The Lost Metal

The final novel in Brandon Sanderson's Wax and Wayne series, set within the broader Mistborn saga, takes place on Scadrial, where Allomancers burn ingested metals for supernatural abilities such as Pushing on metal or slowing time. Feruchemy stores attributes like health in metal accessories, while Hemalurgy steals powers through metal spikes driven into the body. The god Harmony, who holds the divine powers of Ruin and Preservation, watches over Scadrial from a largely passive distance.

A prologue set 29 years earlier shows Wayne as an 11-year-old living in poverty with his mother, a mine worker. She tells him a bedtime story about a lawman who defeats a monster from the inside, assuring Wayne that anyone can be the hero. The next day, a mine collapse kills her.

In the present, Waxillium "Wax" Ladrian serves as an Elendel senator and father of two. His wife, Steris Ladrian, helps him fight the Elendel Supremacy Bill, which would grant the capital's governor authority over the Outer Cities, the smaller settlements beyond Elendel. The bill passes, worsening tensions that threaten civil war. Behind these tensions lurks the Set, a paramilitary organization controlled by Wax's sister, Telsin Ladrian. The Set serves Autonomy, a hostile divine being from another world who seeks to dominate Scadrial by installing Telsin as her planetary avatar.

Wax's former partner Marasi Colms, now a special detective, and Wayne, a Feruchemist who can create "speed bubbles" of accelerated time, raid a smuggling operation beneath Elendel. Haunted by having killed a man as a teenager, Wayne refuses to use guns. Marasi kills the gang's leader, a Set officer augmented with Hemalurgic spikes including one made of trellium, a god-metal linked to Autonomy. The dying man speaks in a voice not his own about "the men of gold and red" (50).

At Ladrian Mansion, Wax discovers that trellium touching harmonium, the metal embodying Harmony's power, converts matter into energy in a devastating explosion. Investiture, the fundamental supernatural energy underlying Scadrial's cosmology, makes this reaction possible. Wax and Steris search broadsheets and find that unexplained tremors beneath Bilming, a politically restive Outer City, match underground weapons tests stretching back four years. The Set has been developing a city-destroying bomb.

Harmony communicates through a divine earring, revealing that Autonomy has blinded him and is mobilizing an offworld army to invade if Telsin fails. Harmony asks Wax to be his "sword" one final time. Wax agrees and flies toward Bilming.

Marasi organizes a sting, disguising constables and VenDell, a kandra (a shapeshifting immortal being), as Set operatives delivering cargo to Bilming. Her truck driver reveals herself as Moonlight, an offworld agent of the Ghostbloods. This secretive organization is led by Kelsier, the legendary Survivor of Scadrian religion. At the warehouse, Bilming constables raid simultaneously, and a powerful Set Allomancer unleashes devastating force. Getruda, a Slider engineered to counter Wayne's speed bubbles, attacks Wayne directly, while a Coinshot—an Allomancer who can Push on metals—named Dumad escapes after an aerial duel with Wax.

At Bilming's constabulary, Lord Mayor Gave Entrone, whom Wax suspects of Set ties, tries to press charges. Marsh, an ancient Inquisitor, a Hemalurgic being of terrifying power, frees the group. Marsh is aging, running low on atium, a rare metal that sustains his long life. He provides a lead: Tobal Copper, a chemist who vanished after warning about the bomb. The trail leads to a tabloid editor who has spent four years compiling evidence: underground weapons tests, rocket trajectory estimates, and a fabricated photograph of a destroyed Elendel.

Telsin urges Wax to flee, claiming the bomb is the only way to prevent Autonomy from annihilating the planet. Wax sees through her stalling and slips away. The team splits: Wax and Wayne pursue the bomb through Bilming's political channels; Marasi and Moonlight infiltrate the Set's caverns. They are joined by TwinSoul, a Ghostblood agent bonded to a primal entity called an aether, who can grow crystal from his body to build structures and weapons.

Underground, Marasi overhears Entrone planning a contingency: If the bomb fails, he will open a portal to admit Autonomy's invasion force, soldiers with golden skin and glowing red eyes. She insists on rescuing 20 captives from Hemalurgic experiments. TwinSoul encases himself in a 12-foot crystal construct to hold off soldiers while Marasi and Moonlight push deeper.

They discover the Community, an artificial town called Wayfarer where kidnapped Allomancers have been held for seven years. These captives, convinced by an elaborate hoax that the surface was destroyed by ashfalls, are part of a eugenics program to breed Allomancers. Among them is Marasi's cousin Armal Harms. When Moonlight must use a dangerous stamp that rewrites her identity to fight off Hemalurgic creatures, Marasi enters Wayfarer alone.

Meanwhile, Wax raids Entrone's mansion and discovers forged letters exposing Telsin's true plan: She intends to blame Elendel's leaders for the bomb and seize power as a savior after the city's destruction. In the tunnels, Wax and Wayne fight Dumad and Getruda. Pursuing fleeing trucks, Wax determines the rockets never worked reliably and realizes the bomb's true delivery method is a warship steaming toward Elendel.

In Elendel, Steris takes Wax's Senate seat, enlists TenSoon, a kandra disguised as a constable, to confirm the threat, and organizes a full waterfront evacuation when the Bands of Mourning, a powerful relic, prove drained of power.

Wax and Wayne assault Independence Tower, the Set's central spire, fighting through 30 floors of soldiers. Wayne persuades the last defenders to walk away. At the top, Wax finds the rocket is a hollow decoy. Using a Hemalurgic spike granting Wayne Steelpushing (the ability to Push on metals), they launch themselves to the warship.

Underground, Marasi locates the invasion portal, a glowing pool of Investiture at Wayfarer's edge. Using concentrated Investiture Marasi provided, Armal supercharges her emotion-manipulating Allomancy to incapacitate Entrone. Marasi gathers Wayfarer's Allomancers around the pool; they burn the Investiture while Marasi drops charged grenades to freeze the approaching army in slowed time. The pool drains, collapsing the portal.

Aboard the warship, Wax and Wayne find three interconnected explosives wired to a dead man's switch that cannot be disarmed. Harmony reveals a vial he sent contains lerasium, a legendary metal accidentally created during Wax's earlier experiment. Wayne drinks it and becomes a Mistborn, gaining access to all Allomantic metals. He Pushes Wax off the ship, then burns duralumin with all his bendalloy to create a speed bubble so powerful that electrical signals freeze. Within this frozen time, he pours water into each barrel to trigger smaller harmonium detonations, Pushing each out of the bubble before the chain reaction spreads. The ship is destroyed. Harmony shields Wax from the blast.

Wayne's spirit floats above the planet with Harmony, then passes into the afterlife, stretching "into the wind. And into the stars. And all endless things" (463). Telsin is found dead atop the tower, her power withdrawn by Autonomy, with "You have proven yourselves. For now" (468) inscribed on her skin. Steris's preparations minimize casualties from the resulting tsunami. Hoid, Wax's mysterious coachman, rescues Wax from the ocean.

Two years later, Wayne's statue is unveiled in Elendel. Marasi declines Kelsier's invitation to join the Ghostbloods, planning to become ambassador to the Malwish Consortium, the newly unified Southern nations. Steris is appointed Disaster Preparations Officer. Wayne's secret fortune passes to Allriandre, the daughter of the man he killed as a teenager, with a note reading "Sorry" (483). Harmony sends Wax a final message: "No one else moves you. Your life is yours" (499). Wax resolves he need not choose between being a father, a lawman, or a senator, as Wayne's legacy endures.