Steelheart (The Reckoners #1)(79)

26

“WELL,” Cody said, looking over the heap of gemstones and jewelry, “if this achieved nothing else, it at least made me rich. That’s a failure I can live with.”

Tia snorted, picking through the jewelry. We four, including Prof, sat around a large desk in one of the cubicles. Megan and Abraham were on guard duty, watching the tunnel into the bank chamber.

There was a hallowed feeling to the room—like I somehow had to show respect—and I think the others must have sensed it too.

They spoke in low, muted voices.

All except Cody. He tried to lean back on his chair as he held up a large ruby, but—of course—the steel chair legs were fused to the steel floor.

“That once might have made you rich, Cody,” Tia said, “but you’d have some trouble selling it now.”

That was true. Jewelry was practically worthless these days.

There were a couple Epics who could create gemstones.

“Maybe,” Cody said, “but gold remains a standard.” He scratched his head. “Not sure why, though.

You can’t eat it, which is all most people are interested in.”

“It’s familiar,” Prof said. “It doesn’t rust, it’s easy to shape, and it’s hard to fake. There aren’t any Epics who can make it. Yet. People need to have a way to trade, particularly across kingdom or city boundaries.” He ngered a gold chain. “Cody’s actually right.”

“I am?” Cody looked surprised.

Prof nodded. “Whether or not we take on Steelheart, the gold we’ve recovered here can fund the Reckoners for a few years on its own.”

Tia set her notebook on the desk, tapping it absently with her pen.

On the other mortgage cubicle desks we’d arranged what we’d found in the vault. About three-quarters of the boxes’ contents had been recoverable.

“Mostly we have a lot of wills,”

Tia said, opening a can of cola, “stock

certi cates,

passports,

copies of driver’s licenses …”

“We could ll a whole city with fake people if we wanted,” Cody said. “Imagine the fun.”

“The second-largest grouping,”

Tia

continued,

“is

the

aforementioned pile of jewelry, both valuable and worthless. If something in there a ected Steelheart, then by pure volume this is the most likely group.”

“But it’s not,” I said.

Prof sighed. “David, I know what you—”

“What I mean,” I interrupted, “is that jewelry doesn’t make sense.

Steelheart didn’t attack other banks, and he hasn’t done anything —either directly or indirectly—to forbid people from wearing jewelry in his presence. Jewelry is common enough among Epics that he’d have to take measures.”

“I agree,” Tia said, “though only in part. It’s possible we’ve missed something. Steelheart has proven subtle in the past; perhaps he has a secret embargo on a certain type of gemstone. I’ll look into it, but I think David’s right. If something did a ect Steelheart, then it’s likely one of the oddities.”

“How many of those are there?”

Prof asked.

“Over three hundred,” Tia said with a grimace. “Mostly mementos or keepsakes of no intrinsic value.

Anything among them could be our culprit, theoretically. But then there’s a chance it was something one of the people in the room was carrying on them. Or it could be, as David seems to think, something about the situation.”

“It’s very rare for an Epic’s weakness to be in uenced just by proximity to something mundane,”

I said, shrugging. “Unless an object in the vault emitted a kind of radiation or a light or a sound— something that actually reached Steelheart—the chances are slim it was the culprit.”

“Look through the items anyway, Tia,” Prof said. “Maybe we can nd a correlation to something Steelheart has done in the city.”

“What about the darkness?”

Cody asked.

“Nightwielder’s darkness?”

“Sure,” Cody said. “I’ve always thought it was strange that he kept it so dark here.”

“That’s probably because of Nightwielder himself,” I said. “He doesn’t want sunlight shining on him and making him corporeal. I wouldn’t be surprised if that was part of the deal between them, one of the reasons Nightwielder serves beneath Steelheart. Steelheart’s government provides infrastructure —food,

electricity,

crime

prevention—to compensate for it always being dark.”

“I suppose that makes sense,”

Cody said. “Nightwielder needs darkness, but can’t have it unless he’s got a good city to work from.

Kind of like a piper needs a good city to support him, so he can stand on the cliff tops and play.”

“A … piper?” I asked.

“Oh please, don’t get him started,” Tia said, raising a hand to her head.

“Bagpiper,” Cody said.

I looked at him blankly.

“You’ve

never

heard