The Alloy of Law (Mistborn #4)(101)

Why, then, was finding out that she lived so powerfully meaningful to him? He couldn’t even define which emotions he was feeling.

He forced his eyes open. Lord Edwarn was watching him, holding a glass of crystalline white wine in his fingers. “You suspected,” Edwarn said. “All along, you suspected I wasn’t dead. That’s why you recognized whatever description those ruffians were able to give. I’ve changed clothing styles, my haircut, and even shaved my beard.”

“You shouldn’t have had your butler try to kill me,” Waxillium said. “He was too long in the family employ, and he was too ready to kill me, to have been hired by the Vanishers on such short notice. It meant he was working for someone else, and had been for some time. The simplest answer was that he was still working for the person he’d served for years.”

“Ah. Of course, you weren’t supposed know he caused the explosion.”

“I wasn’t supposed to survive it, you mean.”

Lord Ladrian shrugged.

“Why?” Waxillium asked, leaning in. “Why bring me back, if only to then have me killed? Why not arrange for someone else to take the house title?”

“Hinston was going to take it,” Lord Ladrian said, buttering a roll. “His disease was … unfortunate. Plans were already in motion. I didn’t have time to search out other options. Besides, I hoped—obviously, without basis—that you’d have overcome your overdeveloped childhood sense of morality. I had hoped you’d be a resource to me.”

Rust and Ruin, I hate this man, Waxillium thought, memories of his childhood returning to him. He’d gone to the Roughs, in part, to escape that condescending voice.

“I’ve come for the other four kidnapped women,” Waxillium said.

Lord Ladrian took a sip of wine. “You think I’m going to give them up, just like that?”

“Yes. I will expose you, otherwise.”

“Go right ahead!” Lord Ladrian seemed amused. “Some will believe you. Others will think you mad. Neither reaction will hinder me or my colleagues.”

“Because you’ve already been defeated,” Waxillium said.

Lord Ladrian almost choked on his roll. He laughed, lowering it to the table. “Is that honestly what you think?”

“The Vanishers are gone,” Waxillium said, “Miles is being executed as we speak, and I know that you were funding him. We captured the goods you were stealing, so you have gained nothing there. You obviously didn’t have much in the way of funds to begin with. Otherwise you wouldn’t have needed Miles and his team to do the robberies.”

“I assure you, Waxillium, that we are quite solvent. Thank you. And you’ll find no proof that I or my associates had anything to do with the robberies. We rented Miles his space, but how could we have known what he was up to? Harmony! He was a respected lawkeeper.”

“You took the women.”

“There is no proof of that. Just speculation on your part. A few of the Vanishers will swear to their graves that Miles raped and killed the women. I know for a fact that one of those Vanishers survived. Though I am still curious how you found me here, in this particular train.”

Waxillium made no reply to that specifically. “I know that you’re ruined,” he said instead. “Say what you will, I see it. Give me the women and my sister. I’ll recommend to the judges that you be shown leniency. Yes, you funded a group of robbers as a means of high-stakes investment. But you explicitly told them not to hurt anyone, and you weren’t the one to pull the trigger and kill Peterus. I suspect you’ll escape execution.”

“You assume so many things, Waxillium,” Lord Ladrian said. He reached into the pocket of his jacket and removed a folded broadsheet and a thin, black leather appointment book. He set them down on the table, broadsheet on the top. “Funding a group of robbers as a means of high-stakes investment? Is that really what you think this was about?”

“That and kidnapping the women,” Waxillium said. “Presumably as a means of extorting their families.”

That last part was a lie. Waxillium didn’t believe for a moment that it was about extortion. His uncle was planning something, and considering the family lines of those women, Waxillium suspected that Marasi was right. It was about Allomancy.



He harbored a hope that his uncle wasn’t involved in the direct … breeding. The very idea made Waxillium uncomfortable. Perhaps Ladrian was merely selling the women to someone else.

What a thing to hope for.

Ladrian tapped the broadsheet. The headline was about news that was going around the city. House Tekiel was on the brink of collapse. They’d had too much bad publicity in the robbery last week, even though the cargo had been recovered. That, mixed with other serious financial troubles …

Other serious financial troubles.

Waxillium scanned the broadsheet. Tekiel’s main house business was security. Insurance. Rust and Ruin! he thought, making the connection.

“A series of targeted attacks,” Ladrian said, leaning in, sounding pleased with himself. “House Tekiel is doomed. They owe payments on too many high-profile losses. These attacks, and the insurance claims, have devastated them and their financial integrity. Company shareholders have been selling their stakes for pennies. You claimed my finances were weak. That is only because they have been dedicated to a specific task. Have you wondered, yet, why your house is destitute?”