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Wax has never met Death in person, though Marasi has. The figure framed against the brazen sunlight at the front of the Bilming Constabulary is unmistakable: black robes, skeletal hands, sallow skin, two thick spikes through his eye-sockets with the points jutting from the back of his skull, one socket long since crushed, the old Inquisitor tattoos faded around the scars. Wax is acquainted now with beings out of myth — TenSoon and the rest of the kandra feel mundane to him — but Ironeyes is different. A pressing dread fills the room, a hand around the soul; *I do not fear this,* Wax tells himself, *I've stared down death already* — and the sensation evaporates from him alone, where it has whitened Marasi's face and stopped every constable in the office. Emotional Allomancy, obvious in hindsight.

Wax walks out to meet Death himself in the centre of the bullpen. *Sword,* Ironeyes says, and asks for privacy. As he passes a Seeker constable foolish enough to draw a pistol, Ironeyes waves a hand — the gun crosses the room into his palms, hangs between them, and the barrel *crushes* under simultaneous Push and Pull. Wax cannot place the technique; he has never seen anyone do that with Allomancy. In the corridor Entrone and Blantach stand outside their office, eyes wide. Ironeyes tells the mayor he will return Wax's party's weapons and stop interfering in their investigation, full stop. The mayor protests religion. *Death is not a religion,* Ironeyes answers. *It is a fact.* When that fails to land he steps closer and asks Entrone how he would like to die — quietly in the night of a failing heart, or drowning on one of his new ships, or right here right now, crushed under the weight of his own stupidity. The mayor licks his lips and complies.

Door shut, Death sinks into a chair and ages decades. Wrinkles sweep down his face; his jowls sag. He sighs at the ceiling. *Lord Ruler, that was a performance, wasn't it? And to think that I was the reasonable one in the crew.* Marasi asks if he is well. He is not. His atium reserves are running out and age — which has always stalked him — at last senses the kill. He had come to Bilming hoping someone here might be re-creating the metal; he had been content, before, to let it run out. But he played his part in the breaking of the old world, and he swore he would help, and so he goes on. He breathes in and the lines retreat; he breathes out and they regrow. He vacillates between decades with every breath.

Trell wants this planet, he tells Wax; their time runs short, as does his. He is too weak to keep hunting those who would destroy the land — his hallway display will pry the constabulary off them, *perhaps,* but it is all he can offer. He came to Bilming for one lead: a man named Tobal Copper who vanished about two weeks back after filing some kind of legal disturbance in the months prior that mentioned splitting harmonium. Wax tells him what splitting it does — and Death does not know that, either. A bomb. They are trying to stop a bomb. Wax takes the name. It is a thin trail, but it is a trail.

Marasi steps closer and asks his name. *You may call me Marsh,* he says softly. *It feels good to hear that name. To remember what I used to be.* She asks about the gun crush. Duralumin, he answers, and a lot of practice. Then he tells them what they have to know. Harmony is growing indecisive — he denies it; Marsh sees it — and that hesitation is the opening Autonomy (*Trell, the god of the outworlders*) is using. Her people already wield Hemalurgy. Wax and Marasi both know the book Marsh gave them — practically by heart in Wax's case. Marsh adds the new wrinkle: the Set's agents carry too many spikes, more than the threshold that should give Harmony a way in, and that opening has not opened. Either Harmony is too weak to exploit it or the Set uses Trell's own metal to mask them. Dangerous either way. The single saving grace: they have not yet learned to Compound via Hemalurgy. *Identity contamination* blocks it — the spike's previous owner clings on and prevents the new bearer from compounding the stolen power. If the Set solves that, or if they get atium or lerasium — *Lord Ruler.*

Marasi then opens her notepad and sketches the three interlocking diamonds from the cavern. Wax sees it and finally places where he has seen the shape: in architecture near the Field of Rebirth in Elendel — the petals of a Marewill flower. Marsh confirms it. *This is my brother's symbol.* Kelsier does what he thinks is best, never has been one for self-reflection, but means to protect Scadrial; his agents will align with their interests. Wax mentions the vision he had years ago of looking through the Survivor's eyes and asks whether he is alive. *Close to alive,* Marsh says. Less than Marsh himself, more than other ghosts. *Cognitive Shadow* is the term he is told to use. Three of the original crew remain — Harmony, Marsh, the Survivor — legs of a tripod balancing each other, and Marsh does not know what falls if one goes.

A constable returns with their gear. VenDell will stay behind to care for Marsh and the wounded — he no longer thinks he is useful to the investigation — and reminds Wax of what Wax told Marasi earlier: Harmony puts people where they need to be, then they must act. Wayne is taking the entire conference badly. *Did either of you know that ghosts was real?* He has to be coaxed back on task. Marsh mutters that he is told to call them *Cognitive Shadows*. Wayne declares it manifestly unfair to grouse at a man for being discombobulated by definitive proof of an afterlife, and they walk out through the silenced constabulary into the sunlight.