Waxillium looked up, and noticed Marasi smiling broadly, regarding him and Wayne.
“What?” Waxillium asked.
“I knew it!” she exclaimed. “I knew you were in town to investigate the Vanishers. You showed up to become house lord only one month after the first robbery happened. You’re going to catch them, aren’t you?”
“Is that why you insisted that Lord Harms bring you to meetings with me?”
“Maybe.”
“Marasi,” Waxillium said, sighing. “You’re jumping to conclusions. Do you think the deaths in my family, making me house lord, were fabrications?”
“Well, no,” she said. “But I was surprised that you’d accepted the title until I realized that you probably saw it as a chance to find out what is going on with these robberies. You have to admit, they are unusual.”
“So is Wayne,” Waxillium said. “But I wouldn’t uproot myself, change my entire lifestyle, and accept responsibility for an entire house just to study him.”
“Look, Wax,” Wayne jumped in—ignoring the barb, which was unusual for him. “Please tell me you brought a gun with you.”
“What? No, I didn’t.” Waxillium folded up the paper and handed it back. “Why would you care?”
“Because,” Wayne said, snatching the paper from his hand and leaning in. “Don’t you see? The thieves are looking for places they can rob where the wealthy upper class of Elendel can be found—because among those wealthy upper-class types, they find their targets. People with the right heritage. Those types, rich types, have stopped traveling on the railway.”
Waxillium nodded. “Yes, if the women really are the true targets, the high-profile robberies will make potential future targets much less likely to travel. A valid connection. That must be why the thieves attacked the theater.”
“And where else are there wealthy individuals with the right heritage?” Wayne asked. “A place where people wear their finest jewelry, which will let you rob them as a distraction? A place where you can find the right hostage to take as the real prize?”
Waxillium’s mouth grew dry. “A large wedding reception.”
The doors at both ends of the ballroom suddenly burst open.
5
The bandits didn’t look like the kind Waxillium was used to. They didn’t mask their faces with kerchiefs or wear dusters and wide-brimmed Roughs hats. Most of them wore vests and bowler-style city hats, dull trousers, and loose, buttoned shirts that were rolled to the elbows. They weren’t better dressed, really, just different.
They were well armed. Rifles held at shoulders for many, pistols in the hands of others. People throughout the ballroom noticed immediately, silverware clanking and curses sounding. There were at least two dozen bandits, perhaps three. Waxillium noticed with dissatisfaction that some more were coming in from the right, through the doors to the kitchens. They would have left men behind to watch the staff and keep them from running for help.
“Hell of a time to leave your guns,” Wayne said. He moved off his seat and crouched beside the table, slipping his twin hardwood dueling canes out from underneath.
“Put those down,” Waxillium said softly, counting. Thirty-five men he could see. Most were congregated at the two ends of the rectangular ballroom, directly in front of and behind Waxillium. He was in almost the very center of the room.
“What?” Wayne said sharply.
“Put the canes down, Wayne.”
“You can’t mean—”
“Look at this room!” Waxillium hissed. “How many bystanders are there in here? Three hundred, four? What will happen if we provoke a firefight?”
“You could protect them,” Wayne said. “Push them out of the way.”
“Maybe,” Waxillium said. “It would be very risky. So far, none of these robberies have turned violent. I won’t have you turning this one into a bloodbath.”
“I don’t have to listen to you,” Wayne said sullenly. “You’re not in charge of me anymore, Wax.”
Waxillium met his eyes and held them as the room filled with cries of alarm and concern. Looking reluctant, Wayne slid back up into his seat. He didn’t put down the dueling canes, but he did keep his hands under the tablecloth, hiding them from view.
Marasi had turned, watching the thieves begin to move through the room, her eyes wide and her rose lips parted. “Oh my.” She spun around, digging out her pocketbook with trembling fingers. She whipped out a small notepad and a pencil.
“What are you doing?” Waxillium asked.
“Writing down descriptions,” she said, her hand shaking. “Did you know that, statistically, only one out of two witnesses can accurately describe a criminal who assaulted them? Worse, seven out of ten will pick the wrong man out of a lineup if a similar but more threatening man is presented. In the moment, you are far more likely to overestimate the height of an assailant, and you will often describe him as being similar to a villain from a story you’ve recently heard. It’s vital, if you are witnessing a crime, to pay special attention to the details of those involved. Oh, I’m babbling, aren’t I?”
She looked terrified, but she started writing anyway, jotting down descriptions of every criminal.
“We never needed to do stuff like that,” Wayne said, eyeing the thieves as they leveled guns at the partygoers, silencing them. “Seein’ as to how if we witness a crime, the guys doing it are usually dead by the end.” He shot Waxillium a glare.
Several thieves began forcing cooks and servers out of the kitchens to join the guests. “If you please!” one of the robbers bellowed, shouldering a shotgun. “Sit down! Remain calm! And be quiet.” He had a faint Roughs accent and a solid—though not tall—build, with bulging forearms and a mottled, grayish complexion, almost as if his face were made of granite.
Koloss blood, Waxillium thought. Dangerous.
People quieted save for a few whimperings from the overtaxed. The bride’s mother appeared to have fainted, and the wedding party was hunkered down, the groom looking angry, with a protective arm over his new wife.
A second Vanisher stepped forward. This one, in contrast to the others, wore a mask: a knit cloth covering his face, with a Roughs hat atop it. “That’s better,” he said in a firm, controlled voice. Something about that voice struck Waxillium.
“If you’re sensible, we’ll be done with this in a matter of moments,” the masked Vanisher said calmingly, walking amid the tables as about a dozen of the bandits began to fan through the room, opening large sacks. “All we want is your jewelry. Nobody needs to get hurt. It would be a shame to spoil such a fine party as this with bloodshed. Your jewelry isn’t worth your life.”
Waxillium glanced toward Lord Harms, who was still sitting by the bar. He’d begun patting his face with a handkerchief. The men with the sacks quickly fanned out through the room, stopping at each table and gathering necklaces, rings, earrings, pocketbooks, and watches. Sometimes the items were tossed in readily, sometimes reluctantly.
“Wax…” Wayne said, voice strained.
Marasi continued writing, pen and paper down in her lap.
“We need to get through this alive,” Waxillium said softly. “Without anyone getting hurt. Then we can give our reports to the constables.”
“But—”
“I will not be the cause of these people dying, Wayne,” Waxillium snapped, voice much louder than he’d intended.
Blood on the bricks. A body in a leather coat, slumping to the ground. A grinning face, dying with a bullet in the forehead. Winning, even as he died.
Not again. Never again.
Waxillium squeezed his eyes closed.
Never again.
“How dare you!” a voice suddenly yelled. Waxillium glanced to the side. A man at a nearby table had stood up, shaking off the hand of the stout woman beside him. He had a thick, graying beard and wore a suit of an older cut, tails in the back reaching all the way down to his ankles. “I will not stay quiet, Marthin! I am a constable of the Eighth Guard!”
This drew the attention of the bandit leader. The masked man strolled toward the outspoken man, shotgun resting easily on his shoulder. “Ah,” he said, “Lord Peterus, I believe it is.” He waved to a pair of bandits, and they rushed forward, weapons trained on Peterus. “Retired chief of the Eighth constabulary. We’ll be needing you to give up your weapon.”
“How dare you commit a robbery here, at a wedding celebration,” Peterus said. “This is outrageous! You should be ashamed of yourself.”
“Ashamed?” the bandit leader said as his minions patted down Peterus and pulled a pistol—Granger model 28, optional thick grip—out of his shoulder holster. “Ashamed? To rob these? After what you people have done to the Roughs all these years? This isn’t shameful. This here, this is payback.”
There is something about that voice, Waxillium thought, tapping the table. Something familiar. Quiet down, Peterus. Don’t provoke them!
“In the name of the law, I will see you hunted down and hanged for this!” Peterus cried.
The outlaw leader smacked Peterus across the face, knocking him to the ground. “What know your sort of the law?” the bandit leader growled. “And be careful about warning people you’re going to see them executed. That gives them less reason to hold back. Rust and Ruin, you people sicken me.”
He waved for his lackeys to resume gathering riches. The bride’s mother had recovered, and was sobbing as her family was shaken down for its cash, including even the bridal necklace.
“The bandits really are interested in the money,” Waxillium said softly. “See? They make each person at the table speak, to find jewelry hidden in mouths. Notice how they make each one stand up and then do a quick check of their pockets and around their seats.”
“Of course they’re interested in the money,” Marasi whispered back. “That’s the expected motive for robbery, after all.”
“It’s the hostages too, though,” Waxillium said. “I’m sure of it.” Originally, he’d assumed the robberies were just a cover for the bandits’ real purpose. If that were the case, however, they wouldn’t be so thorough about the money. “Hand me your notebook.”
She glanced at him.
“Now,” he said, sprinkling steel dust into his wine, then reaching under the table. She hesitantly handed over the notebook as a bandit walked toward their table. It was the gray-skinned one with the thick neck.
“Wayne,” Waxillium said, “bat on the wall.”
Wayne nodded curtly, sliding over his dueling canes. Waxillium drank his wine, and pressed the spiral-bound notebook and the dueling canes against his side of their square table. He slipped a small metal rod from his sleeve and pressed it against the canes, then burned steel.
Lines sprang up around him. One pointed toward the rod, and another to the notebook’s wire coil. He lightly Pushed against them, then let go. The canes and the notebook remained pressed against the table’s side, obscured by the tablecloth, which draped down over them. He had to be careful not to Push too hard, lest he move the table.