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Wax stands outside the Sentinel of Truth offices and finds them wrong for Bilming. The building is a leftover wooden shack from the fishing-shack era of this stretch of waterfront — peaked roof, bulging walls, small windows, padlock on the side door, a dark interior that does not look open for business. *Kim* explains the city started knocking down the old shacks five years ago; this is one of the survivors. Releases of the paper have gone sporadic, Kim admits a little sheepishly, and she had to wait six weeks for the last instalment of one of Jak's *Survivor's Last Testament* arcs.

Wax silently curses the rusting man — ever since the discovery of the *Sovereign* who ruled and helped the southern peoples, Survivor fervour has been spiking, sightings on every misty night, and Jak has spent years *discovering* Survivor artifacts in his adventures and dropping Wax's name into them for colour. He wraps a coat tassel around his fist to break the window. Marasi catches him and quietly recites his own world back at him: the writ is for emergencies; this is private property; they have no reason to believe the Set is here, nor any reason to believe a crime has been committed; the world is changing, people have rights, it makes their job harder and it makes the world better. Wayne volunteers to take the blame so the rest can disclaim him — *pulled a Wayne, they'll let you off* — but Marasi holds the line, and Wayne just shrugs and jogs to the corner stand for a chouta wrap. Wax lowers his fist and lets himself feel old. Not just of body; of mind. Out in the Roughs he could beat a door in and *talk*, or shoot, sense into anyone. That had been false control. He has voted for the legal restrictions on constable authority himself; he agrees with Marasi intellectually. The world has not been getting more complicated. He has been letting himself see that it always was.

A sound from the building tips him off. Burning steel, he tracks blue lines to a small attic window — shutter broken at one corner so someone inside can peek out, a metal line leading straight to that gap. A gun pointed at him, almost certainly. He launches up onto the roof, engages the deflection bubble he has learned to hold, and notes the line of the gun is *vibrating*. Trembling, not a Set assassin. He raises his own gun sideways and calls down that he is a constable, here to help. After a long silence: a husky woman's voice. *You're here to kill me, like you killed Tobal.* He swears he is not, and that if he were, he'd have shot already. The shutters open on a short, frizzy-haired woman with dark eye bags and a buttoned-wrong waistcoat. *You*, she says, lowering the rifle. *Are you Dawnshot?* Brightens — *you're Jak's friend!*

Wax swallows his objection and asks her to let them in; he is following Tobal's trail and something very dangerous is happening in this city. She has him meet her at the rear door, where they hear locks and chains being unhooked one at a time. *I don't normally talk to conners. Ever.* Wayne mumbles agreement through a mouthful of something that might be bread and grease, slaps Wax on the shoulder, and tells her Jak and Dawnshot adventured together out in the Roughs. She decides they must be the kind of constables who hate uniforms and shoot people for handing them paperwork, and lets them in. Wayne reports the wrap is called *chouta* and is good. *It looks disgusting.* *Mate. With street food, that's how you know it's good.*

Inside: musty, dark, bins of trash piled by the door because she has not dared empty them. The rifle stays in her hand. She asks hopefully whether Jak is in town and available to help; Wax says no, he is on *an adventure*. Wayne sells the bit by stage-whispering that Wax gets *coy* about Jak because he is jealous. *Has he ever let you hold the Spear of the Red Sun?* Wax, gritting his teeth: *No. It's too powerful — Jak says I might accidentally awaken some zombies.* Wayne mutters to him later that the spear wasn't the zombies story, the zombies were on the Island of Death, with Nicki — Wayne has read every one. *I'm dumb,* he explains to Marasi, *so I can only read things what are dumb too.*

She leads them past book-stacks into the print room, past the press and ink buckets and an askew portrait labelled *Maraga Dulcet, Editor-in-Chief*. *So,* she says, did some people with golden hair do it? They're fairy creatures, she knows it. Marasi answers plainly: a secretive group plotting to start the Ashmounts going again, working on bombs of incredible power. Maraga nods. *So you do know.* That was a test, Wax realises. She opens a door onto basement steps. *Well then. Follow me.*

The basement is musty — old potatoes, spiders, forgotten preserves — and walled in tin. Sheets of metal hung floor to ceiling, scratched in pen with words and diagrams crammed together. *Figured we'd write it all in metal,* Maraga says. *Just in case.*