“I see,” Waxillium said, flipping through the pages. Tillaume entered, bringing a tray of tea and cakes, and deposited it on a serving table beside Wayne.
Waxillium shook his head, closing the contract. “Doesn’t this seem a little … stiff to you?”
“Stiff?”
“I mean, shouldn’t there be room for romance?”
“There is,” Steris said. “Page thirteen. Upon marriage, there shall be no more than three conjugal encounters per week and no fewer than one until a suitable heir is provided. After that, the same numbers apply to a two-week span.”
“Ah, of course,” Waxillium said. “Page thirteen.” He glanced at Wayne. Was that a bullet the other man had taken from his pocket? Wayne was rolling it between his fingers.
“If that is not enough to satisfy your needs,” Steris added, “the next page details proper mistress protocols.”
“Wait,” Waxillium said, looking away from Wayne. “Your document allows mistresses?”
“Of course,” Steris said. “They are a simple fact of life, and so it’s better to account for them than to ignore them. In the document, you will find requirements for your potential mistresses along with the means by which discretion will be maintained.”
“I see,” Waxillium said.
“Of course,” Steris continued, “I will follow the same guidelines.”
“You plan to take a mistress, my lady?” Wayne asked, perking up.
“I would be allowed my own dalliances,” she said. “Usually the coachman is the object of choice. I would abstain until heirs were produced, of course. There mustn’t be any confusion about lineage.”
“Of course,” Waxillium said.
“It’s in the contract,” she said. “Page fifteen.”
“I don’t doubt that it is.”
Lord Harms coughed into his hand again. Marasi, Steris’s cousin, maintained a blank expression, though she looked down at her feet during the conversation. Why had she been brought?
“Daughter,” Lord Harms said, “perhaps we should move the conversation to less personal topics for a span.”
“Very well,” Steris said. “There are a few things I wanted to know. Are you a religious man, Lord Ladrian?”
“I follow the Path,” Waxillium said.
“Hmmm,” she said, tapping her fingers against her contract. “Well, that’s a safe choice, if somewhat dull. I, for one, have never understood why people would follow a religion whose god specifically prohibits worshipping him.”
“It’s complicated.”
“So Pathians like to say. With the same breath as you try to explain how simple your religion is.”
“That’s complicated too,” Waxillium said. “A simple kind of complicated, though. You’re a Survivorist, I assume?”
“I am.”
Delightful, Waxillium thought. Well, Survivorists weren’t too bad. Some of them, at least. He stood up. Wayne was still playing with that round. “Would anyone else like some tea?”
“No,” Steris said with a wave of her hand, looking through her document.
“Yes, please,” Marasi said softly.
Waxillium crossed the room to the tea stand.
“Those are very nice bookshelves,” Wayne said. “Wish I had shelves like those. My, my, my. And … we’re in.”
Waxillium turned. The three guests had glanced at the shelves, and as they turned away, Wayne had started burning bendalloy and thrown up a speed bubble.
The bubble was about five feet across, including only Wayne and Waxillium, and once Wayne had it up he couldn’t move it. Years of familiarity let Waxillium discern the boundary of the bubble, which was marked by a faint wavering of the air. For those inside the bubble, time would flow much more quickly than for those outside.
“Well?” Waxillium asked.
“Oh, I think the quiet one’s kinda cute,” Wayne said, his accent back in place. “The tall one is insane, though. Rust on my arms, but she is.”
Waxillium poured himself some tea. Harms and the two women looked frozen as they sat on their couch, almost like statues. Wayne was flaring his metal, using as much strength as he could to create a few private moments.
These bubbles could be very useful, though not in the way most people expected. You couldn’t shoot out of them—well, you could, but something about the barrier interfered with objects passing through it. If you fired a shot in a speed bubble, the bullet would slow as soon as it hit ordinary time and would be moved erratically off course. That made it nearly impossible to aim from within one.
“She’s a very good match,” Waxillium said. “It’s an ideal situation for both of us.”
“Look, mate. Just because Lessie—”
“This is not about Lessie.”
“Whoa, hey.” Wayne raised a hand. “No need to get angry.”
“I’m not—” Waxillium took a deep breath, then continued more softly. “I’m not angry. But it’s not about Lessie. This is about my duties.”
Damn you, Wayne. I’d almost gotten myself to stop thinking about her. What would Lessie say, if she saw what he was doing? Laugh, probably. Laugh at how ridiculous it was, laugh at his discomfort. She hadn’t been the jealous type, perhaps because she’d never had any reason to be. With a woman like her, why would Waxillium have wanted to look elsewhere?
Nobody would ever live up to her, but fortunately it didn’t matter. Steris’s contract actually seemed a good thing, in that regard. It would help him divide himself. Maybe help with a little of the pain.
“This is my duty now,” Waxillium repeated.
“Your duties used to involve saving folks,” Wayne said, “not marrying ’em.”
Waxillium crouched down beside the chair. “Wayne. I can’t go back to what I was. You sauntering in here, meddling in my life, isn’t going to change that. I’m a different person now.”
“If you were going to become a different person, couldn’t you have chosen one without such an ugly face?”
“Wayne, this is serious.”
Wayne raised his hand, spinning the cartridge between his fingers and proffering it. “So is this.”
“What is that?”
“Bullet. You shoot folks with ’em. Hopefully bad ones—or at least ones what owes you a bar or two.”
“Wayne—”
“They’re turning back.” Wayne set the cartridge on the tea-serving tray.
“But—”
“Time to cough. Three. Two. One.”
Waxillium cursed under his breath, but pocketed the round and stood back up. He started coughing loudly as the speed bubble collapsed, restoring normal time. To the three visitors, only seconds had passed, and to their ears Waxillium and Wayne’s conversation would be sped up to the point that most of it would be inaudible. The coughing would cover anything else.
None of the three visitors seemed to have noticed anything unusual. Waxillium poured the tea—it was a deep cherry color today, likely a sweet fruit tea—and brought a cup over to Marasi. She took it, and he sat down, holding his own cup in one hand, taking out and gripping the cartridge with the other. Both the casing and the medium-caliber bullet’s jacket looked like steel, but the entire thing seemed too light. He frowned, hefting it.
Blood on her face. Blood on the brick wall.
He shivered, fighting off those memories. Damn you, Wayne, he thought again.
“The tea is delicious,” Marasi said softly. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” Waxillium said, forcing his mind back to the conversation. “Lady Steris, I will consider this contract. Thank you for producing it. But really, I was hoping this meeting might allow me to learn more about you.”
“I have been working on an autobiography,” she said. “Perhaps I will send you a chapter or two of it by post.”
“That’s … very unconventional of you,” Waxillium said. “Though it would be appreciated. But please, tell me of yourself. What are your interests?”
“Normally, I like plays.” She grimaced. “At the Coolerim, actually.”
“Am I missing something?” Waxillium asked.
“The Coolerim Playhouse,” Wayne said, leaning forward. “Two nights ago, it was robbed in the middle of the performance.”
“Haven’t you heard?” Lord Harms asked. “It was in all the broadsheets.”
“Was anyone harmed?”
“Not at the event itself,” Lord Harms said, “but they did take a hostage as they escaped.”
“Such a horrid thing,” Steris said. “Nobody has heard from Armal yet.” She looked sick.
“You knew her?” Wayne asked, his accent slipping faintly as he grew interested.
“Cousin,” Steris said.
“Same as…” Waxillium asked, nodding toward Marasi.
The three regarded him with confused expressions for a moment, but then Lord Harms jumped in. “Ah, no. Different side of the family.”
“Interesting,” Waxillium said, leaning back in his chair, tea sitting ignored in his hand. “And ambitious. Robbing an entire playhouse? How many of the robbers were there?”
“Dozens,” Marasi said. “Maybe as many as thirty, so the reports say.”
“Quite a band. That means as many as another eight just to drive them away. And vehicles for escaping. Impressive.”
“It’s the Vanishers,” Marasi said. “The ones stealing from the railway also.”
“That hasn’t been proven,” Wayne replied, pointing at her.
“No. But one of the witnesses from a railway robbery described several men who were at the theater robbery.”
“Wait,” Waxillium said. “There were witnesses to one of the railway robberies? I thought they happened in secret. Something about a ghostly railcar appearing on the tracks?”
“Yes,” Wayne said. “The railway engineers stop to investigate and—probably—panic. But the phantom railcar vanishes before they can investigate it. They continue on, but when they reach the end of the line, one of their train’s cars is empty. Still locked, no signs of forced entry. But the goods are all gone.”
“So nobody sees the culprits,” Waxillium said.
“The recent ones have been different,” Marasi said, growing animated. “They’ve started robbing passenger cars as well. When the train stops because of the phantom on the tracks, men jump into the cars and start going through, collecting jewelry and pocketbooks from the occupants. They take a woman hostage—threatening to kill her if anyone follows—and go. The freight car is still robbed as well.”
“Curious,” Waxillium said.
“Yes,” Marasi said. “I think—”
“My dear,” Lord Harms cut in. “You are bothering Lord Ladrian.”
Marasi blushed, then looked down.
“It wasn’t a bother,” Waxillium said, tapping his teacup with his finger. “It—”