might recognize those from ReLuur’s notes.”
They started back, letting MeLaan go first again—though Wax kept his eyes open for any indicators of traps. It was still slow going, as she wanted to be careful they’d caught everything.
Telsin fell in beside Wax, glancing once over her shoulder at the door, arms wrapped around herself, though with the medallion she couldn’t be cold. Allik trailed behind them, wearing his warming medallion.
“Do you ever wonder, Waxillium,” Telsin said softly, “how you got where you are?”
“Sometimes, I suppose,” he said. “Though I figure I can trace it. I don’t always like it, but it makes sense, if I stop and think it through.”
“I can’t do the same,” she said. “I remember being a child, and assuming the world belonged to me. That I’d be able to seize it when I grew older, accomplish my dreams, become something great. Yet as I’ve aged, I feel like less and less is under my control. I can’t help thinking it shouldn’t be that way. How could I have been so in control as a youth, yet often feel so helpless as an adult?”
“That’s our uncle’s fault,” Wax said. “For keeping you captive.”
“Yes, and no. Wax, I’m an adult—with greying hair and over half my life behind me. Shouldn’t I have a clue as to what this is all about?” She shook her head. “That’s not Edwarn’s fault. What have we done, Waxillium? We’re alone. Our parents are dead. We’re the adults now, yet where are our children? What’s our legacy? What have we accomplished? Don’t you ever feel like you never actually grew up? That everyone else did, but you’re secretly faking?”
No, he didn’t feel that way. But he grunted in agreement anyway—it was good to hear her show a side of herself other than feverish hatred of Suit and his people.
“Is that why you’re so keen to come here?” Wax asked. “You think that what we find in there will accomplish something?”
“At least it will help society,” Telsin said.
“Unless it destroys society.”
“Pushing society forward is no destruction. Even if, in doing so, it leaves us behind.”
She withdrew into herself again. He couldn’t blame her, after her ordeal. He wished there had been time to go back to Elendel, see her situated in someplace warm and safe, before flying back here.
They retraced their steps, passing the traps they’d already set off. Fallen blocks of stone from the ceiling, darts and spears from the walls, even a stone wall that had dropped to block them, though MeLaan had kept it from falling all the way by slamming a large rock underneath. Wax had been able to wiggle into the space and Push a few coins upward to lift it farther, then they propped it up with rocks in the tracks at the sides. They still had to stoop to go underneath.
They did find two more traps, which they set off as well. Wax found himself increasingly dissatisfied. So much work, he thought, noting again the wall section that had fallen in to release scythes that cut the air. That trap had gotten entangled on itself, and so hadn’t endangered them at all—but the ingenuity required to put it together was marvelous.
“Allik,” he said, prompting the short man to swap back to his Connection medallion. “Why would your people build such an obvious resting place for the Bands? Why make this temple, which proclaims that something precious is inside, then go to the effort of making all these traps? Why not just hide the Bands someplace unassuming, like a cave?”
“They are a challenge, like I said, Thoughtful One,” Allik said. “And it was not my people who did this, not specifically. The original priests who crafted this place were of no people currently living among us.”
“Yes,” Wax said, “and you told me the Sovereign left his weapon here with orders to protect it because he was going to return for it. Right?”
“That is the legend.”
“These traps don’t make sense, then,” Wax said, waving back down the hallway. “Wouldn’t they have been worried for your king’s safety?”
“Simple traps could not affect him, Unobservant Master,” Allik said with a laugh. A nervous laugh. He’d glanced at MeLaan again. “The traps are a declaration, and a challenge.”
They walked on, but still Wax felt unsatisfied. Allik’s explanations made a sort of sense—as much sense as building the temple up in the mountains. It was everything Wax would have expected from such a place, down to the smallest details.
Perhaps that was the problem.
“Wax!” Wayne’s