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Wayne watches Wax and Steris disappear into the mists off the front of ZoBell Tower and pops a ball of gum into his mouth, mildly aggrieved that his friend is marrying for the lack of feeling rather than for any. He hands Marasi down out of their coach. She is impressed that he owns a sharp suit, bowler and dark green cravat; he points out that he owns beggar costumes and constable costumes and old-lady costumes too — a man's costume for every district he might have to work — and that in this city the camouflage is fancy twit. They take their place in a line of partygoers that does not move. Ahead of them an entire couple is being turned away.

At the front Marasi presents the invitation. The bouncer — order has come down that with the attempt on the governor's life, only guests named on the list will be admitted, and a nameless invitation belonging to nobody by name does not qualify. *I saved the governor's life today*, Marasi says. *There's nothing I can do, I'm afraid.* In the doorway behind him, men in black coats — government security, by Wayne's read, the sort who never quite reach the streets-up understanding the constables retain — step forward. Wayne tugs Marasi aside, pops a speed bubble just big enough to catch the lectern but not the bouncer, and reads. Their names are not on the keep-out column by accident; they are on it specifically. *You saved the governor's life, yeah, but it's probably his security who want to keep you out, not him.*

Wayne finds Professor Hanlanaze in the let-in column with a note that he sent word he might not come, and that the bouncer is to keep anyone else from using his invitation. Marasi knows the name: a reclusive mathematician from New Seran, behind several recent advances in combustion technology. *Personally?* Wayne asks. Reclusive, Marasi admits — which is, by Wayne's calculus, the best damn argument for trying this anyone could make. He drops the bubble and announces that they next need a weapon. *Not guns. A different kind of weapon. Math.*

Inside the penthouse Steris tells Wax that *that kandra* is somewhere in here. Windows ring the top floor. The dress style has shifted in some way Wax hasn't tracked — sequins, filmier fabric, a smaller bustle and a defined waist; Steris is in something more traditional but with the new sequins at collar and cuff. The crowd moves between bars and small display pedestals, each holding a nugget of Allomantic metal in a glass box with a plaque about its provenance. They pass one for raw copper as big as a man's head. They pass another, a few steps down, that is entirely empty — its plaque reads ATIUM, THE LOST METAL.

Wax turns on his steel bubble, the Push he has trained on Allomantic instinct to shove away small fast metal as it draws toward him — practised by standing in front of Darriance's revolver in twelve inches of padding. Steris's bracelet leaps on her arm; she takes it off and drops it in her handbag at his request. A chandelier passes them with its crystals leaning subtly away. Wax knocks a nugget off a pedestal as they pass, curses, and dampens the bubble for the room. He has dosed his cup with brown powder to make plain water look like brandy so he can fake drunk later if he needs the edge. *Fascinating*, Steris says. He thinks through the problem of fighting Bleeder in here: she can drain a Feruchemical metalmind in a single burst of speed and put down dozens of people in a blink, but she has only recently stolen her current spike and burned a great deal of speed at Winsting's mansion already. Kill her before she moves, or bait her into burning her reserve hurting no one.

Lord Stenet of the yellow bow tie wants to talk to him about textile tariffs and recoils when Steris lobs his recent engagement into the chat — he has been cheating, and the topic makes him uncomfortable. They steer wide of *dreadfully boring* Lord Bookers. Then a tall woman in a red dress with most of its top half missing — gunpowder hair, several inches of height on him — steps in beside him. She calls herself Milan, ignores Steris entirely, remarks on his sidearms and his mistcoat, and waits to be flirted with. Wax meets her eyes and waits longer. She moves her cup, excuses herself, and leaves. Wax privately marks her down — either an over-confident partygoer or Bleeder in a face — to watch.

Elsewhere, Wayne orbits the food stations on a thirteen-minute loop calibrated to intercept fresh trays from each kitchen door, beard glued on, padded waistline thickened, a Terris cap on his head as Hanlanaze's lineage demands. Marasi keeps station beside him as the professor's assistant and steals a sausage off his plate. A tall man in extravagant plaid bears down on him with a friendly *Professor Hanlanaze!* — Rame Maldor, author of a paper on the *Higgens effect*, and one of Hanlanaze's correspondents. Wayne freezes, then takes the hand in a pinched southern-academic voice anchored on Thermolian *v*-sounds and asks Marasi for context with a speed bubble while Maldor stands respectfully back. Marasi reads him three sentences out of a physics book she bought downstairs. Wayne drops the bubble, tells Maldor that the Higgens effect is old news and that an unnamed lab is three years ahead on a static-electric variant. Maldor goes pale and dashes for the lift like there are free lab coats in the lobby.

Back in front of Innate, Wax gets through Drim — the governor's bodyguard, who allows that his men let him keep his guns, takes a small swing about Wayne being turned away below, and stands his post by the wall. Wax catches himself wondering whether Drim himself could be the kandra; this is going to be very, very hard. Innate kisses Steris's hand, reports that Lady Allri went home with passing nausea, calls the day's assassin a poor shot, and chuckles that *the Survivor* should always send him enemies like that, especially around election season. Wax tells him today was a distraction — that someone else killed his brother and will try for him again. Drim looks up. Innate hedges that Wax is *known for jumping at shadows*; Steris backs Wax; Innate promises a meeting tomorrow.

Innate asks after Marasi. Steris begins to invite her up. A thought forces its way into Wax's head — rasping, crude, not Harmony's voice — that the partygoers are actors on a stage, all part of Harmony's plan, and that he is one of them too. A chill runs over him. The earring is still in. Bleeder has learned to do through it what only Harmony should be able to do. The murderer is in his head.