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Wax and Wayne drag Telsin out of the Sentinel of Truth building and tuck into the cover between two nearby apartment blocks. *Was that necessary?* she sighs, straightening her suit. Wayne scrambles off down the alley to look for snipers; *there aren't any,* Telsin says. *It's just me.* Wax clicks Vindication's chambers one at a time and watches the sky, because every time he looks at her he feels old betrayal warming up. He had told Marasi he could handle this. He is no longer sure: when has he ever come out ahead of his sister?

*What if I dragged you to Elendel and threw you in prison.* *Of course you can't,* she answers; she has come to talk. To persuade him to *run* — take Steris and the children and go back to the Roughs. *Where was that inclination six years ago, on the mountaintop?* She did not want to shoot him, she says; he showed up uninvited and she had to do what was required. He is overwhelmed by this; this can't be solved by barrelling in revolver in hand. *Step away and let me do what needs to be done.* He retorts that her *altruism* is hard to credit. *Hardly,* she answers, arms folded — *I live here. If the Basin goes, I go.* Elendel has to be destroyed *or else.*

*Or else what — Autonomy destroys the whole Basin?* She does not deny it. Autonomy has *an army of men of gold and red* waiting for her to fail; she has to prove she can rule this planet for the god, and removing Elendel's leadership is what that proof looks like. *We'll be better off with her guiding us.* Harmony is useless; the Basin needs someone stronger. *Someone who by coincidence wants you in charge.* *It is a job that needs doing.* Once she is fully Invested — *a Sliver of Autonomy* — she will rebuild the Basin in the modern, efficient image of Bilming. Harmony has *crippled* this country, she says; life is too easy, too lush, no conflict and no innovation. That is what Autonomy has taught her.

Wax presses: this plan won't work. The South will invade the moment the Basin looks weak; the Outer Cities will not rally to the woman who burned their capital. He knows the mayors out there; they are frustrated, not monsters. Destroying Elendel will throw the Basin into chaos and end it as surely as if Autonomy had attacked directly. Has she considered that Autonomy *wants* her to do it so the god does not have to bother? She does not look at him, and Wax feels another piece click — Harmony had talked about Autonomy's taste for ruthless self-proof; this plan is exactly the kind of brutal flex Telsin would pick to satisfy a god who values that.

But the senators-letter problem still nags him. He is making guesses on incomplete information. *Come on,* Telsin says — *I hate the smell of alleys* — and climbs the fire escape. He raises Vindication, chambers a hazekiller — aluminum round with a secondary explosive, designed by Ranette after the Bands of Mourning for forcibly removing spikes — and watches her climb. She does not care. He launches himself up onto the roof above her instead.

They stand at the Bilming skyline. *Life would have been simpler if you'd stayed in the Roughs.* *Then you and Edwarn shouldn't have vanished.* She tells him their parents' deaths were no accident — they were killed by agents of Harmony trying to reach her, and Harmony never admitted as much to him. He cannot tell whether it is true or another of her tactical lies; she reads his face and walks on. He pushes: he knows her rocket doesn't work yet, he is going to find it and stop it, maybe she should be the one talking about hiding in the Roughs — if Autonomy has an army ready, they should be working out how to fight her *together*. She admires the symmetry of the Bilming skyline — *a beauty without blemish* — and sneers gently at his constable growl. Six years of her direction has put Bilming far ahead of Elendel. *We're so far behind. We're vulnerable.* He cannot see how blowing up the capital changes that. *Because you've always lacked vision, Wax. When something truly expansive lies before you, you run.*

He asks what she really came for. *Sibling affection?* she returns, then admits it — she wants him out of the equation; he interfering is bad even when he inevitably fails. He files that away: *her brother showing up to ruin things is bad — makes you look bad in front of the dark god deciding whether or not to destroy you.* He pokes a probe: *Gave Entrone is trying to overtake you.* She snaps back — *Entrone is a coward, he won't move against me. Wax, you're not half as smart as you think you are.* That is enough. He cannot break his sister; he can break the coward.

She brings up the urge people sometimes feel to throw themselves off high places, the *opportunity to be afraid*. She had resisted getting Steelpushing and Ironpulling spikes specifically because she did not want to lose her nervousness around heights — until she found new fears to chase. There is an entire cosmere out there. She has a chance to see it. She is not going to let him take that from her, and she will not pull her punches. *And I'll stop you. Whatever it takes.* She offers him the lecture: *do you want to hear of Trell? Autonomy? What it means to be her avatar?*

Part of him does. But that is when it clicks — she is offering, which means she is stalling. The trick is not that she is stalling; the trick is recognising that as long as she keeps teasing him with information he holds none of the cards. There is only one way to win: leave the table. He prompts her into a long answer about Autonomy's strange brand of rugged individualism — *autonomy, in her hands, means following her plan* — and while she is talking he steps quietly off the back edge of the roof and lets gravity do the rest. With luck she will keep right on talking and not notice he is gone.