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The whole council — three senators, the governor, the vice governor, Constable Reddi, the kandra — crowds around Steris to read Wax's radioed dispatch off the page in her hand, as though hearing her speak it aloud would not be evidence enough. The letter is brisk: the bomb is confirmed real and already built, Elendel is its target, the Set is hunting for a delivery method after train and road attempts failed, there is a schism inside the cabal between destroying Elendel only and restarting the Ashmounts to take the whole Basin, every road in should be closed, every person possible got out, and — at the end — *I love you. Waxillium.*

Adawathwyn takes charge of the room: the young radio operator and anyone within earshot of the transmission are to be sequestered. Everyone else drops into chairs. The faces turn to TenSoon; he tells them to believe Dawnshot, and that the deadline is far closer than Harmony had thought. Adawathwyn herself — of all people — agrees: with the kandra confirming, there is a gun to the city's head.

The senators fall to logistics. Senator Cett asks how fast they can get out. The governor asks Ambassador Daal about that airship ride; Adawathwyn thinks they can clear the city by motorcade in under an hour if the streets aren't packed. Lady Hammondess presses for the bomb's destructive radius — how far away is *safe?* — and the governor starts ordering aides to fetch families *quietly*, so they do not set off a citywide panic.

Steris closes her eyes and feels sick. She understands; she has already sent her own children away. But the council is, plainly, going to *run.* Across from her Reddi has slumped into numbness — sworn to protect Elendel and out of moves. Then it strikes her, with shock, that *she* is not numb. She is not afraid. She is not even anxious. Her notebooks — the seven detailed evacuation plans she has been quietly maintaining for years — are doing exactly the job she designed them for. She can function. She thumps her thickest book onto the table and starts choosing which plan fits this hour.

The governor shuts the doors again and shoos the aides out: Adawathwyn has a suggestion. The vice governor stands in her clean Terris robes, opens her hands invitingly, and proposes that Elendel use the very thing it has more of than anywhere in the Basin — Metalborn. Station Coinshots on the highest towers, post spotters in Bilming to call out the launch, and Push the weapon away when it arrives.

Steris cuts that down: has Adawathwyn ever watched modern artillery fire? At the speed a shell hits, no Allomancer can intervene in time. Adawathwyn wilts — and rallies with the proposal the room realises she has been working toward the entire time: *unless we have an Allomancer with all the abilities and powers of the Lord Ruler.* They need the Bands of Mourning.

Steris thinks *bother*. The Bands do not work the way the mythology has them working — they give supercharged metallic abilities, not omnipotence — and the people of Elendel made a promise. Ambassador Daal steps in firmly: the Bands were entrusted to the Faceless Immortals on the strict condition the Basin would never use them; any Basin use, however dire, would have to be read as aggression. Steris notices he is *playing some kind of game* without yet seeing the shape of it.

Then TenSoon drops the hook: there are things about the interactions of the Metalborn powers the table does not know, and he has *hints* — only hints — that the Bands might be used to *send the bomb away* rather than swat it down. The governor asks the kandra, formally, what Harmony would have them do given a choice between Elendel's survival and the Malwish trust. TenSoon stands silent a moment, then growls his answer. *I will fetch the Bands.*