Shadows of Self characters

Appears from the start

The woman Wax loved during his years as a lawman in the Roughs, killed in the confrontation that ended his career there. She is dead before this book opens, and Wax has never stopped measuring himself against how that night went.

Also known as Wax, Lord Waxillium Ladrian

Appears from the start

A year after the Vanishers, Waxillium Ladrian has settled into an uneasy double life: house lord and reluctant public figure on one side, working lawman for the Elendel constabulary on the other. He is Twinborn, a Coinshot who Pushes on metal and a Skimmer who can store his own weight, and he is engaged to Steris Harms. He is also in regular contact with Harmony, the god of this world, who speaks to him through an earring he wears and who is not always forthcoming about why.

Appears from the start

Wax's partner, a Twinborn Slider and Bloodmaker: bendalloy lets him raise a bubble of accelerated time, and stored gold lets him heal wounds that should be fatal. He will not carry a gun, fights with a duelling cane, collects hats, and can pass for almost anyone with an accent and a borrowed coat. He never takes anything without leaving something in exchange, a habit that turns out to have a reason behind it.

Appears from the start

The governor's brother, who has spent years selling access to his family's influence. He convenes a private auction of Elendel's criminal bosses in his own house so that they can bid for it, with his own guards on every door.

Appears from the start

Once a criminology student, now a constable, working homicide cases in the octant where the killings begin. She has the training nobody around her has bothered to get, keeps records and statistics the constabulary neglects, and is repeatedly right before anyone senior is willing to say so. Her admiration for Wax has cooled into something more useful: she wants to do the work herself, not watch him do it.

Also known as Sazed

First appears in chapter 2

The god of this world, once a Terris scholar named Sazed, who took up two opposed divine powers three centuries ago and used them to make a dying planet habitable. He speaks to Wax through an earring, usually in fragments and often too late to be much help, and he is candid that there are things he will not explain. He also has servants of his own, the kandra, bound to him and to their Contracts.

First appears in chapter 2

The elected governor of Elendel, presiding over a city with rising prices, restless factory workers and a long-standing reputation for graft. He is publicly composed and politically capable, and the rumors of corruption around his administration are loud enough to give the unrest in the streets somewhere to point.

First appears in chapter 3

A constable-general who came up through the ranks rather than through connections, and Marasi's superior. Straightforward, unimpressed by titles, and willing to let a junior officer run a lead as far as the reasoning holds.

First appears in chapter 3

Wax's betrothed, who continues to treat their engagement as a project with deliverables. She is socially awkward, aware of it, and unbothered; she prepares for improbable disasters as a matter of routine, and this is a city in which that habit turns out to be worth more than charm.

First appears in chapter 5

A kandra, one of the Faceless Immortals who serve Harmony, sent to work with Wax. Kandra are shapeshifters who can wear a body they have taken and hold their identity in metal spikes driven through them. MeLaan is young by kandra standards, blunt, physical, and openly delighted to be out among people instead of at home with her elders.

First appears in chapter 6

A kandra who has gone rogue against Harmony, and the killer Wax is hunting. She has torn out one of the spikes that binds her, which places her outside the god's sight and beyond his ability to command, and she can wear the face and body of anyone she has killed, so anyone in any room may already be her. Her killings are chosen rather than random, and everything she does is aimed at the city rather than at any single victim.

First appears in chapter 8

A gunsmith from the Roughs, now working in Elendel, who supplies Wax with weapons and Allomantic equipment. She is precise, private, and has spent years failing to convince Wayne that his interest in her is not welcome.