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Steris waits in the senators' chamber, organising her notebooks and watching Lady Gardre — whom she has been all but certain is the Set's plant on the inside. She has read somewhere that rats run from a fire before the smoke; that is the part of Gardre she watches. As long as Gardre stays in the room, the city has time. Minutes draw out and her certainty starts to slip — perhaps it isn't Gardre at all, perhaps the Set has no one in here, perhaps —

An aide leans in and murmurs in Gardre's ear. *I'll need to deal with this,* Gardre says, smooth and unhurried, and stands. The city is in imminent danger.

Adawathwyn is already on her feet, declaiming as TenSoon enters with the Bands of Mourning. She is a Ferring of the mind, she announces. Give her the Bands. She will walk Harmony's Path and save Elendel, or carry justice to Bilming herself. Ambassador Daal objects from behind his mask: a promise was made that the Bands would not be used. He moves to the table, leans on his hands, and proposes the *only* solution — the Basin uses them this once, then they revert to the Malwish for *the disaster of our choosing.* It is, transparently, the kind of deal you offer at the moment of greatest leverage. The governor agrees because he must. TenSoon, speaking as keeper of the relic and standing in for an absent Harmony, says he will agree if the humans do. They do. Steris takes a note: there is something about the way Daal is doing this that does not feel improvised.

TenSoon tells her, quietly, why he is willing to chance it. He believes there is a way to move large objects across great distances using a conflux of Metalborn powers — a thing Harmony himself does not yet understand. He hopes that someone touched by the Bands' transcendent power might solve the puzzle by feel and carry the bomb out of Elendel altogether. *Fascinating,* Steris writes down.

He opens the case. Adawathwyn reaches for the spearhead, lifts it, frowns. *How do I activate them?* The Bands pass around the room. Nothing. Finally TenSoon takes them himself, and his face goes from puzzlement to horror. *They're drained.* The governor groans and sags. The relic has become decoration.

Daal touches the Bands with one finger, confirms it for himself — and immediately accuses Elendel of having used them in secret. Adawathwyn sputters. Daal declares he will take them home to his people. *That wasn't the deal,* Steris says, standing. *Wasn't it?* he answers. The Basin had its chance to use them. The Basin must now also yield them, so the Malwish can have *their* chance. Listening to him do this, Steris realises the cadence is wrong — too smooth, too prepared. Steris prepares words for ordinary conversations; she knows what rehearsal sounds like. Daal has done this in front of a mirror. Which would only be possible if he had already known the Bands would be drained when he reached for them. A Malwish ploy, separate from the Bilming crisis — and a problem for another day.

TenSoon growls but lets Daal carry the case out. Daal pauses in the doorway and offers any senator who wants it passage to a safer location. Adawathwyn takes the offer without a second's hesitation; the rest of the senators stream after her. Varlance hovers, watching them go, half-trying to convince himself the danger isn't real. Reddi cuts him short: he has learned not to bet against Dawnshot, and if Dawnshot says a bomb is pointed at this city, then it is.

Steris thumps her notebooks open. She has, in fact, a full citywide evacuation plan — drafted in idle hours one summer after the year's house taxes were already done. *This is what you do for fun?* Reddi asks. The plan she selects is, in her assessment, the most efficient one for this situation; the longer they have, the more lives it saves. She turns it on the table toward the governor and reminds him, softly, that the people chose him. There will be time later for him to escape. For now she needs his authority to save as many of them as she can. Varlance wipes his brow and gives a frightened little nod. *Where do we start?*