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Wax strides at the stairwell door of the Shaw and shoots — then Pushes — twice through the wood, rewarded by shouts of pain from the Hidden Guard hiding inside. *The more you put between a Coinshot and his goal, the more debris you give him to turn into weapons.* He rips a fire extinguisher off the wall, Pushes it through the door, slams the door off its hinges into the men beyond, downs the ones who duck through, then shoots the extinguisher, then fires the Big Gun into the white chemical smoke — the shrapnel spraying through the hallway and breaking like surf around his steel bubble. The grenade launcher was built for him: it kills the ones in close and *outlines* the rest, so steelsight gives him the men he cannot see.

Inside, a straight-shot modern stairwell rises floor on floor to the top. He could fly up the central well, but he cannot afford enemies at his back, and Wayne needs a path. So he ascends in storm: a grenade up the well, a Push to fling the banister out and pin the floor's defenders to the wall with it, a drop to dodge the aluminum-bullet hail returning, another grenade detonated by careful Push, then he springs upward, bouncing off a fuse box, off the metal floor-number plate, building a forward wall of bullet casings and shrapnel as he climbs. Concrete steps reinforced with steel bend at his Push, throwing the aim of his shooters off.

He thinks about it as he climbs. He had spent years running from his calling, refusing to become the terrible thing Harmony — bound by Preservation — cannot become himself. Tonight he stops running. To worship Harmony was not only to worship Preservation; it was also to worship Ruin, with all that implied. There were times for careful, empathetic care. And there were times when people aimed something capable of killing millions at his home, his family, his constituents. He becomes destruction incarnate, and the Shaw becomes the false heaven of a monstrous god, and he the tempest seeking upward.

Mist begins to slip down the steps through small vents on each floor — Harmony's blood, drawn indoors against its habit, coating the steps tonight like a ghostly liquid. The enemy finds grenades of their own; one explodes in the well and leaves him bleeding from shrapnel along one arm, but his pace barely breaks. Vindication dispatches aluminum death. Defenders bunch with wooden shields and furniture; he lobs another grenade into the barricade and uses the now-shrapnel-embedded wood as a Pushable wall to drive them back. He has to redose steel faster than expected. They hang lines and nets across the central column to keep him from flying. He goes through anyway, heavier than a truck or lighter than a bullet by turns, crumbling stairs out from under the next group, slamming the one behind him into the rest with a Pushed bullet to the skull.

He reaches the end of the stairwell at last, breathing heavily, and looks back down through the central well. The flickering electric lights show broken concrete ripped apart as if by cannonballs, twisted railings and bodies. Groans rise like the moans of the damned. Wayne's head pops out one floor below, white with dust. *Did you know this was coming?* Wax whispers — to Harmony, without a trellium in his ear. *Is this ultimately why you brought me back to Elendel? Was this why you had Lessie watch me?* No answer; but he feels Harmony pressing through against Trell's interference, fighting to see. *Don't ask me to do this again. This wasn't an adventure. It was a massacre. I'll finish the job, but don't ask me again. Find yourself another sword. You don't know how this feels.* In reply he is given a wordless impression — almost a memory implanted in his mind — of an exhausted, overwhelmed man lying broken on an ashen street in front of a shattered city gate, surrounded by death. The Hero of Ages knows exactly how this feels.

Wayne catches up. They ease through into a wide marble hall with pillars and lush red carpet, where a final force is gathering before a broad set of double doors. Wax downs another vial, reloads, wraps his arm in a self-clinging bandage. Steelsight shows him these last defenders are not the Hidden Guard — these have metal weapons, zippers, keys in their pockets. *More security officer, less soldier.* He starts to plan a charge.

Wayne catches his arm. *Stop. These ones ain't into it.* The ones below wanted the fight, wanted to prove themselves; *these poor sods* are the last layer — guards hired to watch a building — and they are not into it. Wax agrees but worries that Telsin could launch any moment. Wayne nods. There were two of them at the top, and only Wayne saw the room for what it was. Then he starts shouting.