Mistborn #04 The Alloy of Law

men, if they’d really known what they were doing, would have left quickly, glad they hadn’t needed to do any shooting.”
    “So they’re street toughs,” Waxillium said. “Common criminals.”
    “With very expensive weapons,” Marasi said, frowning. “Which implies an outside backer, doesn’t it?”
    “Yes,” Waxillium said, growing eager and leaning in. “At first, I was very confused. I was convinced this was all about the kidnappings, the thievery just a front to disguise that. Then the men last night were genuinely interested in what they were taking. It baffled me. Judging by the price of aluminum, and how much they had to spend forging those guns, they’ve spent a fortune to make a lesser amount from last night’s robbery. It didn’t make sense.”
    “Unless we’re dealing with two groups working together,” Marasi said, understanding. “Someone has given funds to the bandits, allowing them to pull off these robberies. The backing group, however, demands that they kidnap certain people, making it seem like the result of random hostage-takings.”
    “Yes! He—whoever the backer is—wants the kidnapped women. And the Vanishers, they get to keep whatever they steal, or perhaps a percentage of it. It is all meant to use the robberies as a cover-up, but it’s possible the bandits themselves don’t understand how they’re being used.”
    Marasi frowned, biting her lip. “But that means…”
    “What?”
    “Well, I’d hoped that this was mostly over with,” she explained. “Your initial count of the thieves was just under forty, and you and Wayne killed or incapacitated thirty or so of them.”
    “Thirty-one,” he said absently.
    “I had assumed those remaining might cut their losses and flee. Killing three-quarters of a group should be enough to disband them, one would think.”
    “It would, in my experience.”
    “But this is different,” she said. “The bandit boss has an outside backer offering wealth and weaponry.” She frowned. “The boss spoke of ‘payback,’ as I recall. Could he be both the boss and the backer?”
    “Perhaps,” Waxillium said. “But I doubt it. Part of the point of all this would be to have someone else doing the dangerous work for you.”
    “Agreed,” she said. “But the boss does seem to have his own ideology. Perhaps he was chosen because of it. Criminals often use basic rationalization skills to justify what they are doing, and a man who could capitalize on that—along with promising riches and lots of fun shooting things—would be ideal as a ‘middle manager,’ so to speak.”
    Waxillium smiled broadly.
    “What?” she asked.
    “You realize I spent all night coming to those conclusions? You just reached them in all of … what? Ten minutes?”
    She sniffed. “I had some modest help from you.”
    “It might be said that I had modest help from myself, technically.”
    “The voices whispering to you as a result of sleep deprivation do not count, my lord.”
    His smile grew, and then he stood. “Come. Tell me what you make of this.”
    Curious, she followed him to the front of the room, where she’d noticed the heap of paper. He pulled it straight, revealing a long—perhaps five-foot—piece of paper that was several feet wide. Waxillium knelt on the ground, but she had a harder time, being in skirts. So she just bent down, looking over his shoulder.
    “Genealogies?” she asked, surprised. It appeared that he’d traced each of the kidnapped women back to the Origin, starting with their names at the left of the long sheet, then working backward. It didn’t list every relative, but it included the direct ancestors and a few notable names in each generation for each hostage.
    “Well?” he asked.
    “I’m beginning to suspect that you are an odd man, my lord,” she said. “You spent all night doing this?”
    “It did take a great deal of my time, though Wayne’s paper gave me a good head start. Fortunately, my uncle’s library had extensive genealogical resources. It was a hobby of his. But what do you think ?”
    “That it is a good thing you’re soon to be engaged, for a good wife would have seen that you got your rest, rather than writing all night by candlelight. That’s bad for your eyes, you know.”
    “We have electricity,” he said, waving upward. “Besides, I doubt Steris will care about my sleeping habits. It’s not in the contract, you see.” There was a touch of bitterness in his tone—faint, but