type scattered about. Her picture on the wall, hanging askew and showing her in younger years, was captionedMARAGA DULCET, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF.
“So,” she said, running a hand through her disheveled hair, “you know who killed Tobal? Was it those people with the golden hair living on the east side? They’re some kind of fairy creature; I know it.”
“Actually,” Marasi said, “we think it was a secretive group plotting to start up the Ashmounts again—and we worry they’re working to create bombs of incredible power.”
Maraga nodded. “So you do know.”
That was a test,Wax realized.
Maraga opened a doorway that revealed a set of old steps. “Well then. Follow me.”
She led the way down and Wax followed, waving for Marasi and Kim to stay back a few feet. The air smelled of old potatoes, spiders, and forgotten jars of something that might have once been preserves. Maraga flipped a switch at the bottom, powering a set of electric lights swinging on wires.
Covering the walls of the musty basement room were sheets of metal, scratched in detail—filled with words and diagrams, letters and pictures all cramped up together.
“Figured we’dwrite it all in metal,” Maraga said. “Just in case.”
33
Eyes wide with wonder, Marasi walked around the basement. It seemed to have once been used for storage, judging by the piles of old equipment and stacked throw mats. This had all been pushed away from the walls to make room for the metal sheets.
The Words of Founding mentioned metal plates, and Marasi had imagined large, thick sheets with the words chiseled in bold, powerful letters. Instead, Maraga had scratched sheets of tin with a pen, often scribbling out sentences and lines she got wrong. A lot of it was organized as lists. It had a frenzied air to it, but not like—say—the ravings of a madman. More like…
Notes,Marasi thought.A journalist’s shorthand notes, connecting ideas and building a story.
Maraga slumped down on the bottom step, seeming exhausted. “I… didn’t believe him at first,” she whispered. “Tobal. Thought he was another crackpot. But they usually have a good story to tell, something my readers want to hear.
“Then he started to bring me evidence. Information he stole from his employers. I think he was sneaking back in, grabbing ledgers, scraps, whatever he could find… Never would let me help. He didn’t want me to get too involved.” She looked up at the walls. “As if this weren’t already enough to get me killed…”
Marasi walked closer to offer comfort, but the woman flinched. Therewas a… fatalistic air about her. The air of a woman who had thrown the dice and was waiting to see how the numbers came up.
“How long?” Wax asked, inspecting one of the plates.
“Almost four years,” Maraga whispered. “Like I said, I didn’t believe him at first. But I’ve always been interested in the stories that slip through the cracks. The ones other papers ignore because they seem too sensational, or too lowbrow.”
“Lies, you mean,” Wax said. “You print lies.”
“We prefer ‘whimsical what-ifs.’ Intriguing stories that would be fascinating if they were true.”