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"Not good," she adet club uses rifles"

"Well, a rifle doesn’t fit in a handbag," Waxilliu a pistol out of his shoulder holster It was small, with a sli as her hand

She took the gun hesitantly

"The trick to shooting with a pistol is to be steady," Waxillium said "Use both hands, find low cover if you can and set your arht Pistols are much harder to hit with, but that’s partially because people tend to be wilder with thees you to take aim, while people’s first iuely and pull the trigger"

"Yes," she said, hefting the gun It was deceptively heavy "Eight of ten of constables firing a handgun at a criminal ten feet away miss"

"Really?"

She nodded

"Well," Waxilliuuess Wayne doesn’t need to feel so bad"

"Hey!"

Waxillium eyed her "I once saw hi the wall behind hiruers They shouldn’t be allowed to bounce Metal don’t bounce, and that’s true as titanium"

She checked the small revolver to ed handbag

The Vanishers’ hideout turned out to be an innocent-looking building near a canal dock Two stories tall, it was flat-topped and wide, with nu were heaped along one wall of the building, and the s looked like they hadn’t been cleaned since the Final Ascension

"Lady Marasi," Waxilliuhts on his revolver, "would you be terribly offended if I suggested you wait in the carriage while we reconnoiter? The place is likely abandoned, but I wouldn’t be surprised to find a few traps left behind"

"No," she said, shivering "I wouldn’t mind I think that would be just fine"

"I’ll e’re certain the place is clear," he said, then raised his handgun and nodded to Wayne They ducked out of the carriage, running in a low squat to the side of the building They didn’t go to the door Instead, Wayne jumped--and Waxilliuood twelve feet and landed on the roof Waxilliu without a sound Theydown and kicked in aWaxilliu in after him

She waited a few tense h she heard hi "none of h that he’d better stay quiet

No gunshots sounded Eventually, Waxilliu and waved She hurriedly clie and approached

"Well?" she asked

"Two tripwires," Waxilliuerous we could find Other than Wayne’s body odor"

"That’s the smell of incredibleness," Wayne called fro the door open for her

She stepped in, then hesitated in the doorway "It’s ees and equipment Instead, the cavernous rooht shone in through s, though it was very dim The chamber smelled of coal and fire, and there were blackened areas on the floor

"Sleeping quarters up there," Waxilliu at the other side of the foundry "The , but the other side has a second story Looked like they could house some fiftythe days to maintain the front"

"Aha!" Wayne said from the darkness on the left side of the chaht flooded the rooive large-scale access to the canal

"How easily did that open?" Waxilliu over Marasi followed

"I dunno," Wayne said, shrugging "Easy enough"

Waxillium inspected the door It slid on wheels in a sers in the trench and brought therease between the it," Marasi said

"Exactly," Waxillium said

"So?" Wayne asked

"If they were doing illegal things in here," Marasi said, "they wouldn’t be wanting to open the entire side of the building with any frequency"

"Maybe they did it to keep up the act," Waxilliuhtful "Oh! Alu canes, spinning "What? Where? Who’s shooting?"

Marasi felt herself blush "Sorry I meant, we should check and see if we can find any alu or casting guns That will tell us if this place is really the hideout, or if Wayne’s source was trying to lead us to a bad alloy"

"He was honest," Wayne said "I got a sense for that sort of thing" He sneezed

"You believed that Lessie really was a dancer, the first ti