Shadows of Self (Mistborn #5)(80)

Wax raised his eyebrow. Chapaou had paid for a private session. Where had he found that kind of money? The coach driver stopped in place, looking toward Wax. His eyes flicked toward the guns at Wax’s hips, then he fell to his knees, weeping.

The aged Soother rose with audible cracks from his joints. “I’ve done what I can, Mistress Halex,” he said to the proprietor. “But this man doesn’t need Allomancy. He needs a physician.”

“He’s yours,” Mistress Halex said to Wax. “Get him out of here. He’s disturbing my people.”

Wax crossed the room to kneel beside Chapaou. The short man shivered, holding his legs. “Chapaou,” Wax said. “Look at me.”

Chapaou turned toward him.

“What’s the name of your dog?” Wax asked.

“My … I don’t have a dog. He died a few years back.”

Good enough. This wasn’t Bleeder in disguise, unless she’d thought to interrogate a random cabdriver about his pets before killing him and taking his shape.

“What’s wrong?” Wax said. “Why are you here?”

“To forget what I saw.”

“Soothing doesn’t work like that,” Wax said. “It doesn’t take your memories.”

“But it should make me feel better, right?”

“Depends on the emotions you’re feeling,” Wax said, “and the skill of the Soother.” He held the man by the shoulder. “What did you see, Chapaou?”

The man blinked reddened eyes. “I saw … myself.”

*

Aradel wasn’t in his office, of course. That place was there, as he put it, “for giving house lords somewhere to sit when they come to complain at me.”

Marasi found him on the roof of the constabulary offices listening to reports from the two precinct Coinshots who had been scouting the city. Marasi politely waited with MeLaan and several constable lieutenants standing nearby, and was able to hear most of the latest report. Thousands still on the streets, my lord. They’re congregating at pubs. Not going home …

Aradel stood with one booted foot up on the short wall around the rooftop as he took the reports. Mist curled around each Coinshot in a distinct vortex; it responded to the use of Allomancy. Finally, Aradel dismissed the two. They weren’t true constables—more contractors. Their loyalties would be to their houses. Or in some cases to their pocketbooks.

As they left—jumping off the building—the constable-general turned to the waiting lieutenants. “Get the men ready to clear out the pubs,” he said softly.

“Sir?” one of the women asked.

“We’re going to close them down,” Aradel said, pointing. “First on the promenades, then work down the smaller streets. We can’t start until I get authority from the governor to institute martial law in the octant, but I want the constables ready to move as soon as we have word.”

The lieutenants ran to obey. Aradel glanced toward Marasi, and she thought she saw something of his ancestor in him, a soldier who had died a martyr during the days of the Ascendant Warrior. In another era, would this man have been a field general rather than a policeman?

“What do you have for me, Lieutenant Colms?” he said, waving her forward. MeLaan lingered by the stairwell down, hands in her trouser pockets.

“Our assassin, sir,” Marasi said, proffering the folder. “She dug her way out of her own grave after being executed for causing the floods in the east. They found the bones nearby a few days later, and called it desecration of the grave. After all, why would they guess that one of the holy Faceless Immortals had been inhabiting the body of a murderer and criminal?”

Aradel breathed out quietly in a hiss. Shadows moved beneath the streetlights, despite the hour, on the promenade behind him. “So this is all her doing?”

“Pardon, sir,” Marasi said, “but I’d say this is rather the fault of the city’s unpleasant working conditions. That said, Bleeder is most certainly shoving it along. She wanted this city to be on the brink of cracking when she made her move.”

“Ruin…” Aradel whispered. “In the face of that, it seems almost trivial whether the governor is corrupt or not, doesn’t it?”

“I suppose that depends on whom you ask.” Shouts rose from the street down below; a group of men passing along the canal, speaking riotously to one another. She couldn’t make out their words, just their tone.

“I still want proof,” Aradel said. “Not to diminish your efforts, Lieutenant. But I’m not going to jump at wraiths in the mist unless I can see for myself. That goes for the governor too. Keep your eyes open. If you can find me something concrete, we’ll use it once this all blows over. And I still want some kind of proof regarding your supernatural assassin.”

“I understand, sir,” Marasi said, nodding toward MeLaan, lit by the lanterns hanging on poles near the door to the stairs. “And I have some proof for you there. But it would be best if we could do this in private.”

Aradel slowly shifted his weight backward, lowering his foot from the top of the parapet he’d been leaning on. He glanced at Marasi, who nodded.

“Below,” he said to the two remaining constables attending him. Junior corporals, for message running. They obeyed, and once they were gone, Aradel crossed the distance to MeLaan. “I hope,” he said, after clearing his throat, “that my questions aren’t offensive, er, Your Grace.”