Shadows of Self (Mistborn #5)(26)

He found Dims on a nearby corner. The young man wore a bowler hat and a bow tie, but a shirt that had the sleeves ripped off. He was head of one of the more important street gangs in the area, but never stabbed people too badly when he mugged them and was polite with the people he extorted. He was practically a model citizen.

“Hello, Dims,” Wayne said.

Dims eyed him. “You a conner today, Wayne?”

“Nope.”

“Ah, good,” Dims said, settling down on the steps. He took something out of his pocket—a little metal container.

“Here now,” Wayne said, wiping his nose. “What’s that?”

“Gum.”

“Gum?”

“Yeah, you chew it.” Dims offered him a piece of the stuff. It was rolled into a ball, soft to the touch and powdered on the outside.

Wayne eyed the lad, but decided to try it. He chewed for a moment.

“Good flavor,” he said, then swallowed.

Dims laughed. “You don’t swallow it, Wayne. You just chew!”

“What’s the funna that?”

“It just feels good.” He tossed Wayne another ball.

Wayne popped it into his mouth. “How are things,” Wayne said, “with you and the Cobblers?”

The Cobblers were the rival gang in the area. Dims and his fellows went about with their sleeves torn. The Cobblers wore no shoes. It apparently made perfect sense to youths of the street, many of whom were the children of the houseless. Wayne liked to keep an eye on them. They were good lads. He’d been like them once.

Then life had steered him wrong. Boys like this, they could use someone to point them in the right direction.

“Oh, you know,” Dims said. “Some back, some forth.”

“There won’t be trouble now, will there?” Wayne asked.

“I thought you said you wasn’t no conner today!”

“I ain’t,” Wayne said, slipping—by instinct—into a dialect more like that of Dims. “I’m askin’ as a friend, Dims.”

Dims scowled, looking away, but his muttered response was genuine. “We ain’t stupid, Wayne. We’ll keep our heads. You know we will.”

“Good.”

Dims glanced back at him as Wayne settled down. “You bring that money you owe me?”

“I owe you money?” Wayne asked.

“From cards?” Dims said. “Two weeks back? Rusts, Wayne, are you drunk? It ain’t even noon yet!”

“I ain’t drunk,” Wayne said, sniffling. “I’m investigatin’ alternative states of sobriety. How much do I owe you?”

Dims paused. “Twenty.”

“Now see,” Wayne said, digging in his pocket, “I distinctly remember borrowin’ five off you.” He held up a note. It was a fifty.

Dims raised an eyebrow. “You want something from me, I’m guessing?”

“I need into the university.”

“The gates are open,” Dims said.

“Can’t go through the front. They know me.”

Dims nodded. That sort of thing was a common complaint in his world. “What do you need from me?”

A short time later, a man wearing Wayne’s hat, coat, and dueling canes tried to pass through the front of the university. He saw the two men in black, then bolted as they chased after him.

Wayne adjusted his spectacles, watching them go. He shook his head. Ruffians, trying to get into the university! Scandalous. He walked in through the gates, wearing a bow tie and carrying a load of books. Another of those men—who stood in a more hidden spot, watching his companions chase Dims—barely gave Wayne a glance.

Spectacles. They were kind of like a hat for smart people. Wayne ditched the books inside the square, then walked past a fountain with a statue of a lady who wasn’t properly clothed—he idled only a short time—and made his way toward Pashadon Hall, the girls’ dormitory. The building looked an awful lot like a prison: three stories of small windows, stonework architecture, and iron grates that seemed to say “Stay away, boys, if you value your nether parts.”

He pushed his way in the front doors, where he prepared himself for the second of his three tests: the Tyrant of Pashadon. She sat at her desk, a woman built like an ox with a face to match. Her hair even curled like horns. She was a fixture of the university, or so Wayne had been told. Perhaps she had come with the chandeliers and sofas.

She looked up from her desk in the entryway, then threw herself to her feet in challenge. “You!”

“Hello,” Wayne said.

“How did you get past campus security!”

“I tossed them a ball,” Wayne said, tucking the spectacles into his pocket. “Most hounds love having somethin’ to chase.”

The tyrant rumbled around the side of her desk. It was like watching an ocean liner try to navigate city canals. She wore a tiny hat, in an attempt at fashion. She liked to consider herself a part of Elendel upper society, and she kind of was. In the same way that the blocks of granite that made up the steps to the governor’s mansion were a part of civic government.

“You,” she said, spearing Wayne in the chest with a finger. “I thought I told you not to come back.”

“I thought I ignored you.”