The Bands of Mourning (Mistborn #6) - Brandon Sanderson Page 0,64

the coin, and it was not a fivespin as Wax had meant to give him. In fact, it was unlike any coin Wax had ever seen.

“Was this a mistake, my lord?” the man asked. “I don’t mean to be ungrateful, but I’d hate to take something that looks like a memento.”

The symbols on that coin … Wax thought, stepping back to the bar. They’re the same ones as on the walls in the pictures ReLuur took. He nearly overturned the wineglass of another guest in his haste to grab the coin back. He absently shoved the bartender another tip and held up the coin.

Those were the same symbols, or very similar. And it had a face on the back, that of a man looking straight outward, one eye pierced by a spike. The large coin was made of two different metals, an outside ring and an inner one.

The coin certainly didn’t seem old. Was it new, or merely well-preserved? Rust and Ruin … how had this gotten into his pocket?

The beggar tossed it to me, Wax thought. But where had he gotten it? Were there more of these in circulation?

Troubled, he struck out to find Steris. As he walked, he passed Lady Kelesina, the party’s hostess and the woman who was his eventual target. The older woman stood resplendent in a gown of black and silver, holding miniature court before a group of people asking after one of her civic projects.

Wax listened in for a moment, but didn’t want to confront the woman yet. He eventually located Steris standing beside a tall, thin table near the corner. There weren’t any chairs in the ballroom. No dancing either, though there was a dance floor raised an inch or two in the center of the chamber.

Wax set the coin on the table and slid it to Steris.

“What’s this?” she asked.

“The coin that the beggar threw at me. Those symbols look similar to the ones in the pictures ReLuur took.”

Steris pursed her lips, then turned the coin over and looked at the other side. “A face with one eye spiked through. Does it mean something?”

“No idea,” Wax said. “I’m more interested in how that beggar got it—and why he threw it at me. It has to be a relic ReLuur found at that temple. Could he have lost it, or traded it to someone, in the city?”

He tapped the table with one finger, certain now that beggar had been something more than he pretended. He was equally certain that if he went hunting now, he’d find that the man had vanished.

Eventually, Wax pocketed the coin. “We have to hope that the answers are in this room somewhere. Assuming Kelesina really is involved.”

“Then it’s time get to work.”

“I passed her back there. Shall we?”

“Not yet. See that couple over there? The man has on a maroon waistcoat.”

Wax followed her nod. The couple she indicated were young, well-dressed, and smug. Great.

“That is Lord Gave Entrone,” Steris said. “Your houses have had some minor business dealings—he’s in textiles—which should give you an opening to speak with him.”

“I’ve heard of him,” Wax said. “I courted a cousin of his once. It went poorly.”

“Well, he’s also on the list your mad kandra made in his notebook, so he might know something. He’s young, dynamic, and well-regarded—but not terribly important, so he’ll work nicely as a first try.”

“Right,” Wax said, eyeing Entrone, who had drawn a crowd of several more young women as he told a story that involved lots of gesturing. He took a deep breath. “You want to take the lead?”

“It should be you.”

“You sure? I can’t help feeling I’d be better put to use with Marasi and Wayne, digging in graves—while you are comfortable here. You’re good at these things, Steris. You really are—and don’t give me any more of your rhetoric about being ‘boring.’”

Her expression grew distant. “In this case, it’s not that I’m boring, it’s more that … I’m off. I’ve learned to fake being normal, but lists of prepared comments and jokes can only take me so far. People can sense that I’m not being authentic—that I don’t like the things they like or think the way they do. Sometimes it amazes me that people like Wayne, or even those kandra, can be so startlingly human when I feel so alien.”

He wished he could figure out how to keep her from saying things like that. He didn’t know the right words; every time he tried to argue the point, it only seemed to