Shadows of Self (Mistborn #5)(37)

As the speech progressed, laboring with explanations of how good a man Winsting had been, Marasi edged to the side in an attempt to get a better view. How was Innate responding to the crowd? He was charismatic; she could hear that even from the way he spoke. Maybe he was doing some good with his oratory alone, even if the speech lacked substance.

“A full investigation of the constables will be ordered,” Innate continued. “I am not convinced my brother was killed as they say. My sources posit this might all be the result of a bungled raid, using my brother as willing bait to catch criminals. If that is true, and they put my brother in harm’s way and are now covering it up, the responsible parties will answer for it.”

Marasi moved to the side, but her view was obstructed by one of the guards, who stepped in front of her. Annoyed, Marasi moved again, and again the guardsman moved. She’d have considered it deliberate if his back hadn’t been to her.

“As for the floods in the east, we are sending relief. Your friends and relatives there shall be succored. We stand with them in the face of this disaster.”

Not good, she noted. The people don’t want to hear about aid going outside the city, no matter how necessary, not while things are growing worse and worse here.… Marasi moved again. Aradel wanted her to judge the public’s reaction, but she needed a better view.

Her shuffling earned a curse of annoyance from one of the reporters, and she finally got a sight of Innate on his podium. He moved into a longer rant against the press. Perhaps that was why the reporter had been so testy. She certainly would be.…

Marasi frowned. That guardsman who had been moving and shuffling and blocking her view had turned, and she could see a very odd expression on his face, like a grimace of pain. And he was whispering—at least his mouth was moving. Nobody else seemed to notice him, as they were focused on the speech.

So Marasi was the first one to scream as the guardsman pulled a revolver from underneath his coat and leveled it at the governor.

*

Wayne prowled around the dead woman’s room. It was too clean. A room where people lived should have a healthy amount of clutter. Miss Steelrunner hadn’t spent much time here.

In the other room, Wax inspected the body. Wayne left him to that; he had no interest in poking at a corpse’s insides, even if Wax claimed it was important. Wayne, instead, went looking for more interesting bits of life. His first discovery was a small cache of bottles in the cabinet under the bathroom washbasin. Various forms of alcohol, the harder stuff, each a little gone. All save one, which was empty. Wayne gave it a sniff. Port.

Not surprising, he thought. He took the whiskey and gave it a good swig. Bleh. Too much bite, and far too warm. He took another swig as he spun about in the main room. These fancy neighborhoods were too quiet. People should be shouting outside. That was right for the city. He checked the trunk beside her sleeping pallet and found it contained three outfits, each clean and carefully folded. The Terris robes were on the bottom. Creases had set; these weren’t worn often. The other two were modern designs, the one on top more daring than the one below.

He took another swig of whiskey and wandered back into the room with the corpse. Wax had removed his hat and coat, and knelt beside the body in his vest and slacks.

“You found the alcohol, I see,” Wax said. “How uncharacteristic.”

Wayne grinned, offering the bottle to Wax, who took a small swig. “Ugh,” he noted, handing it back. “This murder is troubling, Wayne.”

“I’m sure she felt so.”

“Too many questions. Why did she leave the Village, and why choose to live here? It doesn’t feel very Terris.”

“Oh, I can tell you why she was here,” Wayne said.

“Well?”

“Think of yourself as a sheltered Terriswoman in her forties,” Wayne said. “Old enough to have missed the chance to be a wild youth, and starting to wish you’d done something more daring.”

“The Terris don’t long for wildness,” Wax said, taking notes in a little book as he inspected the woman’s wound. “They aren’t daring. They’re a reserved people.”

“Ain’t we Terris?”

“We’re exceptions.”

“Everyone’s an exception to something, Wax. This girl, she left the Village and found a whole world out here. She must have had an adventurous side.”

Whiskey.

“She did,” Wax admitted. “I didn’t know her well, but she’d sneak out of the Village as a youth. That was long ago.”

“And she left again,” Wayne said, “on account of the Village being so dull as to bore the sense out of a scribe. Hell, even Steris would hate that place.”

“Wayne…”

“Our miss,” Wayne said, waving the bottle toward the dead woman, “she tried to remain conservative at first, so she got a job as a clerk, a good Terris occupation. She convinced herself that a nice apartment—where she was safe from the supposed horrors of lesser neighborhoods—was worth the expense. Simple stuff.

“But then some workers at the jeweler took her out, and she let herself drink. She liked that. Awakened memories of sneaked drinks as a youth. She wanted more, so she bought a whole mess of different kinds of spirits to try them all out. She liked port best, by the way.”

“Makes sense,” Wax said.