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Wax reads Captain Blantach's guest immediately and knows the situation has slid from a jurisdictional dispute to a political ambush. Marasi cedes him the lead. The lord mayor of Bilming is Gave Entrone — a man Wax has tangled with before, more repulsive each time, who once made his entrance into Wax's life by insulting Steris to her face. Today he is dressed for theatre: slicked hair, sharp jaw, wooden cufflinks set with diamonds he makes sure are seen, and the closed-mouth smile that says he is enjoying himself.

Wayne greets the lord mayor of Bilming by suggesting someone has sewn a sack of dicks together and made a person of it. *Please stop helping,* Wax says. Entrone takes the bait anyway. He walks a slow circuit of the room laying out the trap: a code of intercity jurisdiction that Marasi invokes has, he announces, been quietly repealed three months ago — Blantach confirms it, miserable. The frame, then. Wax has spent months arguing in Elendel that Outer Cities deserve local authority. If he now invokes Elendel's right to override Bilming he is a hypocrite; if he ignores the local code he is a fugitive. Either choice feeds the war Entrone wants. *You're mine,* the mayor whispers, close enough that Wax smells the mint on his breath.

VenDell tries his own gambit. He stands, turns his skin fully transparent so the cracked skull and stitched bones show, and presents himself as an emissary of Harmony. Entrone is not Pathian; his god, he announces, is industry, progress, and the indomitability of the human soul, and VenDell is a *talking piece of slime*. Wayne, without saying anything, drifts up alongside the mayor with his eyes alarmingly wide. *Keep going,* he says, soft. *Keep insulting my friends. Do it.* Entrone retreats. He gives them an hour to either break out and shoot constables on the way or to call Elendel and beg the governor for help; a radio box will be delivered. Door shut.

When VenDell hesitantly asks Wayne whether they are actually friends, Wayne confirms it: every crew has a stuck-up one to make fun of, VenDell is theirs, and outside laughter at his expense earns the offending party a dueling cane *up a part of them* he is no longer permitted to name aloud because Ranette is making him work on his language.

Wax knows the mayor's terms are not the point. The point is the bomb, the ashfall warnings, his sister, the rest of it, and he is running out of leads. He still has one untried tool — and resents that he has been putting it off. The trellium earring is in his pouch along with Harmony's. He slips it into his ear. The disconnect is immediate and unlike contact with Harmony: a jolt, a vibration, the room going fuzzy. A voice arrives in his head mid-sentence, sharp as a spike — *Faster. I need this to work.* — and he recognises it before his mind catches up: Telsin. She is outdoors, instructing someone. *Our time runs thin. The backup delivery device is too obvious. Too easy to stop. I need the primary working.* Then she stops, senses him at the other end of the line, sweeps past someone else, and addresses him directly. *Waxillium? Is that you? Ah … It is. Found yourself a trellium earring, did you? Clever. Your idea, or was it that god of yours?*

He says her name aloud. There is no point lying — she can feel him as plainly as he feels her. She is amused. *So, you're in Bilming. Your arrival made a characteristic amount of noise.* He asks what she is doing. The answers he might level at her dissolve in his mouth: she has already shown, six years ago, that she would let her own people die. None of his objections will land. She gets in first anyway — *still pretending, aren't you? Telling yourself that you're the hero?* — and reaches for the family wound, the old story that he ran from real responsibility and left her to lead. He pulls the earring out, breathing hard, before she can finish. She still gets to him. He notes the rest, though: she is real, she is the avatar Harmony named, and she is on a deadline. He is part of why.

He asks VenDell about the help Harmony promised. *Oh,* the kandra says, turning to the door. *Rather, I should say it's here. See for yourself.* Through the small viewing window the guard outside is staring across the constabulary floor toward the front doors of the building. Where Death has arrived.