Mistborn #04 The Alloy of Law

are,” he said. Then he hesitated. “Except for twins, I guess. Anyway, there’s something I’ve been wanting to ask you. It’s a little personal, though.”
    “How personal?” she asked.
    “Well, you know, about yourself and all. The personal kind of personal. I guess.”
    She looked at him, frowning, then blushed. Seemed the girl did that a lot, which was just fine by Wayne. Girls were pretty with a bit of color on them. “You don’t mean about me … and you … I mean…”
    “Oh, Harmony!” Wayne laughed. “It’s not anythin’ like that, mate. Don’t worry. You’re pretty enough, particularly through the coppers, if you know what I mean.”
    “The coppers?”
    “Sure. Word with a lot of curves, like you. You have a pretty accent too, and some nice bounce to you in the cloud area.”
    “Dare I ask what that is?”
    “The white, puffy things that float high above the fruitful land where the seeds are planted.”
    She blushed even further. “Wayne! That might be the most crude thing anyone has ever said to me.”
    “I strives for excellence, mate. I strives for excellence. But don’t worry—like I said, you’re right nice, but you ain’t got enough punch for me. I like women what could take my face clean off with a good roundhouse.”
    “You prefer women who could beat you up?”
    “Sure. It’s a thing. Anyway, what I was talkin’ about was your Allomancy. See, you and I, we have opposite powers. I speed up time, you slow it. So what happens if we both use it at the same time? Eh?”
    “It’s been documented,” Marasi said. “They cancel one another out. Nothing happens.”
    “Really?”
    “Yes.”
    “Huh,” he said, wiping his nose with his handkerchief. “Most expensive ‘nothing’ a person could find, what with us both burning rare metals.”
    “I don’t know,” she said with a sigh. “My power is pretty good at doing nothing on its own. I don’t think I really understood how pathetic being a Pulser was until I saw what your power could do.”
    “Oh, yours ain’t so bad.”
    “Wayne, any time I use my ability— any time—I’ll be left frozen in place, looking stupid while everyone else is able to run about. You can use your power to gain extra time. I can only use mine to lose time.”
    “Sure, but maybe sometime you want a certain day to come along sooner. You want it real badly, right? So you can burn some chromium, and poof, it’s here!”
    “I’ve…” She looked embarrassed. “I’ve actually done that. Chromium burns way more slowly than bendalloy.”
    “See! Advantages. How big can your bubbles get?”
    “I can make one the size of a small room.”
    “That’s way bigger than mine,” Wayne said.
    “Multiply zero by a thousand, and you still get zero.”
    He hesitated. “You do?”
    “Er, yes,” she said. “It’s basic mathematics.”
    “I thought we were talking about Allomancy. When did it become about mathematics?”
    That made her blush too. You expected that out of a girl when you talked about her more attractive body parts, but not when you mentioned mathematics. She was an odd alloy, this one.
    She glanced to the side, toward Waxillium. He was crouching down beside the canal.
    “Now him, ” Wayne said. “ He likes ’em smart.”
    “I have no intentions toward Lord Ladrian,” she said quickly. Too quickly.
    “Pity,” Wayne said. “I think he likes you, mate.”
    That might have been an exaggeration. Wayne wasn’t certain what Wax was thinking in regards to Marasi—however, the man needed to get his mind off Lessie. Lessie had been a great girl. Wonderful, and all that. But she was dead, and Wax still had that … hollow look to him. The same one he’d displayed in the weeks after Lessie’s death. It was softer now, but still there.
    A new love would help a lot. Wayne was certain of it, so he found himself quite pleased with himself as Marasi started moving, eventually wandering over to where Wax was working. She touched his arm, and he pointed at something on the ground beside the canal. Together, they inspected it.
    Wayne strolled over.
    “… perfectly rectangular,” Marasi was saying. “From something mechanical.”
    The ground here was pressed down as if by something heavy in a square patch. It was apparently the only kind of track in the area, and didn’t seem what Wax had been intending to find. He knelt beside it, frowning, and pressed his hand into the dirt, probably to check how compact it was. He looked