The Final Empire

26

VIN LAY IN HER BED at Clubs’s shop, feeling her head throb.

Fortunately, the headache was growing weaker. She could still remember waking up on that first horrible morning; the pain had been so strong she’d barely been able to think, let alone move. She didn’t know how Kelsier had kept going, leading the remnants of their army to a safe location.

That had been over two weeks ago. Fifteen full days, and her head still hurt. Kelsier said it was good for her. He claimed that she needed to practice “pewter dragging,” training her body to function beyond what it thought possible. Despite what he said, however, she doubted something that hurt so much could possibly be “good” for her.

Of course, it might well be a useful skill to have. She could acknowledge this, now that her head wasn’t pounding quite so much. She and Kelsier had been able to run to the battlefield in under a single day. The return trip had taken two weeks.

Vin rose, stretching tiredly. They’d been back for less than a day, in fact. Kelsier had probably stayed up half the night explaining events to the other crewmembers. Vin, however, had been happy to go straight to bed. The nights spent sleeping on the hard earth had reminded her that a comfortable bed was a luxury she’d started to take for granted.

She yawned, rubbed her temples again, then threw on a robe and made her way to the bathroom. She was pleased to see that Clubs’s apprentices had remembered to draw her a bath. She locked the door, disrobed, and settled into the warm, lightly scented bathwater. Had she ever really found those scents obnoxious? The smell would make her less inconspicuous, true, but that seemed a slim price for ridding herself of the dirt and grime she’d picked up while traveling.

She still found longer hair an annoyance, however. She washed it, combing out the tangles and knots, wondering how the court women could stand hair that went all the way down their backs. How long must they spend combing and primping beneath a servant’s care? Vin’s hair hadn’t even reached her shoulders yet, and she was already loath to let it get longer. It would fly about and whip her face when she jumped, not to mention provide her foes with something to grab on to.

Once finished bathing, she returned to her room, dressed in something practical, and made her way downstairs. Apprentices bustled in the workroom and housekeepers worked upstairs, but the kitchen was quiet. Clubs, Dockson, Ham, and Breeze sat at the morning meal. They looked up as Vin entered.

“What?” Vin asked grumpily, pausing in the doorway. The bath had soothed her headache somewhat, but it still pulsed slightly in the back of her head.

The four men exchanged glances. Ham spoke first. “We were just discussing the status of the plan, now that both our employer and our army are gone.”

Breeze raised an eyebrow. “Status? That’s an interesting way of putting it, Hammond. I would have said ‘unfeasibility’ instead.”

Clubs grunted his assent, and the four turned to her, apparently waiting to see her reaction.

Why do they care so much what I think? she thought, walking into the room and taking a chair.

“You want something to eat?” Dockson said, rising. “Clubs’s housekeepers fixed some baywraps for us to–”

“Ale,” Vin said.

Dockson paused. “It’s not even noon.”

“Ale. Now. Please.” She leaned forward, folding her arms on the table and resting her head on them.

Ham had the nerve to chuckle. “Pewter drag?”

Vin nodded.

“It’ll pass,” he said.

“If I don’t die first,” Vin grumbled.

Ham chuckled again, but the levity seemed forced. Dox handed her a mug, then sat, glancing at the others. “So, Vin. What do you think?”

“I don’t know,” she said with a sigh. “The army was pretty much the center of everything, right? Breeze, Ham, and Yeden spent all their time recruiting; Dockson and Renoux worked on supplies. Now that the soldiers are gone… well, that only leaves Marsh’s work with the Ministry and Kell’s attacks on the nobility – and neither are things he needs us for. The crew is redundant.”

The room fell silent.

“She has a depressingly blunt way of putting it,” Dockson said.

“Pewter drag will do that to you,” Ham noted.

“When did you get back, anyway?” Vin asked.

“Last night, after you were asleep,” Ham said. “The Garrison sent us part-time soldiers back early, so they wouldn’t have to pay us.”

“They’re still out there, then?” Dockson asked.

Ham nodded. “Hunting down the rest of our army. The Luthadel Garrison relieved the Valtroux troops, who were actually pretty beat up from the fighting. The majority of the Luthadel troops should be out for a long while yet, searching for rebels – apparently, several very large groups broke off of our main army and fled before the battle started.”

The conversation lulled into another period of silence. Vin sipped at her ale, drinking it more out of spite than any belief that it would make her feel better. A few minutes later, footsteps sounded on the stairs.

Kelsier swept into the kitchen. “Good morning, all,” he said with customary cheerfulness. “Baywraps again, I see. Clubs, you really need to hire more imaginative housemaids.” Despite the comment, he grabbed a cylindrical baywrap and took a large bite, then smiled pleasantly as he poured himself something to drink.

The crew remained quiet. The men exchanged glances. Kelsier remained standing, leaning back against the cupboard as he ate.

“Kell, we need to talk,” Dockson finally said. “The army is gone.”

“Yes,” Kelsier said between bites. “I noticed.”

“The job is dead, Kelsier,” Breeze said. “It was a good try, but we failed.”

Kelsier paused. He frowned, lowering his baywrap. “Failed? What makes you say that?”

“The army is gone, Kell,” Ham said.

“The army was only one piece of our plans. We’ve had a setback, true – but we’re hardly finished.”

“Oh, for the Lord’s sake, man!” Breeze said. “How can you stand there so cheerfully? Our men are dead. Don’t you even care?”

“I care, Breeze,” Kelsier said in a solemn voice. “But what is done is done. We need to move on.”

“Exactly!” Breeze said. “Move on from this insane ‘job’ of yours. It’s time to quit. I know you don’t like that, but it’s the simple truth!”

Kelsier set his plate on the counter. “Don’t Soothe me, Breeze. Never Soothe me.”

Breeze paused, mouth open slightly. “Fine,” he finally said. “I won’t use Allomancy; I’ll just use truth. Do you know what I think? I think you never intended to grab that atium.

“You’ve been using us. You promised us wealth so we’d join you, but you never had any intention of making us rich. This is all about your ego – it’s about becoming the most famous crewleader that ever lived. That’s why you’re spreading all these rumors, doing all this recruitment. You’ve known wealth – now you want to become a legend.”

Breeze fell quiet, eyes hard. Kelsier stood with his arms folded, regarding the crew. Several glanced aside, shamed eyes proving that they had considered what Breeze was saying. Vin was one of those. The silence persisted, all of them waiting for a rebuttal.

Footsteps sounded on the stairs again, and Spook burst into the kitchen. “Willing the care and upping to see! A gathering, in the fountain square!”

Kelsier didn’t look surprised by the boy’s announcement.

“A gathering in the fountain square?” Ham said slowly. “That means…”

“Come on,” Kelsier said, standing up straight. “We’re going to watch.”

“I’d rather not do this, Kell,” Ham said. “I avoid these things for a reason.”

Kelsier ignored him. He walked at the head of the crew, who all – even Breeze – wore mundane skaa clothing and cloaks. A light ashfall had begun, and careless flakes floated down from the sky, like leaves dropped from some unseen tree.

Large clusters of skaa clogged the street, most of them workers from factories or mills. Vin knew of only one reason why the workers would be released and sent to gather in the city’s central square.

Executions.

She’d never gone to them before. Supposedly, all the men in the city – skaa or noble – were required to attend execution ceremonies, but thieving crews knew how to remain hidden. Bells rang in the distance, announcing the event, and obligators watched at the sides of the streets. They would go into mills, forges, and random houses searching for those who disobeyed the call, meting out death as a punishment. Gathering this many people was an enormous undertaking – but, in a way, doing things like this simply worked to prove how powerful the Lord Ruler was.

The streets grew even more crowded as Vin’s crew approached the fountain square. Building roofs were packed, and people filled the streets, pressing forward. There’s no way they’ll all fit. Luthadel wasn’t like most other cities; its population was enormous. Even with only the men in attendance, there was no way everyone would have a view of the executions.

Yet, they came anyway. Partially because they were required, partially because they wouldn’t have to work while they watched, and partially – Vin suspected – because they had the same morbid curiosity that all men possessed.

As the crowds grew thicker, Kelsier, Dockson, and Ham began to shove the crew a path through the onlookers. Some of the skaa gave the crew looks of resentment, though many were just dull-eyed and compliant. Some appeared surprised, even excited, when they saw Kelsier, though his scars were not showing. These people moved aside eagerly.

Eventually, the crew reached the outer row of buildings surrounding the square. Kelsier picked one, nodding toward it, and Dockson moved forward. A man at the doorway tried to bar his entrance, but Dox pointed toward the roof, then hefted his coinpouch suggestively. A few minutes later, the crew had the entire rooftop to themselves.

“Smoke us please, Clubs,” Kelsier said quietly.

The gnarled craftsman nodded, making the crew invisible to Allomantic bronze senses. Vin walked over and crouched beside the roof’s lip, hands on the short stone railing as she scanned the square down below. “So many people…”

“You’ve lived in cities all your life, Vin,” Ham said, standing next to her. “Surely you’ve seen crowds before.”

“Yes, but…” How could she explain? The shifting, overpacked mass was unlike anything she’d seen. It was expansive, almost endless, its trails filling every street leading away from the central square. The skaa were packed so closely, she wondered how they even had room to breathe.

The noblemen were at the center of the square, separated from the skaa by soldiers. They were close to the central fountain patio, which stood about five feet above the rest of the square. Someone had constructed seating for the nobility, and they lounged, as if they were visiting some show or horse race. Many had servants holding up parasols against the ash, but it was falling lightly enough that some just ignored it.

Standing beside the noblemen were the obligators – regular ones in gray, Inquisitors in black. Vin shivered. There were eight Inquisitors, their lanky forms standing a head above the obligators. But, it wasn’t just height that separated the dark creatures from their cousins. There was an air, a distinctive posture, about the Steel Inquisitors.

Vin turned, studying the regular obligators instead. Most of them held themselves proudly in their administrative robes – the higher their position, the finer the robes. Vin squinted, burning tin, and recognized a moderately familiar face.

“There,” she said, pointing. “That one’s my father.”

Kelsier perked up. “Where?”

“At the front of the obligators,” Vin said. “The shorter one with the golden robe-scarf.”

Kelsier fell silent. “That’s your father?” he finally asked.

“Who?” Dockson asked, squinting. “I can’t make out their faces.”

“Tevidian,” Kelsier said.

“The lord prelan?” Dockson asked with shock.

“What?” Vin asked. “Who’s that?”

Breeze chuckled. “The lord prelan is the leader of the Ministry, my dear. He’s the most important of the Lord Ruler’s obligators – technically, he’s even higher ranked than the Inquisitors.”

Vin sat, dumbfounded.

“The lord prelan,” Dockson mumbled, shaking his head. “This just keeps getting better.”

“Look!” Spook suddenly said, pointing.

The crowd of skaa began to shuffle. Vin had assumed that they were too packed to move, but apparently she was wrong. The people began to pull back, making a large corridor leading to the central platform.

What could make them–

Then she felt it. The oppressive numbness, like a massive blanket pressing down, choking away her air, stealing her will. She immediately burned copper. Yet, like before, she swore that she could feel the Lord Ruler’s Soothing despite the metal. She sensed him coming closer, trying to make her lose all will, all desire, all strength of emotion.

“He’s coming,” Spook whispered, crouching down beside her.

A black carriage drawn by a pair of massive white stallions appeared down a side street. It rolled down the corridor of skaa, moving with a sense of… inevitability. Vin saw several people get clipped by its passing, and suspected that if a man were to fall into the carriage’s path, the vehicle wouldn’t even slow as it crushed him to death.

The skaa sagged a bit more as the Lord Ruler arrived, a visible ripple washing across the crowd, their postures drooping as they felt his powerful Soothing. The background roar of whispers and chatting dampened, an unreal silence falling over the enormous square.

“He’s so powerful,” Breeze said. “Even at my best, I can only Soothe a couple hundred men. There have to be tens of thousands of people here!”

Spook looked over the rim of the rooftop. “It makes me want to fall. To just let go…”

Then, he paused. He shook his head, as if waking up. Vin frowned. Something felt different. Tentatively, she extinguished her copper, and realized that she could no longer feel the Lord Ruler’s Soothing. The feeling of awful depression – of soullessness and emptiness – had strangely disappeared. Spook looked up, and the rest of the crewmembers stood just a little straighter.

Vin glanced around. The skaa below looked unchanged. Yet, her friends–

Her eyes found Kelsier. The crewleader stood straight-backed, staring resolutely at the approaching carriage, a look of concentration on his face.

He’s Rioting our emotions, Vin realized. He’s counteracting the Lord Ruler’s power. It was obviously a struggle for Kelsier to protect even their small group.

Breeze is right, Vin thought. How can we fight something like this? The Lord Ruler is Soothing a hundred thousand people at once!

But, Kelsier fought on. Just in case, Vin turned on her copper. Then she burned zinc and reached out to help Kelsier, Rioting the emotions of those around her. It felt like she was Pulling against some massive, immobile wall. Yet, it must have helped, for Kelsier relaxed slightly, shooting her a grateful look.

“Look,” Dockson said, probably unaware of the unseen battle that occurred around him. “The prisoner carts.” He pointed toward a set of ten large, bar-lined carts traveling down the corridor behind the Lord Ruler.

“Do you recognize anyone in them?” Ham said, leaning forward.

“I’m not of the seeing,” Spook said, looking uncomfortable. “Uncle, you really the burn, right?”

“Yes, my copper is on,” Clubs said testily. “You’re safe. We’re far enough away from the Lord Ruler that it wouldn’t matter anyway – that plaza is enormous.”

Spook nodded, then obviously began burning tin. A moment later, he shook his head. “Notting of the recognizing anyone.”

“You weren’t there for a lot of the recruiting, though, Spook,” Ham said, squinting.

“True,” Spook replied. Though his accent remained, he was obviously making an effort to speak normally.

Kelsier stepped up to the ledge, holding a hand up to shade his eyes. “I can see the prisoners. No, I don’t recognize any of the faces. They aren’t captive soldiers.”

“Who, then?” Ham asked.

“Mostly women and children, it appears,” Kelsier said.

“The families of the soldiers?” Ham asked, horrified.

Kelsier shook his head. “I doubt it. They wouldn’t have taken the time to identify dead skaa.”

Ham frowned, looking confused.

“Random people, Hammond,” Breeze said with a quiet sigh. “Examples – casual executions made in order to punish the skaa for harboring rebels.”

“No, not even that,” Kelsier said. “I doubt the Lord Ruler even knows, or cares, that most of those men were recruited from Luthadel. He probably just assumes that it was another countryside rebellion. This… this is just a way of reminding everyone who is in control.”

The Lord Ruler’s carriage rolled up a platform onto the central patio. The ominous vehicle pulled to a stop in the exact center of the square, but the Lord Ruler himself remained inside.

The prisoner carts pulled to a stop, and a group of obligators and soldiers began to unload them. Black ash continued to fall as the first group of prisoners – most struggling only weakly – were dragged up onto the raised central platform. An Inquisitor directed the work, gesturing for prisoners to be gathered beside each of the platform’s four bowl-like fountains.

Four prisoners were forced to their knees – one beside each running fountain – and four Inquisitors raised obsidian axes. Four axes fell, and four heads were sheared free. The bodies, still held by soldiers, were allowed to spurt their last lifeblood into the fountain basins.

The fountains began to glisten red as they sprayed into the air. The soldiers tossed the bodies aside, then brought four more people forward.

Spook looked away sickly. “Why… why doesn’t Kelsier do something? To saving them, I mean?”

“Don’t be foolish,” Vin said. “There are eight Inquisitors down there – not to mention the Lord Ruler himself. Kelsier would be an idiot to try something.”

Though I wouldn’t be surprised if he considered it, she thought, remembering when Kelsier had been ready to rush down and take on an entire army by himself. She glanced to the side. Kelsier looked like he was forcibly holding himself back – white-knuckled hands gripping the chimney beside him – to keep himself from rushing down to stop the executions.

Spook stumbled over to another part of the rooftop where he could retch without spilling bile onto the people below. Ham groaned slightly, and even Clubs looked saddened. Dockson watched solemnly, as if witnessing the deaths were some sort of vigil. Breeze just shook his head.

Kelsier, however… Kelsier was angry. His face red, his muscles tense, his eyes ablaze.

Four more deaths, one of them a child.

“This,” Kelsier said, angrily waving his hand toward the central square. “This is our enemy. There is no quarter here, no walking away. This is no simple job, to be thrown aside when we encounter a few unexpected twists.”

Four more deaths.

“Look at them!” Kelsier demanded, pointing at the bleachers full of nobility. Most of them appeared bored – and a few even seemed to be enjoying themselves, turning and joking with one another as the beheadings continued.

“I know you question me,” Kelsier said, turning to the crew. “You think that I’ve been too hard on the nobility, think that I relish killing them too much. But, can you honestly see those men laughing and tell me that they don’t deserve to die by my blade? I only bring them justice.”

Four more deaths.

Vin searched the bleachers with urgent, tin-enhanced eyes. She found Elend sitting amid a group of younger men. None of them were laughing, and they weren’t the only ones. True, many of the nobility made light of the experience, but there were some small minority who looked horrified.

Kelsier continued. “Breeze, you asked about the atium. I’ll be honest. It was never my main goal – I gathered this crew because I wanted to change things. We’ll grab the atium – we’ll need it to support a new government – but this job isn’t about making me, or any of you, wealthy.

“Yeden is dead. He was our excuse – a way that we could do something good while still pretending to just be thieves. Now that he’s gone, you can give up, if you want. Quit. But, that won’t change anything. The struggle will go on. Men will still die. You’ll just be ignoring it.”

Four more deaths.

“It’s time to stop the charade,” Kelsier said, staring at them each in turn. “If we’re going to do this now, we have to be up-front and honest with ourselves. We have to admit that it isn’t about money. It’s about stopping that.” He pointed at the courtyard with its red fountains – a visible sign of death for the thousands of skaa too far away to even tell what was happening.

“I intend to continue my fight,” Kelsier said quietly. “I realize that some of you question my leadership. You think I’ve been building myself up too much with the skaa. You whisper that I’m making myself into another Lord Ruler – you think that my ego is more important to me than overthrowing the empire.”

He paused, and Vin saw guilt in the eyes of Dockson and the others. Spook rejoined the group, still looking a bit sick.

Four more deaths.

“You’re wrong,” Kelsier said quietly. “You have to trust me. You gave me your confidence when we began this plan, despite how dangerous things seemed. I still need that confidence! No matter how things appear, no matter how terrible the odds, we have to keep fighting!”

Four more deaths.

The crew slowly turned toward Kelsier. Resisting the Lord Ruler’s Pushing on their emotions didn’t seem like half as much a struggle for Kelsier anymore, though Vin had let her zinc lapse.

Maybe… maybe he can do it, Vin thought, despite herself. If there was ever a man who could defeat the Lord Ruler, it would be Kelsier.

“I didn’t choose you men because of your competence,” Kelsier said, “though you are certainly skilled. I chose each of you specifically because I knew you to be men of conscience. Ham, Breeze, Dox, Clubs… you are men with reputations for honesty, even charity. I knew that if I were going to succeed at this plan, I would need men who actually cared.

“No, Breeze, this isn’t about boxings or about glory. This is about war – a war we have been fighting for a thousand years, a war I intend to end. You may go, if you wish. You know I’ll let any of you out – no questions asked, no repercussions exacted – if you wish to go.

“However,” he said, eyes growing hard, “if you stay, you have to promise to stop questioning my authority. You can voice concerns about the job itself, but there will be no more whispered conferences about my leadership. If you stay, you follow me. Understood?”

One by one, he locked eyes with the crewmembers. Each one gave him a nod.

“I don’t think we ever really questioned you, Kell,” Dockson said. “We just… we’re worried, and I think rightly so. The army was a big part of our plans.”

Kelsier nodded to the north, toward the main city gates. “What do you see up in the distance, Dox?”

“The city gates?”

“And what is different about them recently?”

Dockson shrugged. “Nothing unusual. They’re a bit understaffed, but–”

“Why?” Kelsier interjected. “Why are they understaffed?”

Dockson paused. “Because the Garrison is gone?”

“Exactly,” Kelsier said. “Ham says that the Garrison could be out chasing remnants of our army for months, and only about ten percent of its men stayed behind. That makes sense – stopping rebels is the sort of thing the Garrison was created to do. Luthadel might be exposed, but no one ever attacks Luthadel. No one ever has.”

A quiet understanding passed between the members of the crew.

“Part one of our plan to take the city has been accomplished,” Kelsier said. “We got the Garrison out of Luthadel. It cost us far more than we expected – far more than it should have. I wish to the Forgotten Gods that those boys hadn’t died. Unfortunately, we can’t change that now – we can only use the opening they gave us.

“The plan is still in motion – the main peacekeeping force in the city is gone. If a house war starts in earnest, the Lord Ruler will have a difficult time stopping it. Assuming he wants to. For some reason, he tends to step back and let the nobility fight each other every hundred years or so. Perhaps he finds that letting them at each other’s throats keeps them away from his own.”

“But, what if the Garrison comes back?” Ham asked.

“If I’m right,” Kelsier said, “the Lord Ruler will let them chase stragglers from our army for several months, giving the nobility a chance to blow off a little steam. Except, he’s going to get a lot more than he expected. When that house war starts, we’re going to use the chaos to seize the palace.”

“With what army, my dear man?” Breeze said.

“We still have some troops left,” Kelsier said. “Plus, we have time to recruit more. We’ll have to be careful – we can’t use the caves, so we’ll have to hide our troops in the city. That will probably mean smaller numbers. However, that won’t be an issue – you see, that garrison is going to return eventually.”

The members of the group shared a look as the executions proceeded below. Vin sat quietly, trying to decide what Kelsier meant by that statement.

“Exactly, Kell,” Ham said slowly. “The Garrison will return, and we won’t have a big enough army to fight them.”

“But we will have the Lord Ruler’s treasury,” Kelsier said, smiling. “What is it you always say about those Garrisoners, Ham?”

The Thug paused, then smiled too. “That they’re mercenaries.”

“We seize the Lord Ruler’s money,” Kelsier said, “and it means we get his army too. This can still work, gentlemen. We can make it work.”

The crew seemed to grow more confident. Vin, however, turned her eyes back toward the square. The fountains ran so red that they seemed completely filled with blood. Over it all, the Lord Ruler watched from within his jet-black carriage. The windows were open, and – with tin – Vin could just barely see a silhouetted figure sitting within.

That’s our real foe, she thought. Not the missing garrison, not the Inquisitors with their axes. That man. The one from the logbook.

We’ll have to find a way to defeat him, otherwise everything else we do will be pointless.

27

IT WAS A SUBDUED GROUP that returned to Clubs’s shop that evening. The executions had stretched for hours. There had been no denunciations, no explanations by the Ministry or the Lord Ruler – just execution, after execution, after execution. Once the captives were gone, the Lord Ruler and his obligators had ridden away, leaving a pile of corpses on the platform and bloodied water running in the fountains.

As Kelsier’s crew returned to the kitchen, Vin realized that her headache no longer bothered her. Her pain now seemed… insignificant. The baywraps remained on the table, thoughtfully covered by one of the house maids. No one reached for them.

“All right,” Kelsier said, taking his customary place leaning against the cupboard. “Let’s plan this out. How should we proceed?”

Dockson recovered a stack of papers from the side of the room as he walked over to seat himself. “With the Garrison gone, our main focus becomes the nobility.”

“Indeed,” Breeze said. “If we truly intend to seize the treasury with only a few thousand soldiers, then we’re certainly going to need something to distract the palace guard and keep the nobility from taking the city away from us. The house war, therefore, becomes of paramount importance.”

Kelsier nodded. “My thoughts exactly.”

“But, what happens when the house war is over?” Vin said. “Some houses will come out on top, and then we’ll have to deal with them.”

Kelsier shook his head. “I don’t intend for the house war to ever end, Vin – or, at least, not for a long while. The Lord Ruler makes dictates, and the Ministry polices his followers, but the nobility are the ones who actually force the skaa to work. So, if we bring down enough noble houses, the government may just collapse on its own. We can’t fight the entire Final Empire as a whole – it’s too big. But, we might be able to shatter it, then make the pieces fight each other.”

“We need to put financial strain on the Great Houses,” Dockson said, flipping through his papers. “The aristocracy is primarily a financial institution, and lack of funds will bring any house down.”

“Breeze, we might need to use some of your aliases,” Kelsier said. “So far, I’ve really been the only one in the crew working on the house war – but if we’re going to make this city snap before the Garrison returns, we’ll need to step up our efforts.”

Breeze sighed. “Very well. We’ll just have to be very careful to make certain no one accidentally recognizes me as someone I shouldn’t be. I can’t go to parties or functions – but I can probably do solitary house visits.”

“Same for you, Dox,” Kelsier said.

“I figured as much,” Dockson said.

“It will be dangerous for both of you,” Kelsier said. “But speed will be essential. Vin will remain our main spy – and we’ll probably want her to start spreading some bad information. Anything to make the nobility uncertain.”

Ham nodded. “We should probably focus our attentions on the top, then.”

“Indeed,” Breeze said. “If we can make the most powerful houses look vulnerable, then their enemies will be quick to strike. Only after the powerful houses are gone will people realize that they were the ones really supporting the economy.”

The room fell quiet for a second, then several heads turned toward Vin.

“What?” she asked.

“They’re talking about House Venture, Vin,” Dockson said. “It’s the most powerful of the Great Houses.”

Breeze nodded. “If Venture falls, the entire Final Empire would feel the tremors.”

Vin sat quietly for a moment. “They’re not all bad people,” she finally said.

“Perhaps,” Kelsier said. “But Lord Straff Venture certainly is, and his family sits at the very head of the Final Empire. House Venture needs to go – and you already have an in with one of its most important members.”

I thought you wanted me to stay away from Elend, she thought with annoyance.

“Just keep your ears open, child,” Breeze said. “See if you can get the lad to talk about his house’s finances. Find us a bit of leverage, and we’ll do the rest.”

Just like the games Elend hates so much. However, the executions were still fresh in her mind. That sort of thing had to be stopped. Besides – even Elend said he didn’t like his father, or his house, very much. Maybe… maybe she could find something. “I’ll see what I can do,” she said.

A knock came at the front door, answered by one of the apprentices. A few moments later, Sazed – clad in a skaa cloak to hide his features – entered the kitchen.

Kelsier checked the clock. “You’re early, Saze.”

“I try to make it a habit, Master Kelsier,” the Terrisman replied.

Dockson raised an eyebrow. “That’s a habit someone else could afford to pick up.”

Kelsier snorted. “If you’re always on time, it implies that you never have anything better you should be doing. Saze, how are the men?”

“As good as can be expected, Master Kelsier,” Sazed replied. “But they can’t hide in the Renoux warehouses forever.”

“I know,” Kelsier said. “Dox, Ham, I’ll need you to work on this problem. There are two thousand men left from our army; I want you to get them into Luthadel.”

Dockson nodded thoughtfully. “We’ll find a way.”

“You want us to keep training them?” Ham asked.

Kelsier nodded.

“Then we’ll have to hide them in squads,” he said. “We don’t have the resources to train men individually. Say… a couple hundred men per team? Hidden in slums near one another?”

“Make sure none of the teams know about the others,” Dockson said. “Or even that we still intend to strike at the palace. With that many men in town, there’s a chance some of them will eventually get taken by the obligators for one reason or another.”

Kelsier nodded. “Tell each group that it’s the only one that didn’t get disbanded, and that it’s being retained just in case it’s needed at some point in the future.”

“You also said that recruitment needed to be continued,” Ham said.

Kelsier nodded. “I’d like at least twice as many troops before we try and pull this off.”

“That’s going to be tough,” Ham said, “considering our army’s failure.”

“What failure?” Kelsier asked. “Tell them the truth – that our army successfully neutralized the Garrison.”

“Though most of them died doing it,” Ham said.

“We can gloss over that part,” Breeze said. “The people will be angry at the executions – that should make them more willing to listen to us.”

“Gathering more troops is going to be your main task over the next few months, Ham,” Kelsier said.

“That’s not much time,” Ham said. “But, I’ll see what I can do.”

“Good,” Kelsier said. “Saze, did the note come?”

“It did, Master Kelsier,” Sazed said, pulling a letter from beneath his cloak and handing it to Kelsier.

“And what would that be?” Breeze asked curiously.

“A message from Marsh,” Kelsier said, opening the letter and scanning its contents. “He’s in the city, and he has news.”

“What news?” Ham asked.

“He doesn’t say,” Kelsier said, grabbing a baywrap. “But he gave instructions on where to meet him tonight.” He walked over, picking up a regular skaa cloak. “I’m going to go scout the location before it gets dark. Coming, Vin?”

She nodded, standing.

“The rest of you keep working on the plan,” Kelsier said. “In two months’ time, I want this city to be so tense that when it finally breaks, even the Lord Ruler won’t be able to hold it together.”

“There’s something you’re not telling us, isn’t there?” Vin said, looking away from the window, turning toward Kelsier. “A part of the plan.”

Kelsier glanced over at her in the darkness. Marsh’s chosen meeting place was an abandoned building within the Twists, one of the most impoverished skaa slums. Kelsier had located a second abandoned building across from the one they would meet in, and he and Vin waited on the top floor, watching the street for signs of Marsh.

“Why do you ask me that?” Kelsier finally said.

“Because of the Lord Ruler,” Vin said, picking at the rotting wood of her windowsill. “I felt his power today. I don’t think the others could sense it, not like a Mistborn can. But I know you must have.” She looked up again, meeting Kelsier’s eyes. “You’re still planning to get him out of the city before we try to take the palace, right?”

“Don’t worry about the Lord Ruler,” Kelsier said. “The Eleventh Metal will take care of him.”

Vin frowned. Outside, the sun was setting in a fiery blaze of frustration. The mists would come soon, and supposedly Marsh would arrive a short time later.

The Eleventh Metal, she thought, remembering the skepticism with which the other crewmembers regarded it. “Is it real?” Vin asked.

“The Eleventh Metal? Of course it is – I showed it to you, remember?”

“That’s not what I mean,” she said. “Are the legends real? Are you lying?”

Kelsier turned toward her, frowning slightly. Then he smirked. “You’re a very blunt girl, Vin.”

“I know.”

Kelsier’s smile deepened. “The answer is no. I’m not lying. The legends are real, though it took some time for me to find them.”

“And that bit of metal you showed us really is the Eleventh Metal?”

“I think so,” Kelsier said.

“But you don’t know how to use it.”

Kelsier paused, then shook his head. “No. I don’t.”

“That’s not very comforting.”

Kelsier shrugged, turning to look out the window. “Even if I don’t discover the secret in time, I doubt the Lord Ruler will be as big a problem as you think. He’s a powerful Allomancer, but he doesn’t know everything – if he did, we’d be dead right now. He’s not omnipotent, either – if he were, he wouldn’t have needed to execute all of those skaa to try and frighten the city into submission.

“I don’t know what he is – but I think he’s more like a man than he is a god. The words in that logbook… they’re the words of a regular person. His real power comes from his armies and his wealth. If we remove them, he won’t be able to do anything to stop his empire from collapsing.”

Vin frowned. “He might not be a god, but… he’s something, Kelsier. Something different. Today, when he was in the square, I could feel his touch on my emotions even when I was burning copper.”

“That’s not possible, Vin,” Kelsier said with a shake of his head. “If it were, Inquisitors would be able to sense Allomancy even when there was a Smoker nearby. If that were the case, don’t you think they’d hunt down all of the skaa Mistings and kill them?”

Vin shrugged.

“You know the Lord Ruler is strong,” Kelsier said, “and you feel like you should still be able to sense him. So you do.”

Maybe he’s right, she thought, picking off another bit of the windowsill. He’s been an Allomancer for far longer than I have, after all.

But… I felt something, didn’t I? And the Inquisitor that nearly killed me – somehow, he found me in the darkness and rain. He must have sensed something.

She let the matter drop, however. “The Eleventh Metal. Couldn’t we just try it and see what it does?”

“It’s not that simple,” Kelsier said. “You remember how I told you never to burn a metal that wasn’t one of the ten?”

Vin nodded.

“Burning another metal can be deadly,” Kelsier said. “Even getting the wrong mixture in an alloy metal can make you sick. If I’m wrong about the Eleventh Metal…”

“It will kill you,” Vin said quietly.

Kelsier nodded.

So, you’re not quite as certain as you pretend, she decided. Otherwise, you’d have tried it by now.

“That’s what you want to find in the logbook,” Vin said. “A clue about how to use the Eleventh Metal.”

Kelsier nodded. “I’m afraid we weren’t very lucky in that respect. So far, the logbook hasn’t even mentioned Allomancy.”

“Though it does talk about Feruchemy,” Vin said.

Kelsier eyed her as he stood by his window, one shoulder leaning against the wall. “So Sazed told you about that?”

Vin glanced down. “I… kind of forced him to.”

Kelsier chuckled. “I wonder what I’ve unleashed upon the world by teaching you Allomancy. Of course, my trainer said the same thing about me.”

“He was right to worry.”

“Of course he was.”

Vin smiled. Outside, the sunlight was nearly gone, and diaphanous patches of mist were beginning to form in the air. They hung like ghosts, slowly growing larger, extending their influence as night approached.

“Sazed didn’t have time to tell me much about Feruchemy,” Vin said carefully. “What kind of things can it do?” She waited in trepidation, assuming that Kelsier would see through her lie.

“Feruchemy is completely internal,” Kelsier said in an offhand voice. “It can provide some of the same things we get from pewter and tin – strength, endurance, eyesight – but each attribute has to be stored separately. It can enhance a lot of other things too – things that Allomancy can’t do. Memory, physical speed, clarity of thought… even some strange things, like physical weight or physical age, can be altered by Feruchemy.”

“So, it’s more powerful than Allomancy?” Vin said.

Kelsier shrugged. “Feruchemy doesn’t have any external powers – it can’t Push and Pull emotions, nor can it Steelpush or Ironpull. And, the biggest limitation to Feruchemy is that you have to store up all of its abilities by drawing them from your own body.

“Want to be twice as strong for a time? Well, you have to spend several hours being weak to store up the strength. If you want to store up the ability to heal quickly, you have to spend a great deal of time feeling sick. In Allomancy, the metals themselves are our fuel – we can generally keep going as long as we have enough metal to burn. In Feruchemy, the metals are just storage devices – your own body is the real fuel.”

“So, you just steal someone else’s storage metals, right?” Vin said.

Kelsier shook his head. “Doesn’t work – Feruchemists can only access metal stores they themselves created.”

“Oh.”

Kelsier nodded. “So, no. I wouldn’t say that Feruchemy is more powerful than Allomancy. They both have advantages and limitations. For instance, an Allomancer can only flare a metal so high, and so his maximum strength is bounded. Feruchemists don’t have that kind of limitation; if a Feruchemist had enough strength stored up to be twice as strong as normal for an hour, he could choose instead to be three times as strong for a shorter period of time – or even four, five, or six times as strong for even shorter periods.”

Vin frowned. “That sounds like a pretty big advantage.”

“True,” Kelsier said, reaching inside of his cloak and pulling out a vial containing several beads of atium. “But we have this. It doesn’t matter if a Feruchemist is as strong as five men or as strong as fifty men – if I know what he’s going to do next, I’ll beat him.”

Vin nodded.

“Here,” Kelsier said, unstoppering the vial and pulling out one of the beads. He took out another vial, this one filled with the normal alcohol solution, and dropped the bead in it. “Take one of these. You might need it.”

“Tonight?” Vin asked, accepting the vial.

Kelsier nodded.

“But, it’s just Marsh.”

“It might be,” he said. “Then again, maybe the obligators caught him and forced him to write that letter. Maybe they’re following him, or maybe they’ve since captured him and have tortured him to find out about the meeting. Marsh is in a very dangerous place – think about trying to do the same thing you’re doing at those balls, except exchange all the noblemen for obligators and Inquisitors.”

Vin shivered. “I guess you have a point,” she said, tucking away the bead of atium. “You know, something must be wrong with me – I barely even stop to think how much this stuff is worth anymore.”

Kelsier didn’t respond immediately. “I have trouble forgetting how much it’s worth,” he said quietly.

“I…” Vin trailed off, glancing down at his hands. He usually wore long-sleeved shirts and gloves now; his reputation was making it dangerous for his identifying scars to be visible in public. Vin knew they were there, however. Like thousands of tiny white scratches, layered one over the other.

“Anyway,” Kelsier said, “you’re right about the logbook – I had hoped that it would mention the Eleventh Metal. But, Allomancy isn’t even mentioned in reference to Feruchemy. The two powers are similar in many respects; you’d think that he would compare them.”

“Maybe he worried that someone would read the book, and didn’t want to give away that he was an Allomancer.”

Kelsier nodded. “Maybe. It’s also possible that he hadn’t Snapped yet. Whatever happened in those Terris Mountains changed him from hero to tyrant; maybe it also awakened his powers. We won’t know, I guess, until Saze finishes his translation.”

“Is he close?”

Kelsier nodded. “Just a bit left – the important bit, hopefully. I feel a little frustrated with the text so far. The Lord Ruler hasn’t even told us what he is supposed to accomplish in those mountains! He claims that he’s doing something to protect the entire world, but that might just be his ego coming through.”

He didn’t seem very egotistical in the text to me, Vin thought. Kind of the opposite, actually.

“Regardless,” Kelsier said, “we’ll know more once the last few sections are translated.”

It was growing dark outside, and Vin had to turn up her tin to see properly. The street outside her window grew visible, adopting the strange mixture of shadow and luminance that was the result of tin-enhanced vision. She knew it was dark, logically. Yet, she could still see. Not as she did in regular light – everything was muted – but it was sight nonetheless.

Kelsier checked his pocket watch.

“How long?” Vin asked.

“Another half hour,” Kelsier said. “Assuming he’s on time – and I doubt he will be. He is my brother, after all.”

Vin nodded, shifting so that she leaned with arms crossed across the broken windowsill. Though it was a very small thing, she felt a comfort in having the atium Kelsier had given her.

She paused. Thinking of atium reminded her of something important. Something she’d been bothered by on several occasions. “You never taught me the ninth metal!” she accused, turning.

Kelsier shrugged. “I told you that it wasn’t very important.”

“Still. What is it? Some alloy of atium, I assume?”

Kelsier shook his head. “No, the last two metals don’t follow the same pattern as the basic eight. The ninth metal is gold.”

“Gold?” Vin asked. “That’s it? I could have tried it a long time ago on my own!”

Kelsier chuckled. “Assuming you wanted to. Burning gold is a somewhat… uncomfortable experience.”

Vin narrowed her eyes, then turned to look back out the window. We’ll see, she thought.

“You’re going to try it anyway, aren’t you?” Kelsier said, smiling.

Vin didn’t respond.

Kelsier sighed, reaching into his sash and pulling out a golden boxing and a file. “You should probably get one of these,” he said, holding up the file. “However, if you collect a metal yourself, burn just a tiny bit first to make certain that it’s pure or alloyed correctly.”

“If it isn’t?” Vin asked.

“You’ll know,” Kelsier promised, beginning to file away at the coin. “Remember that headache you had from pewter dragging?”

“Yes?”

“Bad metal is worse,” Kelsier said. “Far worse. Buy your metals when you can – in every city, you’ll find a small group of merchants who provide powdered metals to Allomancers. Those merchants have a vested interest in making certain that all of their metals are pure – a grumpy Mistborn with a headache isn’t exactly the kind of slighted customer one wants to deal with.” Kelsier finished filing, then collected a few flakes of gold on a small square of cloth. He stuck one on his finger, then swallowed it.

“This is good,” he said, handing her the cloth. “Go ahead – just remember, burning the ninth metal is a strange experience.”

Vin nodded, suddenly feeling a bit apprehensive. You’ll never know if you don’t try it for yourself, she thought, then dumped the dustlike flakes into her mouth. She washed them down with a bit of water from her flask.

A new metal reserve appeared within her – unfamiliar and different from the nine she knew. She looked up at Kelsier, took a breath, and burned gold.

She was in two places at once. She could see herself, and she could see herself.

One of her was a strange woman, changed and transformed from the girl she had always been. That girl had been careful and cautious – a girl who would never burn an unfamiliar metal based solely on the word of one man. This woman was foolish; she had forgotten many of the things that had let her survive so long. She drank from cups prepared by others. She fraternized with strangers. She didn’t keep track of the people around her. She was still far more careful than most people, but she had lost so much.

The other her was something she had always secretly loathed. A child, really. Thin to the point of scrawniness, she was lonely, hateful, and untrusting. She loved no one, and no one loved her. She always told herself, quietly, that she didn’t care. Was there something worth living for? There had to be. Life couldn’t be as pathetic as it seemed. Yet, it had to be. There wasn’t anything else.

Vin was both. She stood in two places, moving both bodies, being both girl and woman. She reached out with hesitant, uncertain hands – one each – and touched herself on the faces, one each.

Vin gasped, and it was gone. She felt a sudden rush of emotions, a sense of worthlessness and confusion. There were no chairs in the room, so she simply squatted to the ground, sitting with her back to the wall, knees pulled up, arms wrapped around them.

Kelsier walked over, squatting down to lay a hand on her shoulder. “It’s all right.”

“What was that?” she whispered.

“Gold and atium are complements, like the other metal pairs,” Kelsier said. “Atium lets you see, marginally, into the future. Gold works in a similar way, but it lets you see into the past. Or, at least, it gives you a glimpse of another version of yourself, had things been different in the past.”

Vin shivered. The experience of being both people at once, of seeing herself twice over, had been disturbingly eerie. Her body still shook, and her mind didn’t feel… right anymore.

Fortunately, the sensation seemed to be fading. “Remind me to listen to you in the future,” she said. “Or, at least, when you talk about Allomancy.”

Kelsier chuckled. “I tried to put it out of your mind for as long as possible. But, you had to try it sometime. You’ll get over it.”

Vin nodded. “It’s… almost gone already. But, it wasn’t just a vision, Kelsier. It was real. I could touch her, the other me.”

“It may feel that way,” Kelsier said. “But she wasn’t here – I couldn’t see her, at least. It’s an hallucination.”

“Atium visions aren’t just hallucinations,” Vin said. “The shadows really do show what people will do.”

“True,” Kelsier said. “I don’t know. Gold is strange, Vin. I don’t think anybody understands it. My trainer, Gemmel, said that a gold shadow was a person who didn’t exist – but could have. A person you might have become, had you not made certain choices. Of course, Gemmel was a bit screwy, so I’m not sure how much I’d believe of what he said.”

Vin nodded. However, it was unlikely that she’d find out more about gold anytime soon. She didn’t intend to ever burn it again, if she could help it. She continued to sit, letting her emotions recover for a while, and Kelsier moved back over by the window. Eventually, he perked up.

“He’s here?” Vin asked, crawling to her feet.

Kelsier nodded. “You want to stay here and rest some more?”

Vin shook her head.

“All right, then,” he said, placing his pocket watch, file, and other metals on the windowsill. “Let’s go.”

They didn’t go out the window – Kelsier wanted to maintain a low profile, though this section of the Twists was so deserted that Vin wasn’t sure why he bothered. They left the building via a set of untrustworthy stairs, then crossed the street in silence.

The building Marsh had chosen was even more run-down than the one Vin and Kelsier had been sitting in. The front door was gone, though Vin could see remnants of it in the splintered refuse on the floor. The room inside smelled of dust and soot, and she had to stifle a sneeze.

A figure standing on the far side of the room spun at the sound. “Kell?”

“It’s me,” Kelsier said. “And Vin.”

As Vin drew closer, she could see Marsh squinting in the darkness. It was odd to watch him, feeling like she was in plain sight, yet knowing that to him she and Kelsier were nothing more than shadows. The far wall of the building had collapsed, and mist floated freely in the room, nearly as dense as it was outside.

“You have Ministry tattoos!” Vin said, staring at Marsh.

“Of course,” Marsh said, his voice as stern as ever. “I had them put on before I met up with the caravan. I had to have them to play the part of an acolyte.”

They weren’t extensive – he was playing a low-ranked obligator – but the pattern was unmistakable. Dark lines, rimming the eyes, running outward like crawling cracks of lightning. There was one, single line – much thicker, and in bright red, running down the side of his face. Vin recognized the pattern: These were the lines of an obligator who belonged to the Canton of Inquisition. Marsh hadn’t just infiltrated the Ministry, he’d chosen the most dangerous section of it to infiltrate.

“But, you’ll always have them,” Vin said. “They’re so distinctive – everywhere you go, you’ll be known as either an obligator or a fraud.”

“That was part of the price he paid to infiltrate the Ministry, Vin,” Kelsier said quietly.

“It doesn’t matter,” Marsh said. “I didn’t have much of a life before this anyway. Look, can we hurry? I’m expected to be somewhere soon. Obligators lead busy lives, and I only have a few minutes’ leeway.”

“All right,” Kelsier said. “I assume your infiltration went well, then?”

“It went fine,” Marsh said tersely. “Too well, actually – I think I might have distinguished myself from the group. I assumed that I would be at a disadvantage, since I didn’t have the same five years of training that the other acolytes did. I made certain to answer questions as thoroughly as possible, and to perform my duties with precision. However, I apparently know more about the Ministry than even some of its members do. I’m certainly more competent than this batch of newcomers, and the prelans have noticed that.”

Kelsier chuckled. “You always were an overachiever.”

Marsh snorted quietly. “Anyway, my knowledge – not to mention my skill as a Seeker – has already earned me an outstanding reputation. I’m not sure how closely I want the prelans paying attention to me; that background we devised begins to sound a bit flimsy when an Inquisitor is grilling you.”

Vin frowned. “You told them that you’re a Misting?”

“Of course I did,” Marsh said. “The Ministry – particularly the Canton of Inquisition – recruits noblemen Seekers diligently. The fact that I’m one is enough to keep them from asking too many questions about my background. They’re happy enough to have me, despite the fact that I’m a fair bit older than most acolytes.”

“Besides,” Kelsier said, “he needed to tell them he was a Misting so that he could get into the more secretive Ministry sects. Most of the higher-ranking obligators are Mistings of one sort or another. They tend to favor their own kind.”

“With good reason,” Marsh said, speaking quickly. “Kell, the Ministry is far more competent than we assumed.”

“What do you mean?”

“They make use of their Mistings,” Marsh said. “Good use of them. They have bases throughout the city – Soothing stations, as they call them. Each one contains a couple of Ministry Soothers whose only duty is to extend a dampening influence around them, calming and depressing the emotions of everyone in the area.”

Kelsier hissed quietly. “How many?”

“Dozens,” Marsh said. “Concentrated in skaa sections of the city. They know that the skaa are beaten, but they want to make sure things stay that way.”

“Bloody hell!” Kelsier said. “I always thought that the skaa inside Luthadel seemed more beaten down than others. No wonder we had so much trouble recruiting. The people’s emotions are under a constant Soothing!”

Marsh nodded. “The Ministry Soothers are good, Kell – very good. Even better than Breeze. All they do is Soothe all day, every day. And, since they’re not trying to get you to do anything specific – instead just keeping you from extreme emotional ranges – they’re very hard to notice.

“Each team has a Smoker to keep them hidden, as well as a Seeker to watch for passing Allomancers. I’ll bet this is where the Inquisitors get a lot of their leads – most of our people are smart enough not to burn when they know that there’s an obligator in the area, but they’re more lax in the slums.”

“Can you get us a list of the stations?” Kelsier asked. “We need to know where those Seekers are, Marsh.”

Marsh nodded. “I’ll try. I’m on my way to a station right now – they always do personnel changes at night, to maintain their secret. The upper ranks have taken an interest in me, and they’re letting me visit some stations to become familiar with their work. I’ll see if I can get a list for you.”

Kelsier nodded in the darkness.

“Just… don’t be stupid with the information, all right?” Marsh said. “We have to be careful, Kell. The Ministry has kept these stations secret for quite some time. Now that we know about them, we have a serious advantage. Don’t waste it.”

“I won’t,” Kelsier promised. “What about the Inquisitors? Did you find anything out about them?”

Marsh stood quietly for a moment. “They’re… strange, Kell. I don’t know. They seem to have all of the Allomantic powers, so I assume that they were once Mistborn. I can’t find out much else about them – though I do know that they age.”

“Really?” Kelsier said with interest. “So, they’re not immortal?”

“No,” Marsh said. “The obligators say that Inquisitors change occasionally. The creatures are very long-lived, but they do eventually die of old age. New ones must be recruited from noblemen ranks. They’re people, Kell – they’ve just been… changed.”

Kelsier nodded. “If they can die of old age, then there’s probably other ways to kill them too.”

“That’s what I think,” Marsh said. “I’ll see what I can find, but don’t get your hopes up. The Inquisitors don’t have many dealings with normal obligators – there’s political tension between the two groups. The lord prelan leads the church, but the Inquisitors think that they should be in charge.”

“Interesting,” Kelsier said slowly. Vin could practically hear his mind working on the new information.

“Anyway, I should go,” Marsh said. “I had to jog all the way here, and I’m going to be late getting to my appointment anyway.”

Kelsier nodded, and Marsh began to move away, picking his way over the rubble in his dark obligator’s robe.

“Marsh,” Kelsier said as Marsh reached the doorway.

Marsh turned.

“Thank you,” Kelsier said. “I can only guess how dangerous this is.”

“I’m not doing this for you, Kell,” Marsh said. “But… I appreciate the sentiment. I’ll try and send you another missive once I have more information.”

“Be careful,” Kelsier said.

Marsh vanished out into the misty night. Kelsier stood in the fallen room for a few minutes, staring after his brother.

He wasn’t lying about that either, Vin thought. He really does care for Marsh.

“Let’s go,” Kelsier said. “We should get you back to Mansion Renoux – House Lekal is throwing another party in a few days, and you’ll need to be there.”

28

KEEP LEKAL’S BALLROOM WAS SHAPED like the inside of a pyramid. The dance floor was set on a waist-high platform at the very center of the room, and the dining tables sat on four similar platforms surrounding it. Servants scuttled through the trenches running between the platforms, delivering food to the dining aristocrats.

Four tiers of balconies ran along the inside perimeter of the pyramidal room, each one a little closer to the point at the top, each one extending just a little bit more over the dance floor. Though the main room was well lit, the balconies themselves were shadowed by their overhangs. The design was intended to allow proper viewing of the keep’s most distinctive artistic feature – the small stained-glass windows that lined each balcony.

Lekal noblemen bragged that while other keeps had larger windows, Keep Lekal had the most detailed ones. Vin had to admit that they were impressive. She’d seen so many stained-glass windows over the last few months that she was beginning to take them for granted. Keep Lekal’s windows, however, put most of them to shame. Each of these was an extravagant, detailed marvel of resplendent color. Exotic animals pranced, distant landscapes enticed, and portraits of famous noblemen sat proudly.

There were also, of course, the requisite pictures dedicated to the Ascension. Vin could recognize these more easily now, and she was surprised to see references to things she had read in the logbook. The hills of emerald green. The steep mountains, with faint wavelike lines coming from the tips. A deep, dark lake. And… blackness. The Deepness. A chaotic thing of destruction.

He defeated it, Vin thought. But… what was it? Perhaps the end of the logbook would reveal more.

Vin shook her head, leaving the alcove – and its black window – behind. She strolled along the second balcony, wearing a pure white gown – an outfit she would never have been able to even imagine during her life as a skaa. Ash and soot had been too much a part of her life, and she didn’t think she’d even had a concept of what a pristine white looked like. That knowledge made the dress even more wondrous to her. She hoped she would never lose that – the sense within herself of how life had been before. It made her appreciate what she had so much more than the real nobility seemed to.

She continued along the balcony, seeking her prey. Glittering colors shone from backlit windows, sparkling light across the floor. Most of the windows glowed inside small viewing alcoves along the balcony, and so the balcony before her was interspersed with pockets of dark and color. Vin didn’t stop to study any more of the windows; she’d done quite a bit of that during her first balls at Keep Lekal. This night she had business to attend to.

She found her quarry halfway down the east balcony walkway. Lady Kliss was speaking with a group of people, so Vin paused, pretending to study a window. Kliss’s group soon broke up – one could generally only take so much of Kliss at a time. The short woman began to walk along the balcony toward Vin.

When she drew close, Vin turned, as if in surprise. “Why, Lady Kliss! I haven’t seen you all evening.”

Kliss turned eagerly, obviously excited by the prospect of another person with whom to gossip. “Lady Valette!” she said, waddling forward. “You missed Lord Cabe’s ball last week! Not due to a relapse of your earlier malady, I hope?”

“No,” Vin said. “I spent that evening dining with my uncle.”

“Oh,” Kliss said, disappointed. A relapse would have made a better story. “Well, that’s good.”

“I hear you have some interesting news about Lady Tren-Pedri Delouse,” Vin said carefully. “I myself have heard some interesting things lately.” She eyed Kliss, implying that she’d be willing to trade tidbits.

“Oh, that!” Kliss said eagerly. “Well, I heard that Tren-Pedri isn’t at all interested in a union with House Aime, though her father is implying that there will be a wedding soon. You know how the Aime sons are, though. Why, Fedren is an absolute buffoon.”

Inwardly, Vin rolled her eyes. Kliss just kept on talking, not even noticing that Vin had something she herself wanted to share. Using subtlety on this woman is about as effective as trying to sell bathwater perfumes to a plantation skaa.

“That is interesting,” Vin said, interrupting Kliss. “Perhaps Tren-Pedri’s hesitance comes because of House Aime’s connection to House Hasting.”

Kliss paused. “Why would that be?”

“Well, we all know what House Hasting is planning.”

“We do?” Kliss asked.

Vin pretended to look embarrassed. “Oh. Perhaps that isn’t known yet. Please, Lady Kliss, forget that I said anything.”

“Forget?” Kliss said. “Why, it’s already forgotten. But, come now, you can’t just stop. What do you mean?”

“I shouldn’t say,” Vin said. “It’s just something I overheard my uncle talking about.”

“Your uncle?” Kliss asked, growing more eager. “What did he say? You know that you can trust me.”

“Well…” Vin said. “He said that House Hasting was relocating a lot of resources back to its plantations in the Southern Dominance. My uncle was quite happy – Hasting has withdrawn from some of its contracts, and my uncle was hoping to get them instead.”

“Relocating…” Kliss said. “Why, they wouldn’t do that unless they were planning to withdraw from the city…”

“Could you blame them?” Vin asked quietly. “I mean, who wants to risk what happened to House Tekiel?”

“Who indeed…” Kliss said. She was practically shaking with eagerness to go share the news.

“Anyway, please, this is obviously only hearsay,” Vin said. “You probably shouldn’t tell anyone about it.”

“Of course,” Kliss said. “Um… excuse me. I need to go refresh myself.”

“Of course,” Vin said, watching the woman zip away toward the balcony stairs.

Vin smiled. House Hasting was making no such preparations, of course; Hasting was one of the strongest families in the city, and wouldn’t likely withdraw. However, Dockson was back at the shop forging documents which, when delivered to the right places, would imply that Hasting was planning to do what Vin had said.

If all went well, the entire city would soon expect a Hasting withdrawal. Their allies would plan for it, and might even begin to withdraw themselves. People seeking to buy weapons would instead look to other places, fearing that Hasting wouldn’t be able to make good on contracts once it left. When Hasting didn’t withdraw, it would make them look indecisive. Their allies gone, their income weakened, they could very well be the next house to fall.

House Hasting, however, was one of the easy ones to work against. It had a reputation for extreme subterfuge, and people would believe that it was planning a secret retreat. In addition, Hasting was a strong mercantile house – meaning it depended a great deal upon its contracts to survive. A house with such an obvious, dominating source of income also had an obvious weakness. Lord Hasting had worked hard to increase his house’s influence over the last few decades, and in doing so he had extended his house’s resources to their limits.

Other houses were far more stable. Vin sighed, turning and strolling down the walkway, eyeing the massive clock set between the balconies on the other side of the chamber.

Venture would not fall easily. It remained powerful through the sheer force of fortune; though it participated in some contracts, it didn’t rely on them like other houses. Venture was rich enough, and powerful enough, that even mercantile disaster would only jostle it.

In a way, Venture’s stability was a good thing – for Vin, at least. The house had no obvious weaknesses, so maybe the crew wouldn’t be too disappointed when she couldn’t discover any way to bring it down. After all, they didn’t absolutely need to destroy House Venture; doing so would simply make the plan go more smoothly.

Whatever happened, Vin had to make sure that Venture didn’t suffer the same fate as House Tekiel. Their reputation destroyed, their finances unhinged, the Tekiel had tried to pull out of the city – and this final show of weakness had been too much. Some of Tekiel’s nobility had been assassinated before they left; the rest had been found in the burned-out ruins of their canal boats, apparently hit by bandits. Vin, however, knew of no thieving band who would dare slaughter so many noblemen.

Kelsier still hadn’t been able to discover which house was behind the murders, but the Luthadel nobility didn’t seem to care who the culprit was. House Tekiel had allowed itself to grow weak, and nothing was more embarrassing to the aristocracy than a Great House that couldn’t maintain itself. Kelsier had been right: Though polite groups met at balls, the nobility were more than willing to stab each other square in the chest if it benefited them.

Kind of like thieving crews, she thought. The nobility really aren’t that different from the people I grew up around.

The atmosphere was only made more dangerous by its polite niceties. Underneath that front were plots, assassinations, and – perhaps most importantly – Mistborn. It was no accident that all of the balls she had attended recently had displayed great numbers of guards, both wearing armor and not. The parties now served the additional purpose of warning and showing strength.

Elend is safe, she told herself. Despite what he thinks of his family, they’ve done a good job of maintaining their place in the Luthadel hierarchy. He’s the heir – they’ll protect him from assassins.

She wished those assertions sounded just a bit more convincing. She knew that Shan Elariel was planning something. House Venture might be safe, but Elend himself was a little bit… oblivious sometimes. If Shan did something against him personally, it might or might not be a major blow against House Venture – but it would certainly be a major blow against Vin.

“Lady Valette Renoux,” a voice said. “I do believe that you’re late.”

Vin turned to see Elend lounging in an alcove to her left. She smiled, glancing down at the clock, noticing that it was indeed a few minutes past the time when she had promised to meet him. “I must be picking up bad habits from some friends of mine,” she said, stepping into the alcove.

“Now, see, I didn’t say it was a bad thing,” Elend said, smiling. “Why, I’d say that it is a lady’s courtly duty to be a bit dilatory. It does gentlemen good to be forced to wait upon a woman’s whims – or, so my mother was always fond of telling me.”

“It sounds like she was a wise woman,” Vin said. The alcove was just large enough for two people standing sideways. She stood across from him, the balcony overhang a short distance to her left, a marvelous lavender window to her right, their feet nearly touching.

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” Elend said. “She married my father, after all.”

“Thereby joining the most powerful house in the Final Empire. You can’t do much better than that – though, I suppose she could have tried to marry the Lord Ruler. Last I knew, though, he wasn’t in the market for a wife.”

“Pity,” Elend said. “Maybe he’d look a little less depressed if there were a woman in his life.”

“I guess that would depend on the woman.” Vin glanced to the side as a small group of courtgoers strolled past. “You know, this isn’t exactly the most private location. People are giving us odd looks.”

“You’re the one who stepped in here with me,” Elend pointed out.

“Yes, well, I wasn’t thinking about the gossip we might start.”

“Let it start,” Elend said standing up straight.

“Because it will make your father angry?”

Elend shook his head. “I don’t care about that anymore, Valette.” Elend took a step forward, bringing them even closer together. Vin could feel his breath. He stood there for a moment before speaking. “I think I’m going to kiss you.”

Vin shivered slightly. “I don’t think you want to do that, Elend.”

“Why?”

“How much do you really know about me?”

“Not as much as I’d like to,” he said.

“Not as much as you need to, either,” Vin said, looking up into his eyes.

“So tell me,” he said.

“I can’t. Not right now.”

Elend stood for a moment, then nodded slightly and pulled away. He walked out onto the balcony walkway. “So, shall we go for a stroll, then?”

“Yes,” Vin said, relieved – yet just a bit disappointed as well.

“It’s for the best,” Elend said. “That alcove has absolutely terrible reading light.”

“Don’t you dare,” Vin said, eyeing the book in his pocket as she joined him on the walkway. “Read when you’re with someone else, not me.”

“But that’s how our relationship began!”

“And that’s how it could end too,” Vin said, taking his arm.

Elend smiled. They weren’t the only couple walking the balcony, and down below, other pairs spun slowly to the faint music.

It seems so peaceful. Yet, just a few days ago, many of these people stood and watched idly as women and children were beheaded.

She felt Elend’s arm, his warmth beside her. Kelsier said that he smiled so much because he felt he needed to take what joy he could in the world – to relish the moments of happiness that seemed so infrequent in the Final Empire. Strolling for a time beside Elend, Vin thought she was beginning to understand how Kelsier felt.

“Valette…” Elend said slowly.

“What?”

“I want you to leave Luthadel,” he said.

“What?”

He paused, turning to look at her. “I’ve thought about this a lot. You may not realize it, but the city is becoming dangerous. Very dangerous.”

“I know.”

“Then you know that a small house without allies has no place in the Central Dominance right now,” Elend said. “Your uncle was brave to come here and try to establish himself, but he chose the wrong time. I… I think things are going to get out of hand here very soon. When that happens, I can’t guarantee your safety.”

“My uncle knows what he’s doing, Elend.”

“This is different, Valette,” Elend said. “Entire houses are falling. The Tekiel family wasn’t slaughtered by bandits – that was the work of House Hasting. Those won’t be the last deaths we see before this is through.”

Vin paused, thinking of Shan again. “But… you’re safe, right? House Venture – it’s not like the others. It’s stable.”

Elend shook his head. “We’re even more vulnerable than the rest, Valette.”

“But, your fortune is large,” Vin said. “You don’t depend on contracts.”

“They may not be visible,” Elend said quietly, “but they’re there, Valette. We put on a good show, and the others assume that we have more than we do. However, with the Lord Ruler’s house taxings… well, the only way we maintain so much power in this city is through income. Secret income.”

Vin frowned, and Elend leaned closer, speaking almost in a whisper. “My family mines the Lord Ruler’s atium, Valette,” he said. “That’s where our wealth comes from. In a way, our stability depends almost completely on the Lord Ruler’s whims. He doesn’t like to bother collecting the atium himself, but he gets very perturbed if the delivery schedule is disrupted.”

Find out more! instinct told her. This is the secret; this is what Kelsier needs. “Oh, Elend,” Vin whispered. “You shouldn’t be telling me this.”

“Why not?” he said. “I trust you. Look, you need to understand how dangerous things are. The atium supply has been having some troubles lately. Ever since… well, something happened a few years ago. Ever since then, things have been different. My father can’t meet the Lord Ruler’s quotas, and last time that happened…”

“What?”

“Well,” Elend said, looking troubled. “Let’s just say that things could soon grow very bad for the Ventures. The Lord Ruler depends on that atium, Valette – it’s one of the prime ways he controls the nobility. A house without atium is a house that can’t defend itself from Mistborn. By keeping a large reserve, the Lord Ruler controls the market, making himself extremely wealthy. He funds his armies by making atium scarce, then selling extra bits for lavish amounts. If you knew more about the economics of Allomancy, this would probably make a lot more sense to you.”

Oh, trust me. I understand more than you think. And now I know far more than I should.

Elend paused, smiling pleasantly as an obligator strolled along the balcony walkway beside them. The obligator looked them over as he passed, eyes thoughtful within their web of tattoos.

Elend turned back to her as soon as the obligator had passed. “I want you to leave,” he repeated. “People know that I’ve paid attention to you. Hopefully, they’ll assume it was just to spite my father, but they could still try to use you. The Great Houses wouldn’t have any qualms about crushing your entire family just to get at me and my father. You have to go.”

“I’ll… think about it,” Vin said.

“There isn’t much time left for thinking,” Elend warned. “I want you to leave before you get too involved with what is going on in this city.”

I’m already involved so much more than you think. “I said I’d think about it,” she said. “Look, Elend, I think you should be more worried about yourself. I think Shan Elariel is going to try something to strike against you.”

“Shan?” Elend said with amusement. “She’s harmless.”

“I don’t think she is, Elend. You need to be more careful.”

He laughed. “Look at us… each one trying to convince the other how dreadfully dire the situation is, each one bullheadedly refusing to listen to the other.”

Vin paused, then smiled.

Elend sighed. “You’re not going to listen to me, are you? Is there anything I can do to make you leave?”

“Not right now,” she said quietly. “Look, Elend, can’t we just enjoy the time we have together? If things continue as they are, we might not have many more opportunities like this for a while.”

He paused, then finally nodded. She could see he was still troubled, but he did turn back to their walk, letting her gently take his arm again as they strolled. They walked together for a time, silent until something drew Vin’s attention. She removed her hands from his arm, instead reaching down to take his hand in her own.

He glanced at her, frowning in confusion as she tapped the ring on his finger. “It really is metal,” she said, a bit surprised, despite what she’d been told.

Elend nodded. “Pure gold.”

“Don’t you worry about…”

“Allomancers?” Elend asked. He shrugged. “I don’t know – they’re not the sort of thing that I’ve ever had to deal with. You don’t wear metal, out on the plantations?”

Vin shook her head, tapping one of the barrettes in her hair. “Painted wood,” she said.

Elend nodded. “Probably wise,” he said. “But, well, the longer you stay in Luthadel, the more you’ll realize that little we do here is done in the name of wisdom. The Lord Ruler wears metal rings – and so, therefore, does the nobility. Some philosophers think that’s all part of His plan. The Lord Ruler wears metal because he knows that the nobility will mimic him, and therefore give his Inquisitors power over them.”

“Do you agree?” Vin asked, taking his arm again as they walked. “With the philosophers, I mean?”

Elend shook his head. “No,” he said in a quieter voice. “The Lord Ruler… he’s just arrogant. I’ve read of warriors, long ago, who would run into battle without armor on, supposedly to prove how brave and strong they were. That’s how this is, I think – though admittedly on a far more subtle level. He wears metal to flaunt his power, to show how unfrightened – how unthreatened – he is by anything we could do to him.”

Well, Vin thought, he’s willing to call the Lord Ruler arrogant. Perhaps I can get him to admit a little more…

Elend paused, glancing over at the clock. “I’m afraid I don’t have a whole lot of time tonight, Valette.”

“That’s right,” Vin said. “You’ll need to go off and meet with your friends.” She glanced at him, trying to gauge his reaction.

He didn’t seem very surprised. He simply raised an eyebrow in her direction. “Indeed, I will. You’re very observant.”

“It doesn’t take much observing,” Vin said. “Anytime we’re at Keeps Hasting, Venture, Lekal, or Elariel, you run off with the same people.”

“My drinking friends,” Elend said with a smile. “An unlikely group in today’s political climate, but one that helps annoy my father.”

“What do you do at these meetings?” Vin asked.

“We talk philosophy, mostly,” Elend said. “We’re kind of a stuffy lot – which isn’t too surprising, I guess, if you know any of us. We talk about the government, about politics… about the Lord Ruler.”

“What about him?”

“Well, we don’t like some of the things he’s done with the Final Empire.”

“So you do want to overthrow him!” Vin said.

Elend gave her a strange look. “Overthrow him? What gave you that idea, Valette? He’s the Lord Ruler – he’s God. We can’t do anything about him being in charge.” He looked away as they continued to walk. “No, my friends and I, we just… wish the Final Empire could be a little different. We can’t change things now, but maybe someday – assuming we all survive the next year or so – we’ll be in positions to influence the Lord Ruler.”

“To do what?”

“Well, take those executions a few days ago,” Elend said. “I don’t see that they did any good. The skaa rebelled. In reprisal, the Ministry executed a few hundred random people. What is that going to do besides make the populace even more angry? So, next time the rebellion will be bigger. Does that mean that the Lord Ruler will order more people beheaded? How long can that continue before there just aren’t any skaa left?”

Vin walked thoughtfully. “And what would you do, Elend Venture?” she finally said. “If you were in charge.”

“I don’t know,” Elend confessed. “I’ve read a lot of books – some that I’m not supposed to – and I haven’t found any easy answers. I’m pretty certain, however, that beheading people won’t solve anything. The Lord Ruler has been around for a long time – you’d think that he’d have found a better way. But, anyway, we’ll have to continue this later…” He slowed, turning to look at her.

“Time already?” she asked.

Elend nodded. “I promised I’d meet them, and they kind of look to me. I suppose I could tell them I’ll be late…”

Vin shook her head. “Go drink with your friends. I’ll be fine – I have a few more people I need to talk to anyway.” She did need to get back to work; Breeze and Dockson had spent hours planning and preparing the lies that she was supposed to spread, and they would be waiting for her report back at Clubs’s shop after the party.

Elend smiled. “Maybe I shouldn’t worry about you so much. Who knows – considering all of your political maneuvering, maybe House Renoux will soon be the power in town, and I’ll just be a lowly beggar.”

Vin smiled, and he bowed – winking at her – then was off toward the stairs. Vin walked slowly over to the balcony railing, looking down at the people dancing and dining below.

So he’s not a revolutionary, she thought. Kelsier was right again. I wonder if he ever gets tired of that.

But still, she couldn’t feel too disappointed with Elend. Not everyone was so insane that they’d think to overthrow their god-emperor. The mere fact that Elend was willing to think for himself set him apart from the rest; he was a good man, one who deserved a woman who was worthy of his trust.

Unfortunately, he had Vin.

So House Venture secretly mines the Lord Ruler’s atium, she thought. They must be the ones who administer the Pits of Hathsin.

It was a frighteningly precarious position for a house to be in – their finances depended directly on pleasing the Lord Ruler. Elend thought that he was being careful, but Vin was worried. He wasn’t taking Shan Elariel seriously enough – of that, Vin was certain. She turned, walking intently from the balcony and down to the main floor.

She found Shan’s table easily; the woman always sat with a large group of attendant noblewomen, presiding like a lord over his plantation. Vin paused. She’d never approached Shan directly. Someone, however, needed to protect Elend; he was obviously too foolish to do it himself.

Vin strode forward. Shan’s Terrisman studied Vin as she approached. He was so different from Sazed – he didn’t have the same… spirit. This man maintained a flat expression, like some creature carved of stone. A few of the ladies shot disapproving glances toward Vin, but most of them – Shan included – ignored her.

Vin stood awkwardly beside the table, waiting for a lull in the conversation. There was none. Finally, she just took a few steps closer to Shan.

“Lady Shan?” she asked.

Shan turned with an icy glare. “I didn’t send for you, country girl.”

“Yes, but I’ve found some books like you–”

“I no longer require your services,” Shan said, turning away. “I can deal with Elend Venture on my own. Now, be a good little twit and stop bothering me.”

Vin stood, stunned. “But, your plan–”

“I said that you are no longer needed. You think I was harsh on you before, girl? That was when you were on my good side. Try annoying me now.”

Vin wilted reflexively before the woman’s demeaning gaze. She seemed… disgusted. Angry, even. Jealous?

She must have figured it out, Vin thought. She finally realized out that I’m not just playing with Elend. She knows that I care for him, and doesn’t trust me to keep her secrets.

Vin backed away from the table. Apparently, she would have to use other methods to discover Shan’s plans.

Despite what he often said, Elend Venture did not consider himself to be a rude man. He was more of a… verbal philosopher. He liked to test and turn conversation to see how people would react. Like the great thinkers of old, he pushed boundaries and experimented with unconventional methods.

Of course, he thought, holding his cup of brandy up before his eyes, inspecting it musingly, most of those old philosophers were eventually executed for treason. Not exactly the most successful role models.

His evening political conversation with his group was finished, and he had retired with several friends to Keep Lekal’s gentlemen’s lounge, a small chamber adjacent to the ballroom. It was furnished in deep green colors, and the chairs were comfortable; it would have been a nice place to read, had he been in a slightly better mood. Jastes sat across from him, puffing contentedly on his pipe. It was good to see the young Lekal looking so calm. These last few weeks had been difficult for him.

House war, Elend thought. What terrible timing. Why now? Things were going so well…

Telden returned with a refilled drink a few moments later.

“You know,” Jastes said, gesturing with his pipe, “any one of the servants in here would have brought you a new drink.”

“I felt like stretching my legs,” Telden said, settling into the third chair.

“And you flirted with no less than three women on your way back,” Jastes said. “I counted.”

Telden smiled, sipping his drink. The large man never just “sat” – he lounged. Telden could look relaxed and comfortable no matter what the situation, his sharp suits and well-styled hair enviably handsome.

Maybe I should pay just a little more attention to things like that, Elend thought to himself. Valette suffers my hair the way it is, but would she like it better if I had it styled?

Elend often intended to make his way to a stylist or tailor, but other things tended to steal his attention. He’d get lost in his studies or spend too long reading, then find himself late for his appointments. Again.

“Elend is quiet this evening,” Telden noticed. Though other groups of gentlemen sat in the dim lounge, the chairs were spread out enough to allow for private conversations.

“He’s been like that a lot, lately,” Jastes said.

“Ah, yes,” Telden said, frowning slightly.

Elend knew them well enough to take the hint. “Now, see, why must people be like this? If you have something to say, why not simply say it?”

“Politics, my friend,” Jastes said. “We are – if you haven’t noticed – noblemen.”

Elend rolled his eyes.

“All right, I’ll say it,” Jastes replied, running his hand through his hair – a nervous habit that Elend was sure contributed somewhat to the young man’s growing baldness. “You’ve been spending a lot of time with that Renoux girl, Elend.”

“There is a simple explanation for that,” Elend said. “You see, I happen to like her.”

“Not good, Elend,” Telden said with a shake of his head. “Not good.”

“Why?” Elend asked. “You seem pleased enough to ignore class variances yourself, Telden. I’ve seen you flirt with half the serving girls in the room.”

“I’m not heir to my house,” Telden said.

“And,” Jastes said, “these girls are trustworthy. My family hired these women – we know their houses, their backgrounds, and their allegiances.”

Elend frowned. “What are you implying?”

“Something’s strange about that girl, Elend,” Jastes said. He’d gone back to his normal nervous self, his pipe sitting unnoticed in its holder on the table.

Telden nodded. “She got too close to you too quickly, Elend. She wants something.”

“Like what?” Elend asked, growing annoyed.

“Elend, Elend,” Jastes said. “You can’t just avoid the game by saying you don’t want to play. It’ll find you. Renoux moved into town just as house tensions began to rise, and he brought with him an unknown scion – a girl who immediately began to woo the most important and available young man in Luthadel. Doesn’t that seem odd to you?”

“Actually,” Elend noted, “I approached her first – if only because she had stolen my reading spot.”

“But, you have to admit that it’s suspicious how quickly she latched on to you,” Telden said. “If you’re going to dabble with romance, Elend, you need to learn one thing: You can play with women if you want, but don’t let yourself get too close to them. That’s where the trouble starts.”

Elend shook his head. “Valette is different.”

The other two shared a look, then Telden shrugged, turning back to his drink. Jastes, however, sighed, then stood and stretched. “Anyway, I should probably be going.”

“One more drink,” Telden said.

Jastes shook his head, running a hand through his hair. “You know how my parents are on ball nights – if I don’t go out and bid farewell to at least some of the guests, I’ll be nagged about it for weeks.”

The younger man wished them good night, walking back toward the main ballroom. Telden sipped his drink, eyeing Elend.

“I’m not thinking about her,” Elend said testily.

“What, then?”

“The meeting tonight,” Elend said. “I’m not sure if I like how it went.”

“Bah,” the large man said with a wave of his hand. “You’re getting as bad as Jastes. What happened to the man who attended these meetings just to relax and enjoy time with his friends?”

“He’s worried,” Elend said. “Some of his friends might end up in charge of their houses sooner than he expected, and he’s worried that none of us are ready.”

Telden snorted. “Don’t be so melodramatic,” he said, smiling and winking to the serving girl who came to clear away his empty cups. “I have a feeling that this is all just going to blow over. In a few months, we’ll look back and wonder what all the fretting was about.”

Kale Tekiel won’t look back, Elend thought.

The conversation waned, however, and Telden eventually excused himself. Elend sat for a while longer, opening The Dictates of Society for another read, but he had trouble concentrating. He turned the cup of brandy in his fingers, but didn’t drink much.

I wonder if Valette’s out yet… He’d tried to find her once his meeting was over, but apparently she’d been in a private gathering of her own.

That girl, he thought lazily, is far too interested in politics for her own good. Perhaps he was just jealous – only a few months in court, and she already seemed to be more competent than he was. She was so fearless, so bold, so… interesting. She didn’t fit any of the courtly stereotypes he’d been taught to expect.

Could Jastes be right? he wondered. She certainly is different from other women, and she did imply there were things about her I didn’t know.

Elend pushed the thought out of his mind. Valette was different, true – but she was also innocent, in a way. Eager, full of wonder and spunk.

He worried about her; she obviously didn’t know how dangerous Luthadel could be. There was so much more to politics in the city than simple parties and petty intrigues. What would happen if someone decided to send a Mistborn to deal with her and her uncle? Renoux was poorly connected, and none of the court’s members would blink twice at a few assassinations in Fellise. Did Valette’s uncle know how to take the proper precautions? Did he even worry about Allomancers?

Elend sighed. He’d just have to make certain that Valette left the area. That was the only option.

By the time his carriage reached Keep Venture, Elend had decided that he’d drunk too much. He made his way up to his rooms, looking forward to his bed and pillows.

The hallway to his bedroom, however, passed by his father’s study. The door was open, and light still spilled out despite the late hour. Elend tried to walk quietly on the carpeted floor, but he’d never really been all that stealthy.

“Elend?” his father’s voice called from the study. “Come in here.”

Elend sighed quietly. Lord Straff Venture didn’t miss much. He was a Tineye – his senses were so keen that he’d probably heard Elend’s carriage approaching outside. If I don’t deal with him now, he’ll just send the servants to pester me until I come down to speak with him…

Elend turned and walked into the study. His father sat in his chair, speaking quietly with TenSoon – the Venture Kandra. Elend still wasn’t used to the creature’s most recent body, which had once belonged to a servant in the Hasting household. Elend shivered as it noticed him. It bowed, then quietly retreated from the room.

Elend leaned against the doorframe. Straff’s chair sat in front of several shelves of books – not a single one of which, Elend was confident, his father had ever read. The room was lit by two lamps, their hoods mostly closed to allow out only a bit of light.

“You attended the ball tonight,” Straff said. “What did you learn?”

Elend reached up, rubbing his forehead. “That I have a tendency to drink far too much brandy.”

Straff was not amused by the comment. He was the perfect imperial nobleman – tall, firm-shouldered, always dressed in a tailored vest and suit. “You met with that… woman again?” he asked.

“Valette? Hum, yes. Not for as long as I would have liked, though.”

“I forbade you from spending time with her.”

“Yes,” Elend said. “I remember.”

Straff’s expression darkened. He stood, walking over to the desk. “Oh, Elend,” he said. “When are you going to get over this childish temperament you have? Do you think I don’t realize that you act foolishly simply to spite me?”

“Actually, I got over my ‘childish temperament’ some time ago, Father – it just seems that my natural inclinations work even better to annoy you. I wish I had known that earlier; I could have saved a great deal of effort in my younger years.”

His father snorted, then held up a letter. “I dictated this to Staxles a short time ago. It is an acceptance of a lunch appointment with Lord Tegas tomorrow afternoon. If a house war does come, I want to make certain we are in a position to destroy the Hastings as quickly as possible, and Tegas could be a strong ally. He has a daughter. I’d like you to dine with her at the luncheon.”

“I’ll consider it,” Elend said, tapping his head. “I’m not sure what kind of state I’ll be in tomorrow morning. Too much brandy, remember?”

“You’ll be there, Elend. This is not a request.”

Elend paused. A part of him wanted to snap back at his father, to make a stand – not because he cared about where he dined, but because of something far more important.

Hasting is the second-most-powerful house in the city. If we made an allegiance with them, together we could keep Luthadel from chaos. We could stop the house war, not enflame it.

That’s what his books had done to him – they had changed him from rebellious fop into would-be philosopher. Unfortunately, he’d been a fool for so long. Was it any wonder that Straff hadn’t noticed the change in his son? Elend himself was only starting to realize it.

Straff continued to glare at him, and Elend looked away. “I’ll think about it,” he said.

Straff waved his hand dismissively, turning.

Trying to salvage something of his pride, Elend continued. “You probably don’t even have to worry about the Hastings – it seems that they’re making preparations to bolt the city.”

“What?” Straff asked. “Where did you hear that?”

“At the ball,” Elend said lightly.

“I thought you said you didn’t learn anything important.”

“Now, see, I never said anything of the sort. I just didn’t feel like sharing with you.”

Lord Venture frowned. “I don’t know why I even care – anything you learn is bound to be worthless. I tried to train you in politics, boy. I really did. But now… well, I hope I live to see you dead, because this house is in for dire times if you ever take control.”

“I know more than you think, Father.”

Straff laughed, walking back to sit in his chair. “I doubt that, boy. Why, you can’t even bed a woman properly – the last, and only, time I know about you trying it, I had to take you to the brothel myself.”

Elend flushed. Careful, he told himself. He’s bringing that up on purpose. He knows how much it bothers you.

“Get to bed, boy,” Straff said with a wave of his hand. “You look terrible.”

Elend stood for a moment, then finally ducked out into the hallway, sighing quietly to himself.

That’s the difference between you and them, Elend, he thought. Those philosophers you read – they were revolutionaries. They were willing to risk execution. You can’t even stand up to your father.

He walked tiredly up to his rooms – where, oddly, he found a servant waiting for him.

Elend frowned. “Yes?”

“Lord Elend, you have a guest,” the man said.

“At this hour?”

“It’s Lord Jastes Lekal, my lord.”

Elend cocked his head slightly. What in the Lord Ruler’s name…? “He’s waiting in the sitting room, I assume?”

“Yes, my lord,” the servant said.

Elend turned regretfully away from his chambers, walking back down the hallway. He found Jastes waiting impatiently.

“Jastes?” Elend said tiredly, walking into the sitting room. “I hope you have something very important to tell me.”

Jastes shuffled uncomfortably for a moment, looking even more nervous than normal.

“What?” Elend demanded, his patience waning.

“It’s about the girl.”

“Valette?” Elend asked. “You came here to discuss Valette? Now?”

“You should trust your friends more,” Jastes said.

Elend snorted. “Trust your knowledge of women? No offense, Jastes, but I think not.”

“I had her followed, Elend,” Jastes blurted out.

Elend paused. “What?”

“I had her carriage followed. Or, at least, I had someone watch for it at the city gates. She wasn’t in it when it left the city.”

“What do you mean?” Elend asked, his frown deepening.

“She wasn’t in the carriage, Elend,” Jastes repeated. “While her Terrisman was producing papers for the guards, my man snuck up and peeked through the carriage window, and there was nobody inside.

“The carriage must have dropped her off somewhere in town. She’s a spy from one of the other houses – they’re trying to get at your father through you. They created the perfect woman to attract you – dark-haired, a bit mysterious, and outside of the regular political structure. They made her lowborn enough that it would be a scandal for you to be interested in her, then set her on you.”

“Jastes, this is ridicu–”

“Elend,” Jastes interrupted. “Tell me one more time: How did you meet her the first time?”

Elend paused. “She was standing on the balcony.”

“In your reading spot,” Jastes said. “Everyone knows that’s where you usually go. Coincidence?”

Elend closed his eyes. Not Valette. She can’t be part of all this. But, immediately, another thought occurred to him. I told her about the atium! How could I be so stupid?

It couldn’t be true. He wouldn’t believe that he had been duped so easily. But… could he risk it? He was a bad son, true, but he was no traitor to the house. He didn’t want to see Venture fall; he wanted to lead it someday, so that perhaps he’d be able to change things.

He bid Jastes farewell, then walked back to his rooms with a distracted step. He felt too tired to think about house politics. However, when he finally got into bed, he found that he couldn’t sleep.

Eventually, he rose, sending for a servant.

“Tell my father I want to make a trade,” Elend explained to the man. “I’ll go to his luncheon tomorrow, just as he wants.” Elend paused, standing in his evening robe by his bedroom door.

“In exchange,” he finally said, “tell him I want to borrow a couple of spies so that they can follow someone for me.”

29

IT’S ALMOST OVER, VIN READ.

We can see the cavern from our camp. It will take a few more hours of hiking to reach it, but I know that it is the right place. I can feel it somehow, feel it up there… pulsing, in my mind.

It’s so cold. I swear that the rocks themselves are made of ice, and the snow is deep enough in places that we have to dig our way through. The wind blows all the time. I fear for Fedik – he hasn’t been quite the same since the creature made of mist attacked him, and I worry that he will wander off a cliffside or slip through one of the many icy rifts in the ground.

The Terrismen, however, are a wonder. It is fortunate that we brought them, for no regular packmen would have survived the trip. The Terrismen don’t seem to mind the cold – something about their strange metabolisms gives them a supernatural ability to resist the elements. Perhaps they have “saved up” heat from their bodies for later use?

They won’t talk about their powers, however – and I am sure that Rashek is to blame. The other packmen look to him for leadership, though I don’t think he has complete control over them. Before he was stabbed, Fedik feared that the Terrismen would abandon us up here in the ice. I don’t think that will happen, however. I am here by providence of Terris prophecies – these men will not disobey their own religion simply because one of their number has taken a dislike to me.

I did finally confront Rashek. He did not want to speak to me, of course, but I forced him. Unleashed, he spoke at great length regarding his hatred of Khlennium and my people. He thinks that we have turned his people into little more than slaves. He thinks that Terrismen deserve far more – he keeps saying that his people should be “dominant” because of their supernatural powers.

I fear his words, for I see some truth in them. Yesterday, one of the packmen lifted a boulder of enormous size, then tossed it out of our way with an almost casual throw. I have not seen such a feat of strength in all my days.

These Terrismen could be very dangerous, I think. Perhaps we have treated them unfairly. However, men like Rashek must be contained – he irrationally believes that all people outside of Terris have oppressed him. He is such a young man to be so angry.

It is so cold. When this is finished, I think I should like to live where it is warm all year. Braches has told of such places, islands to the south where great mountains create fire.

What will it be like, when this is all over? I will be just a regular man again. An unimportant man. It sounds nice – more desirable, even, than a warm sun and a windless sky. I am so tired of being the Hero of Ages, tired of entering cities to find either armed hostility or fanatic adoration. I am tired of being loved and hated for what a bunch of old men say I will eventually do.

I want to be forgotten. Obscurity. Yes, that would be nice.

If men read these words, let them know that power is a heavy burden. Seek not to be bound by its chains. The Terris prophecies say that I will have the power to save the world. They hint, however, that I will have the power to destroy it as well.

I will have the ability to fulfill any wish of my heart. “He will take upon himself authority that no mortal should hold.” Yet, the philosophers warned me that if I am self-serving with the power, my selfishness will taint it.

Is this a burden that any man should bear? Is this a temptation any man could resist? I feel strong now, but what will happen when I touch that power? I will save the world, certainly – but will I try to take it as well?

Such are my fears as I scribble with an ice-crusted pen on the eve before the world is reborn. Rashek watches. Hating me. The cavern lies above. Pulsing. My fingers quiver. Not from the cold.

Tomorrow, it will end.

Vin eagerly turned the page. The back page of the booklet, however, was empty. She turned it over, rereading the last few lines. Where was the next entry?

Sazed must not have finished the last part yet. She stood, sighing as she stretched. She’d finished the entire newest portion of the logbook in one sitting, a feat that surprised even her. The gardens of Mansion Renoux extended before her, the cultured pathways, broad-limbed trees, and quiet stream creating her favorite reading spot. The sun was low in the sky, and it was beginning to get chilly.

She wound her way up the path toward the mansion. Despite the chill evening, she could barely imagine a place like the one the Lord Ruler described. She had seen snow on some distant peaks, but she had rarely seen it fall – and even then it was usually just an icy slush. To experience that much snow day after day, to be in danger of having it fall upon you in great crushing avalanches…

A part of her wished that she could visit such places, no matter how dangerous. Though the logbook didn’t describe the Lord Ruler’s entire journey, some of the marvels it did include – the ice fields to the north, the great black lake, and the Terris waterfalls – sounded amazing.

If only he’d put in more detail about what things look like! she thought with annoyance. The Lord Ruler spent far too much time worrying. Though, admittedly, she was beginning to feel an odd sort of… familiarity with him through his words. She found it hard to associate the person in her mind with the dark creature that had caused so much death. What had occurred at the Well of Ascension? What could have changed him so drastically? She had to know.

She reached the mansion and went searching for Sazed. She was back to wearing dresses – it felt odd to be seen in trousers by anyone but the crewmembers. She smiled at Lord Renoux’s interior steward as she passed, eagerly climbing the main entryway stairs and seeking out the library.

Sazed wasn’t inside. His small desk sat empty, the lamp extinguished, the inkwell empty. Vin frowned in annoyance.

Wherever he is, he’d better be working on the translation!

She went back down the stairs, asking after Sazed, and a maid directed her to the main kitchen. Vin frowned, making her way down the back hallway. Getting himself a snack, perhaps?

She found Sazed standing amongst a small group of servants, pointing toward a list on the table and speaking in a low voice. He didn’t notice Vin as she entered.

“Sazed?” Vin asked, interrupting him.

He turned. “Yes, Mistress Valette?” he asked, bowing slightly.

“What are you doing?”

“I am seeing to Lord Renoux’s food stores, Mistress. Though I have been assigned to assist you, I am still his steward, and have duties to attend to when I am not otherwise occupied.”

“Are you going to get back to the translation soon?”

Sazed cocked his head. “Translation, Mistress? It is finished.”

“Where’s the last part, then?”

“I gave it to you,” Sazed said.

“No, you didn’t,” she said. “This part ends the night before they go into the cavern.”

“That is the end, Mistress. That is as far as the logbook went.”

“What?” she said. “But…”

Sazed glanced at the other servants. “We should speak of these things in private, I think.” He gave them a few more instructions, pointing at the list, then nodded for Vin to join him as he made his way out the back kitchen exit and into the side gardens.

Vin stood dumbfounded for a moment, then hurried out to join him. “It can’t end like that, Saze. We don’t know what happened!”

“We can surmise, I think,” Sazed said, walking down the garden path. The eastern gardens weren’t as lavish as the ones Vin frequented, and were instead made up of smooth brown grass and the occasional shrub.

“Surmise what?” Vin asked.

“Well, the Lord Ruler must have done what was necessary to save the world, for we are still here.”

“I suppose,” Vin said. “But then he took the power for himself. That must have been what happened – he couldn’t resist the temptation to use the power selfishly. But, why isn’t there another entry? Why wouldn’t he speak further of his accomplishments?”

“Perhaps the power changed him too much,” Sazed said. “Or, maybe he simply didn’t feel a need to record any more. He had accomplished his goal, and had become immortal as a side benefit. Keeping a journal for one’s posterity becomes somewhat redundant when one is going to live forever, I think.”

“That’s just…” Vin ground her teeth in frustration. “It’s a very unsatisfying end to a story, Sazed.”

He smiled in amusement. “Be careful, Mistress – become too fond of reading, and you may just turn into a scholar.”

Vin shook her head. “Not if all the books I read are going to end like this one!”

“If it is of any comfort,” Sazed said, “you are not the only one who is disappointed by the logbook’s contents. It didn’t contain much that Master Kelsier could use – certainly, there was nothing about the Eleventh Metal. I feel somewhat guilty, since I am the one who benefited most from the book.”

“But, there wasn’t very much about the Terris religion either.”

“Not much,” Sazed agreed. “But, truly and regretfully, ‘not much’ is far more than we knew previously. I am only worried that I will not have an opportunity to pass this information on. I have sent a translated copy of the logbook to a location where my brethren and sister Keepers will know to check – it would be a pity if this new knowledge were to die with me.”

“It won’t,” Vin said.

“Oh? Has my lady suddenly become an optimist?”

“Has my Terrisman suddenly become a smart-mouth?” Vin retorted.

“He always has been, I think,” Sazed said with a slight smile. “It is one of the things that made him a poor steward – at least, in the eyes of most of his masters.”

“Then they must have been fools,” Vin said honestly.

“So I was inclined to think, Mistress,” Sazed replied. “We should return to the mansion – we should not be seen out in the gardens when the mists arrive, I think.”

“I’m just going to go back out into them.”

“There are many of the grounds staff that do not know you are Mistborn, Mistress,” Sazed said. “It would be a good secret to keep, I think.”

“I know,” Vin said, turning. “Let’s go back then.”

“A wise plan.”

They walked for a few moments, enjoying the eastern garden’s subtle beauty. The grasses were kept carefully trimmed, and they had been arranged in pleasant tiers, the occasional shrubbery giving accent. The southern garden was far more spectacular, with its brook, trees, and exotic plants. But the eastern garden had its own peace – the serenity of simplicity.

“Sazed?” Vin said in a quiet voice.

“Yes, Mistress?”

“It’s all going to change, isn’t it?”

“What specifically do you mean?”

“Everything,” Vin said. “Even if we aren’t all dead in a year, the crewmembers will be off working on other projects. Ham will probably be back with his family, Dox and Kelsier will be planning some new escapade, Clubs will be renting his shop to another crew… Even these gardens that we’ve spent so much money on – they’ll belong to someone else.”

Sazed nodded. “What you say is likely. Though, if things go well, perhaps the skaa rebellion will be ruling Luthadel by this time next year.”

“Maybe,” Vin said. “But even still… things will change.”

“That is the nature of all life, Mistress,” Sazed said. “The world must change.”

“I know,” Vin said with a sigh. “I just wish… Well, I actually like my life now, Sazed. I like spending time with the crew, and I like training with Kelsier. I love going to balls with Elend on the weekends, love walking in these gardens with you. I don’t want these things to change. I don’t want my life to go back to the way it was a year ago.”

“It doesn’t have to, Mistress,” Sazed said. “It could change for the better.”

“It won’t,” Vin said quietly. “It’s starting already – Kelsier has hinted that my training is almost finished. When I practice in the future, I’ll have to do it alone.

“As for Elend, he doesn’t even know that I’m skaa – and it’s my job to try and destroy his family. Even if House Venture doesn’t fall by my hand, others will bring it down – I know Shan Elariel is planning something, and I haven’t been able to discover anything about her schemes.

“That’s only the beginning, though. We face the Final Empire. We’ll probably fail – to be honest, I don’t see how things could possibly turn out otherwise. We’ll fight, we’ll do some good, but we won’t change much – and those of us who survive will spend the rest of our lives running from the Inquisitors. Everything’s going to change, Sazed, and I can’t stop it.”

Sazed smiled fondly. “Then, Mistress,” he said quietly, “simply enjoy what you have. The future will surprise you, I think.”

“Maybe,” Vin said, unconvinced.

“Ah, you just need to have hope, Mistress. Perhaps you’ve earned a little bit of good fortune. There were a group of people before the Ascension known as the Astalsi. They claimed that each person was born with a certain finite amount of ill luck. And so, when an unfortunate event happened, they thought themselves blessed – thereafter, their lives could only get better.”

Vin raised an eyebrow. “Sounds a bit simpleminded to me.”

“I do not believe so,” Sazed said. “Why, the Astalsi were rather advanced – they mixed religion with science quite profoundly. They thought that different colors were indications of different kinds of fortune, and were quite detailed in their descriptions of light and color. Why, it’s from them that we get some of our best ideas as to what things might have looked like before the Ascension. They had a scale of colors, and used it to describe the sky of the deepest blue and various plants in their shades of green.

“Regardless, I find their philosophies regarding luck and fortune enlightened. To them, a poor life was only a sign of fortune to come. It might be a good fit for you, Mistress; you could benefit from the knowledge that your luck cannot always be bad.”

“I don’t know,” Vin said skeptically. “I mean, if your bad luck were limited, wouldn’t your good luck be limited too? Every time something good happened, I’d be worried about using it all up.”

“Hum,” Sazed said. “I suppose that depends on your viewpoint, Mistress.”

“How can you be so optimistic?” Vin asked. “You and Kelsier both.”

“I don’t know, Mistress,” Sazed said. “Perhaps our lives have been easier than yours. Or, perhaps we are simply more foolish.”

Vin fell silent. They walked for a short time longer, weaving their way back toward the building, but not rushing the walk. “Sazed,” she finally said. “When you saved me, that night in the rain, you used Feruchemy, didn’t you?”

Sazed nodded. “Indeed. The Inquisitor was very focused on you, and I was able to sneak up behind him, then hit him with a stone. I had grown many times stronger than a regular man, and my blow threw him into the wall, breaking several of his bones, I suspect.”

“Is that it?” Vin asked.

“You sound disappointed, Mistress,” Sazed noted, smiling. “You expected something more spectacular, I suppose?”

Vin nodded. “It’s just… you’ve been so quiet about Feruchemy. That makes it seem more mystical, I guess.”

Sazed sighed. “There is really little to hide from you, Mistress. The truly unique power of Feruchemy – the ability to store and recover memories – you must surely have already guessed. The rest of the powers are not different, really, from the powers granted to you by pewter and tin. A few of them are a little more odd – making a Feruchemist heavier, or changing his age – but they offer little martial application.”

“Age?” Vin said, perking up. “You could make yourself younger?”

“Not really, Mistress,” Sazed said. “Remember, a Feruchemist must draw his powers from his own body. He could, for instance, spend a few weeks with his body aged to the point that it felt and looked ten years older than he really was. Then, he could withdraw that age to make himself seem ten years younger for an equal amount of time. However, in Feruchemy, there must be a balance.”

Vin thought about that for a moment. “Does the metal you use matter?” she asked. “Like in Allomancy?”

“Most certainly,” Sazed said. “The metal determines what can be stored.”

Vin nodded and continued to walk, thinking over what he’d said. “Sazed, can I have a bit of your metal?” she finally asked.

“My metal, Mistress?”

“Something you’ve used as a Feruchemical store,” Vin said. “I want to try burning it – maybe that will let me use some of its power.”

Sazed frowned curiously.

“Has anyone ever tried it before?”

“I’m sure someone must have,” Sazed said. “But, I honestly can’t think of a specific example. Perhaps if I were to go search my memory copperminds…”

“Why not just let me try it now?” Vin asked. “Do you have something made from one of the basic metals? Something you haven’t stored anything too valuable in?”

Sazed paused, then reached up to one of his oversized earlobes and undid an earring much like the one Vin wore. He handed the earring’s tiny backing, used to hold the earring in place, to Vin. “It is pure pewter, Mistress. I have stored a moderate amount of strength in it.”

Vin nodded, swallowing the tiny stud. She felt at her Allomantic reserve, but the stud’s metal didn’t seem to do anything different. She tentatively burned pewter.

“Anything?” Sazed asked.

Vin shook her head. “No, I don’t…” She trailed off. There was something there, something different.

“What is it, Mistress?” Sazed asked, uncharacteristic eagerness sounding in his voice.

“I… can feel the power, Saze. It’s faint – far beyond my grasp – but I swear that there’s another reserve within me, one that only appears when I’m burning your metal.”

Sazed frowned. “It’s faint, you say? Like… you can see a shadow of the reserve, but can’t access the power itself?”

Vin nodded. “How do you know?”

“That’s what it feels like when you try to use another Feruchemist’s metals, Mistress,” Sazed said, sighing. “I should have suspected this would be the result. You cannot access the power because it does not belong to you.”

“Oh,” Vin said.

“Do not be too disappointed, Mistress. If Allomancers could steal strength from my people, it would already be known. It was a clever thought, however.” He turned, pointing toward the mansion. “The carriage has already arrived. We are late for the meeting, I think.”

Vin nodded, and they hurried their pace toward the mansion.

Funny, Kelsier thought to himself as he slipped across the darkened courtyard before Mansion Renoux. I have to sneak into my own house, as if I were attacking some nobleman’s keep.

There was no avoiding it, however – not with his reputation. Kelsier the thief had been distinctive enough; Kelsier the rebellion instigator and skaa spiritual leader was even more infamous. That didn’t, of course, keep him from spreading his nightly chaos – he just had to be more careful. More and more families were pulling out of the city, and the powerful houses were growing increasingly paranoid. In a way, that made manipulating them easier – but sneaking around their keeps was getting very dangerous.

In comparison, Mansion Renoux was virtually unprotected. There were guards, of course, but no Mistings. Renoux had to keep a low profile; too many Allomancers would make him stand out. Kelsier kept to the shadows, carefully making his way around to the east side of the building. Then he Pushed off a coin and guided himself up onto Renoux’s own balcony.

Kelsier landed lightly, then peeked through the glass balcony doors. The drapes were shut, but he could pick out Dockson, Vin, Sazed, Ham, and Breeze standing around Renoux’s desk. Renoux himself sat in the far corner of the room, staying out of the proceedings. His contract included playing the part of Lord Renoux, but he didn’t wish to be involved in the plan anymore than he had to.

Kelsier shook his head. It would be far too easy for an assassin to get in here. I’ll have to make sure that Vin continues to sleep at Clubs’ shop. He wasn’t worried about Renoux; the kandra’s nature was such that he didn’t need to fear an assassin’s blade.

Kelsier tapped lightly on the door, and Dockson strolled over, pulling it open.

“And he makes his stunning entry!” Kelsier announced, sweeping into the room, throwing back his mistcloak.

Dockson snorted, shutting the doors. “You’re truly a wonder to behold, Kell. Particularly the soot stains on your knees.”

“I had to do some crawling tonight,” Kelsier said, waving an indifferent hand. “There’s an unused drainage ditch that passes right under Keep Lekal’s defensive wall. You’d think they’d get that patched up.”

“I doubt they need worry,” Breeze said from beside the desk. “Most of you Mistborn are probably too proud to crawl. I’m surprised you were willing to do so yourself.”

“Too proud to crawl?” Kelsier said. “Nonsense! Why, I’d say that we Mistborn are too proud not to be humble enough to go crawling about – in a dignified manner, of course.”

Dockson frowned, approaching the desk. “Kell, that didn’t make any sense.”

“We Mistborn need not make sense,” Kelsier said haughtily. “What’s this?”

“From your brother,” Dockson said, pointing at a large map laid across the desk. “It arrived this afternoon in the hollow of a broken table leg that the Canton of Orthodoxy hired Clubs to repair.”

“Interesting,” Kelsier said, scanning the map. “It’s a list of the Soothing stations, I assume?”

“Indeed,” Breeze said. “It’s quite the discovery – I’ve never seen such a detailed, carefully drawn map of the city. Why, it not only shows every one of the thirty-four Soothing stations, but also locations of Inquisitor activity, as well as places that the different Cantons are concerned about. I haven’t had the opportunity to associate much with your brother, but I must say that the man is obviously a genius!”

“It’s almost hard to believe he’s related to Kell, eh?” Dockson said with a smile. He had a notepad before him, and was in the process of making a list of all the Soothing stations.

Kelsier snorted. “Marsh might be the genius, but I’m the handsome one. What are these numbers?”

“Inquisitor raids and dates,” Ham said. “You’ll notice that Vin’s crewhouse is listed.”

Kelsier nodded. “How in the world did Marsh manage to steal a map like this?”

“He didn’t,” Dockson said as he wrote. “There was a note with the map. Apparently, high prelans gave it to him – they’ve been very impressed with Marsh, and wanted him to look over the city and recommend locations for new Soothing stations. It seems that the Ministry is a bit worried about the house war, and they want to send out some extra Soothers to try and keep things under control.”

“We’re supposed to send the map back inside the repaired table leg,” Sazed said. “Once we are done this evening, I shall endeavor to copy it in as short a time as possible.”

And memorize it as well, thereby making it part of every Keeper’s record, Kelsier thought. The day when you’ll stop memorizing and start teaching is coming soon, Saze. I hope your people are ready.

Kelsier turned, studying the map. It was as impressive as Breeze had said. Indeed, Marsh must have taken an extremely great risk in sending it away. Perhaps a foolhardy risk, even – but the information it contained…

We’ll have to get this back quickly, Kelsier thought. Tomorrow morning, if possible.

“What is this?” Vin asked quietly, leaning across the large map and pointing. She wore a noblewoman’s dress – a pretty one-piece garment that was only slightly less ornate than a ball gown.

Kelsier smiled. He could remember a time when Vin had looked frighteningly awkward in a dress, but she seemed to have taken an increasing liking to them. She still didn’t move quite like a noble-born lady. She was graceful – but it was the dexterous grace of a predator, not the deliberate grace of a courtly lady. Still, the gowns seemed to fit Vin now – in a way that had nothing at all to do with tailoring.

Ah, Mare, Kelsier thought. You always wanted a daughter you could teach to walk the line between noblewoman and thief. They would have liked each other; they both had a hidden streak of unconventionality. Perhaps if his wife were still alive, she could have taught Vin things about pretending to be a noblewoman that even Sazed didn’t know.

Of course, if Mare were still alive, I wouldn’t be doing any of this. I wouldn’t dare.

“Look!” Vin said. “One of these Inquisitor dates is new – it’s marked as yesterday!”

Dockson shot a glance at Kelsier.

We would have had to tell her eventually anyway… “That was Theron’s crew,” Kelsier said. “An Inquisitor hit them yesterday evening.”

Vin paled.

“Should I recognize that name?” Ham asked.

“Theron’s crew was part of the team that was trying to dupe the Ministry with Camon,” Vin said. “This means… they probably still have my trail.”

The Inquisitor recognized her that night when we infiltrated the palace. He wanted to know who her father was. It’s fortunate that those inhuman things make the nobility uncomfortable – otherwise, we’d have to worry about sending her to balls.

“Theron’s crew,” Vin said. “Was… it like last time?”

Dockson nodded. “No survivors.”

There was an uncomfortable silence, and Vin looked visibly sick.

Poor kid, Kelsier thought. There was little they could do but move on, though. “All right. How are we going to use this map?”

“It has some Ministry notes on house defenses,” Ham said. “Those will be useful.”

“There doesn’t appear to be any pattern in the Inquisitor hits, however,” Breeze said. “They probably just go where the information leads them.”

“We’ll want to refrain from being too active near Soothing stations,” Dox said, lowering his pen. “Fortunately, Clubs’s shop isn’t close to any specific station – most of them are in the slums.”

“We need to do more than just avoid the stations,” Kelsier said. “We need to be ready to take them out.”

Breeze frowned. “If we do, we risk playing our hand recklessly.”

“But think of the damage it would do,” Kelsier said. “Marsh said there were at least three Soothers and a Seeker at every one of these stations. That’s a hundred and thirty Ministry Mistings – they must have recruited across the entire Central Dominance to gather those kinds of numbers. If we were to take them all out at once…”

“We’d never be able to kill that many ourselves,” Dockson said.

“We could if we used the rest of our army,” Ham said. “We’ve got them stashed throughout the slums.”

“I have a better idea,” Kelsier said. “We can hire other thieving crews. If we had ten crews, each assigned to take out three stations, we could clear the city of Ministry Soothers and Seekers in barely a few hours.”

“We’d have to discuss timing, though,” Dockson said. “Breeze is right – killing that many obligators in one evening means making a major commitment. It won’t take the Inquisitors long to retaliate.”

Kelsier nodded. You’re right, Dox. Timing will be vital. “Would you look into it? Find some appropriate crews, but wait until we decide on a time before giving them the locations of the Soothing stations.”

Dockson nodded.

“Good,” Kelsier said. “Speaking of our soldiers, Ham, how are things going with them?”

“Better than I expected, actually,” Ham said. “They went through training in the caves, and so they’re fairly competent. And, they consider themselves the more ‘faithful’ segment of the army, since they didn’t follow Yeden to battle against your will.”

Breeze snorted. “That’s a convenient way of looking past the fact that they lost three-fourths of their army in a tactical blunder.”

“They’re good men, Breeze,” Ham said firmly. “And so were those who died. Don’t speak ill of them. Regardless, I worry about hiding the army as we are – it won’t be too long before one of the teams gets discovered.”

“That’s why none of them know where to find the others,” Kelsier said.

“I do want to mention something about the men,” Breeze said, seating himself in one of Renoux’s desk chairs. “I see the importance of sending Hammond to train the soldiers – but honestly, what is the reason for forcing Dockson and myself to go and visit them?”

“The men need to know who their leaders are,” Kelsier said. “If Ham were to become indisposed, someone else will need to take command.”

“Why not you?” Breeze asked.

“Just bear with me,” Kelsier said, smiling. “It’s for the best.”

Breeze rolled his eyes. “Bear with you. We seem to do an awful lot of that…”

“Anyway,” Kelsier said. “Vin, what news from the nobility? Have you discovered anything useful about House Venture?”

She paused. “No.”

“But the ball next week will be at Keep Venture, right?” Dockson asked.

Vin nodded.

Kelsier eyed the girl. Would she even tell us if she knew? She met his eyes, and he couldn’t read a thing in them. Blasted girl’s far too experienced a liar.

“All right,” he said to her. “Keep looking.”

“I will,” she said.

Despite his fatigue, Kelsier found sleep elusive that night. Unfortunately, he couldn’t go out and roam the hallways – only certain servants knew he was at the mansion, and he needed to keep a low profile, now that his reputation was building.

His reputation. He sighed as he leaned against the balcony railing, watching the mists. In a way, the things he did worried even him. The others didn’t question him out loud, as per his request, but he could tell that they were still bothered by his growing fame.

It’s the best way. I may not need all of this… but, if I do, I’m going to be glad I went to the trouble.

A soft knock came at his door. He turned, curious, as Sazed peeked his head into the room.

“I apologize, Master Kelsier,” Sazed said. “But a guard came to me and said he could see you up on your balcony. He was worried that you’d give yourself away.”

Kelsier sighed, but backed away from the balcony, pulling the doors closed and shutting the drapes. “I’m not meant for anonymity, Saze. For a thief, I’m really not all that good at hiding.”

Sazed smiled and began to withdraw.

“Sazed?” Kelsier asked, causing the Terrisman to pause. “I can’t sleep – do you have a new proposal for me?”

Sazed smiled deeply, walking into the room. “Of course, Master Kelsier. Lately, I’ve been thinking that you should hear about the Truths of the Bennet. They fit you quite well, I think. The Bennet were a highly developed people who lived on the southern islands. They were brave seafarers and brilliant cartographers; some of the maps the Final Empire still uses were developed by Bennet explorers.

“Their religion was designed to be practiced aboard ships that were away at sea for months at a time. The captain was also their minister, and no man was allowed to command unless he had received theological training.”

“Probably weren’t very many mutinies.”

Sazed smiled. “It was a good religion, Master Kelsier. It focused on discovery and knowledge – to these people, the making of maps was a reverent duty. They believed that once all of the world was known, understood, and catalogued, men would finally find peace and harmony. Many religions teach such ideals, but few actually managed to practice them as well as the Bennet.”

Kelsier frowned, leaning back against the wall beside the balcony drapes. “Peace and harmony,” he said slowly. “I’m not really looking for either right now, Saze.”

“Ah,” Sazed said.

Kelsier looked up, staring at the ceiling. “Could you… tell me about the Valla again?”

“Of course,” Sazed said, pulling a chair over from beside Kelsier’s desk and seating himself. “What specifically would you like to know?”

Kelsier shook his head. “I’m not sure,” he said. “I’m sorry, Saze. I’m in a strange mood tonight.”

“You are always in a strange mood, I think,” Sazed said with a slight smile. “However, you choose an interesting sect to ask after. The Valla lasted longer into the Lord Ruler’s dominion than any other religion.”

“That’s why I ask,” Kelsier said. “I… need to understand what kept them going for so long, Saze. What made them keep fighting?”

“They were the most determined, I think.”

“But they didn’t have any leaders,” Kelsier said. “The Lord Ruler had slaughtered the entire Vallan religious council as part of his first conquest.”

“Oh, they had leaders, Master Kelsier,” Sazed said. “Dead ones, true, but leaders nonetheless.”

“Some men would say that their devotion didn’t make sense,” Kelsier said. “The loss of the Vallan leaders should have broken the people, not made them more determined to keep going.”

Sazed shook his head. “Men are more resilient than that, I think. Our belief is often strongest when it should be weakest. That is the nature of hope.”

Kelsier nodded.

“Did you want further instruction on the Valla?”

“No. Thanks, Saze. I just needed to be reminded that there were people who fought even when things looked hopeless.”

Sazed nodded, rising. “I think I understand, Master Kelsier. Good evening, then.”

Kelsier nodded distractedly, letting the Terrisman withdraw.

30

IT TOOK RETURNING TO THE Venture ballroom to remind Vin what true majesty was.

She’d visited so many keeps that she had begun to grow desensitized to the splendor. There was something special about Keep Venture, however – something that the other keeps strived for, but never quite achieved. It was as if Venture were the parent, and the others were well-taught children. All of the keeps were beautiful, but there was no denying which one was the finest.

The enormous Venture hall, lined by a row of massive pillars on each side, seemed even more grand than usual. Vin couldn’t quite decide why. She thought about it as she waited for a servant to take her shawl. The normal limelights shone outside the stained-glass windows, spraying the room with shards of light. The tables were immaculate beneath their pillared overhang. The lord’s table, set on the small balcony at the very end of the hallway, looked as regal as ever.

It’s almost… too perfect, Vin thought, frowning to herself. Everything seemed slightly exaggerated. The tablecloths were even whiter, and pressed even flatter, than usual. The servants’ uniforms seemed particularly sharp. Instead of regular soldiers at the doors, hazekillers stood looking intentionally impressive, distinguished by their wooden shields and lack of armor. All together, the room made it seem as if even the regular Venture perfection had been heightened.

“Something’s wrong, Sazed,” she whispered as a servant moved off to prepare her table.

“What do you mean, Mistress?” the tall steward asked, standing behind her and to the side.

“There are too many people here,” Vin said, realizing one of the things that was bothering her. Ball attendance had been tapering off during the last few months. Yet, it seemed like everyone had returned for the Venture event. And they all wore their finest.

“Something’s going on,” Vin said quietly. “Something we don’t know about.”

“Yes…” Sazed said quietly. “I sense it too. Perhaps I should go to the stewards’ dinner early.”

“Good idea,” Vin said. “I think I might just skip the meal this evening. We’re a bit late, and it looks like people have already started chatting.”

Sazed smiled.

“What?”

“I remember a time when you would never skip a meal, Mistress.”

Vin snorted. “Just be glad I never tried to stuff my pockets with food from one of these balls – trust me, I was tempted. Now, get going.”

Sazed nodded and moved off toward the stewards’ dinner. Vin scanned the chatting groups. No sign of Shan, thankfully, she thought. Unfortunately, Kliss was nowhere to be seen either, so Vin had to choose someone else to go to for gossip. She strolled forward, smiling at Lord Idren Seeris, a cousin to House Elariel and a man she had danced with on several occasions. He acknowledged her with a stiff nod, and she joined his group.

Vin smiled at the other members of the group – three women and one other lord. She knew them all at least passingly, and had danced with Lord Yestal. However, this evening all four of them gave her cold looks.

“I haven’t been to Keep Venture in a while,” Vin said, falling into her persona as a country girl. “I’d forgotten how majestic it is!”

“Indeed,” said one of the ladies. “Excuse me – I’m going to go get something to drink.”

“I’ll go with you,” one of the other ladies added, both of them leaving the group.

Vin watched them go, frowning.

“Ah,” Yestal said. “Our meal has arrived. Coming, Triss?”

“Of course,” the final lady said, joining Yestal as they walked away.

Idren adjusted his spectacles, shooting Vin a halfhearted look of apology, then withdrew. Vin stood, dumbfounded. She hadn’t received such an obviously cold reception since her first few balls.

What’s going on? she thought with increasing trepidation. Is this Shan’s work? Could she turn an entire room full of people against me?

No, that didn’t feel right. It would have required too much effort. In addition, the oddity wasn’t just around her. All of the groups of noblemen were… different this evening.

Vin tried a second group, with an even worse result. As soon as she joined, the members pointedly ignored her. Vin felt so out of place that she withdrew, fleeing to get herself a cup of wine. As she walked, she noticed that the first group – the one with Yestal and Idren – had re-formed with exactly the same members.

Vin paused, standing just inside the shade of the eastern overhang and scanning the crowd. There were very few people dancing, and she recognized them all as established couples. There also seemed to be very little mingling between groups or tables. While the ballroom was filled, it seemed most of the attendees were distinctly trying to ignore everyone else.

I need to get a better view of this, she thought, walking to the stairwell. A short climb later, she came out on the long, corridorlike balcony set into the wall above the dance floor, its familiar blue lanterns giving the stonework a soft, melancholy hue.

Vin paused. Elend’s cubbyhole sat between the rightmost column and the wall, well lit by a single lantern. He almost always spent Venture balls reading there; he didn’t like the pomp and ceremony that came from hosting a party.

The cubbyhole was empty. She approached the railing, then craned out to look toward the far end of the grand hallway. The host’s table sat on an overhang at the same level as the balconies, and she was shocked to see Elend sitting there dining with his father.

What? she thought incredulously. Never once, during the half-dozen balls she’d attended at Keep Venture, had she seen Elend sit with his family.

Down below, she caught sight of a familiar, colorful-robed figure moving through the crowd. She waved toward Sazed, but he had obviously already seen her. As she waited for him, Vin thought she faintly heard a familiar voice coming from the other end of the balcony. She turned and checked, noticing a short figure she’d missed before. Kliss was speaking with a small group of minor lords.

So that’s where Kliss went, Vin thought. Maybe she’ll talk to me. Vin stood, waiting for either Kliss to finish her conversation or Sazed to arrive.

Sazed came first, leaving the stairwell, breathing heavily. “Mistress,” he said in a low voice, joining her by the railing.

“Tell me you discovered something, Sazed. This ball feels… creepy. Everyone’s so solemn and cold. It’s almost like we’re at a funeral, not a party.”

“It is an apt metaphor, my lady,” Sazed said quietly. “We have missed an important announcement. House Hasting said it is not going to hold its regular ball this week.”

Vin frowned. “So? Houses have canceled balls before.”

“House Elariel canceled as well. Normally, Tekiel would come next – but that house is defunct. House Shunah has already announced that it won’t be holding any more balls.”

“What are you saying?”

“It appears, Mistress, that this will be the last ball for a time… perhaps a very long time.”

Vin glanced down at the hall’s magnificent windows, which stood above the independent – almost hostile – groups of people.

“That’s what’s going on,” she said. “They’re finalizing alliances. Everyone is standing with their strongest friends and supporters. They know this is the last ball, and so they all came to put in an appearance, but they know they’ve no time left for politicking.”

“It seems that way, Mistress.”

“They’re all going on the defensive,” Vin said. “Retreating behind their walls, so to speak. That’s why no one wants to talk to me – we made Renoux too neutral a force. I don’t have a faction, and it’s a bad time to be gambling on random political elements.”

“Master Kelsier needs to know this information, Mistress,” Sazed said. “He planned on pretending to be an informant again tonight. If he’s ignorant of this situation, it could seriously damage his credibility. We should leave.”

“No,” Vin said, turning toward Sazed. “I can’t go – not when everyone else is staying. They all thought it was important to come and be seen at this last ball, and so I shouldn’t leave until they start to.”

Sazed nodded. “Very well.”

“You go, Sazed. Hire a carriage and go tell Kell what we’ve learned. I’ll stay for a little longer, then leave when it won’t make House Renoux look weak.”

Sazed paused. “I… don’t know, Mistress.”

Vin rolled her eyes. “I appreciate the help you’ve given me, but you don’t need to keep holding my hand. Plenty of people come to these balls without their stewards to watch after them.”

Sazed sighed. “Very well, Mistress. I shall return, however, after I have located Master Kelsier.”

Vin nodded, bidding him farewell, and he retreated down the stone stairwell. Vin leaned against the balcony in Elend’s spot, watching until Sazed appeared below and disappeared toward the front gates.

Now what? Even if I can find someone to talk to, there’s really no point in spreading rumors now.

She felt a feeling of dread. Who would have thought that she would come to enjoy noble frivolity so much? The experience was tainted by her knowledge of what many noblemen were capable of, but even still, there had been a… dreamlike joy to the entire experience.

Would she ever attend balls like these again? What would happen to Valette the noblewoman? Would she have to put away her dresses and makeup, and return to simply being Vin the street thief? There probably wouldn’t be room for things like grand balls in Kelsier’s new kingdom, and that might not be a bad thing – what right did she have to dance while other skaa starved? Yet… it seemed like the world would be missing something beautiful without the keeps and dancers, the dresses and the festivities.

She sighed, leaning back from the railing, glancing down at her own dress. It was of a deep shimmering blue, with white circular designs sewn around the base of the skirt. It was sleeveless, but the blue silk gloves she wore ran all the way past her elbows.

Once she would have found the outfit frustratingly bulky. Now, however, she found it beautifying. She liked how it was designed to make her look full through the chest, yet accentuated her thin upper torso. She liked how it flared at the waist, slowly fanning out into a wide bell that rustled as she walked.

She’d miss it – she’d miss it all. But, Sazed was right. She couldn’t stop the progression of time, she could only enjoy the moment.

I’m not going to let him sit up there at the high table all evening and ignore me, she decided.

Vin turned and walked along the balcony, nodding to Kliss as she passed. The balcony ended in a corridor that turned, and – as Vin had correctly guessed – led out onto the ledge that held the host’s table.

She stood inside the corridor for a moment, looking out. Lords and ladies sat in regal outfits, basking in the privilege of being invited up to sit with Lord Straff Venture. Vin waited, trying to get Elend’s attention, and finally one of the guests noticed her, then nudged Elend. He turned with surprise, saw Vin, then flushed slightly.

She waved briefly, and he stood, excusing himself. Vin ducked back into the stone corridor a bit so they could speak more privately.

“Elend!” she said as he walked into the corridor. “You’re sitting with your father!”

He nodded. “This ball has turned into something of a special event, Valette, and my father was fairly insistent that I obey protocol.”

“When are we going to have time to talk?”

Elend paused. “I’m not sure that we will.”

Vin frowned. He seemed… reserved. His usual, slightly worn and wrinkled suit had been replaced by a sharp, well-fitted one. His hair was even combed.

“Elend?” she said, stepping forward.

He raised a hand, warding her back. “Things have changed, Valette.”

No, she thought. This can’t change, not yet! “Things? What ‘things’? Elend, what are you talking about?”

“I am heir to House Venture,” he said. “And dangerous times are coming. House Hasting lost an entire convoy this afternoon, and that’s only the beginning. Within the month, the keeps will openly be at war. These aren’t things I can ignore, Valette. It’s time I stopped being a liability to my family.”

“That’s fine,” Vin said. “That doesn’t mean–”

“Valette,” Elend interrupted. “You are a liability too. A very big one. I won’t lie and claim that I never cared for you – I did, and I still do. However, I knew from the start – as you did – that this could never be anything more than a passing dalliance. The truth is, my house needs me – and it’s more important than you are.”

Vin paled. “But…”

He turned to go back to dinner.

“Elend,” she said quietly, “please don’t turn away from me.”

He paused, then looked back at her. “I know the truth, Valette. I know how you’ve lied about who you are. I don’t care, really – I’m not angry, or even disappointed. The truth is, I expected it. You’re just… playing the game. Like we all are.” He paused, then shook his head and turned away from her. “Like I am.”

“Elend?” she said, reaching for him.

“Don’t make me embarrass you in public, Valette.”

Vin paused, feeling numb. And then, she was too angry to be numb – too angry, too frustrated… and too terrified.

“Don’t leave,” she whispered. “Don’t you leave me too.”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “But I have to go meet with my friends. It was… fun.”

And he left.

Vin stood in the darkened corridor. She felt herself shiver quietly, and she turned to stumble back out onto the main balcony. To the side, she could see Elend bid good evening to his family, then head through a back corridor toward the keep’s living section.

He can’t do this to me. Not Elend. Not now…

However, a voice from within – a voice she had nearly forgotten – began to speak. Of course he left you, Reen whispered. Of course he abandoned you. Everyone will betray you, Vin. What did I teach you?

No! she thought. It’s just the political tension. Once this is over, I’ll be able to convince him to come back…

I never came back for you, Reen whispered. He won’t either. The voice felt so real – it was almost like she could hear him beside her.

Vin leaned up against the balcony railing, using the iron grating for strength, holding herself up. She wouldn’t let him destroy her. A life on the streets hadn’t been able to break her; she wouldn’t let a self-important nobleman do so. She just kept telling herself that.

But, why did this hurt so much more than starvation – so much more than one of Camon’s beatings?

“Well, Valette Renoux,” a voice said from behind.

“Kliss,” Vin said. “I’m… not in the mood to talk right now.”

“Ah,” Kliss said. “So Elend Venture finally spurned you. Don’t worry, child – he’ll get what he deserves shortly.”

Vin turned, frowning at the odd tone in Kliss’s voice. The woman didn’t seem like herself. She seemed too… controlled.

“Deliver a message to your uncle for me, will you dear?” Kliss asked lightly. “Tell him that a man such as himself – without house alliances – might have a difficult time gathering intelligence in the upcoming months. If he needs a good source of information, tell him to send for me. I know lots of interesting things.”

“You’re an informant!” Vin said, pushing aside her pain for the moment. “But, you’re…”

“A foolish gossip?” the short woman asked. “Why, yes I am. It’s fascinating, the kinds of things you can learn when you’re known as the court gossip. People come to you to spread obvious lies – such as the things you told me about House Hasting last week. Why would you want me to spread such untruths? Could House Renoux be making a bid for the weapons market during the house war? Indeed – could Renoux be behind the recent attack on the Hasting barges?”

Kliss’s eyes twinkled. “Tell your uncle that I can be made to keep quiet about what I know – for a small fee.”

“You’ve been duping me all along…” Vin said numbly.

“Of course, dear,” Kliss said, patting Vin’s arm. “That’s what we do here at court. You’ll learn eventually – if you survive. Now, be a good child and deliver my message, all right?”

Kliss turned, her squat, gaudy dress suddenly seeming a brilliant costume to Vin.

“Wait!” Vin said. “What was that you said about Elend earlier? He’s going to get what he deserves?”

“Hum?” Kliss said, turning. “Why… that’s right. You’ve been asking after Shan Elariel’s plans, haven’t you?”

Shan? Vin thought with rising concern. “What is she planning?”

“Now that, my dear, is an expensive secret indeed. I could tell you… but then, what would I have in return? A woman of an unimportant house like myself needs to find sustenance somewhere…”

Vin pulled off her sapphire necklace, the only piece of jewelry she was wearing. “Here. Take it.”

Kliss accepted the necklace with a thoughtful expression. “Hum, yes, very nice indeed.”

“What do you know?” Vin snapped.

“Young Elend is going to be one of the first Venture casualties in the house war, I’m afraid,” Kliss said, stuffing the necklace into a sleeve pocket. “It’s unfortunate – he really does seem like a nice boy. Too nice, probably.”

“When?” Vin demanded. “Where? How?”

“So many questions, but only one necklace,” Kliss said idly.

“It’s all I have right now!” Vin said truthfully. Her coin pouch contained only bronze clips for Steelpushing.

“But it’s a very valuable secret, as I’ve said,” Kliss continued. “By telling you, my own life would be–”

That’s it! Vin thought furiously. Stupid aristocratic games!

Vin burned zinc and brass, hitting Kliss with a powerful blast of emotional Allomancy. She Soothed away all of the woman’s feelings but fear, then took hold of that fear and yanked on it with a firm tug.

“Tell me!” Vin growled.

Kliss gasped, wobbling and nearly falling to the ground. “An Allomancer! No wonder Renoux brought such a distant cousin with him to Luthadel!”

“Speak!” Vin said, taking a step forward.

“You’re too late to help him,” Kliss said. “I’d never sell a secret like this if it had a chance of turning on me!”

“Tell me!”

“He’ll be assassinated by Elariel Allomancers this evening,” Kliss whispered. “He might be dead already – it was supposed to happen as soon as he withdrew from the lord’s table. But if you want revenge, you’ll have to look toward Lord Straff Venture too.”

“Elend’s father?” Vin asked with surprise.

“Of course, foolish child,” Kliss said. “Lord Venture would love nothing more than an excuse to give the house title to his nephew instead. All Venture had to do was withdraw a few of his soldiers from the rooftop around young Elend’s room to let in the Elariel assassins. And, since the assassination will occur during one of Elend’s little philosophy meetings, Lord Venture will be able to rid himself of a Hasting and a Lekal too!”

Vin spun. I have to do something!

“Of course,” Kliss said with a chuckle, standing up. “Lord Venture is in for a surprise himself. I’ve heard that your Elend has some very… choice books in his possession. Young Venture should be much more careful about the things he tells his women, I think.”

Vin turned back to the smiling Kliss. The woman winked at her. “I’ll keep your Allomancy a secret, child. Just make certain I get payment by tomorrow afternoon. A lady must buy food – and as you can see, I need a lot of it.

“As for House Venture… well, I’d distance myself from them, if I were you. Shan’s assassins are going to make quite the disturbance tonight. I wouldn’t be surprised if half the court ended up in the boy’s room to see what the ruckus was about. When the court sees those books Elend has… well, let’s just say that the obligators are going to become very interested in House Venture for a time. Too bad Elend will already be dead – we haven’t had an open execution of a nobleman in quite some time!”

Elend’s room, Vin thought desperately. That’s where they must be! She turned, holding the sides of her dress and rustling frantically down the balcony walkway toward the corridor she had left moments before.

“Where are you going?” Kliss asked with surprise.

“I have to stop this!” Vin said.

Kliss laughed. “I already told you that you’re too late. Venture is a very old keep, and the back passages leading to the lords’ quarters are quite the maze. If you don’t know your way, you’ll end up lost for hours.”

Vin glanced around, feeling helpless.

“Besides, child,” Kliss added, turning to walk away. “Didn’t the boy just spurn you? What do you owe him?”

Vin paused.

She’s right. What do I owe him?

The answer came immediately. I love him.

With that thought came strength. Vin rushed forward despite Kliss’s laughter. She had to try. She entered the corridor and moved into the back passageways. However, Kliss’s words soon proved true: The dark stone passageways were narrow and unadorned. She’d never find her way in time.

The roof, she thought. Elend’s rooms will have an outside balcony. I need a window!

She dashed down a passage, kicking off her shoes and pulling off her stockings, then running as best she could in the dress. She searched frantically for a window big enough to fit through. She burst out into a larger corridor, empty save for flickering torches.

A massive lavender rose window stood on the far side of the room.

Good enough, Vin thought. With a flare of steel, she threw herself into the air, Pushing against a massive iron door behind her. She flew forward for a moment, then Pushed powerfully against the rose window’s iron bindings.

She lurched to a stop in the air, Pushing both backward and forward at the same time. She strained, hanging in the empty corridor, flaring her pewter to keep from being crushed. The rose window was enormous, but it was mostly glass. How strong could it be?

Very strong. Vin groaned beneath the strain. She heard a snap behind her, and the door began to twist in its mountings.

You… must… give! she thought angrily, flaring her steel. Chips of stone fell around the window.

Then, with a crack of sound, the rose window burst free from the stone wall. It fell backward into the dark night, and Vin shot out behind it.

Cool mist enveloped her. She Pulled slightly against the door inside the room, keeping herself from going out too far, then Pushed mightily against the falling window. The enormous dark-glassed window tumbled beneath her, churning the mists as Vin shot away from it. Straight up, toward the roof.

The window crashed to the ground just as Vin flew up over the edge of the rooftop, her dress fluttering madly in the wind. She landed on the bronze-plated roof with a thump, falling to a crouch. The metal was cool beneath her toes and fingers.

Tin flared, illuminating the night. She could see nothing out of the ordinary.

She burned bronze, using it as Marsh had taught her, searching for signs of Allomancy. There weren’t any – the assassins had a Smoker with them.

I can’t search the entire building! Vin thought, desperately, flaring her bronze. Where are they?

Then, oddly, she thought she sensed something. An Allomantic pulse in the night. Faint. Hidden. But enough.

Vin rose to dash across the rooftop, trusting her instincts. As she ran, she flared pewter and grabbed her dress near the neck, then ripped the garment down the front with a single yank. She pulled her coin pouch and metal vials from a hidden pocket, and then – still running – she ripped the dress, petticoats, and attached leggings free, tossing it all aside. Her corset and gloves went next. Underneath, she wore a thin, sleeveless white shift and a pair of white shorts.

She dashed frantically. I can’t be too late, she thought. Please. I can’t.

Figures resolved in the mists ahead. They stood beside an angled rooftop skylight; Vin had passed several similar ones as she ran. One of the figures pointed toward the skylight, a weapon glittering in its hand.

Vin cried out, Pushing herself off the bronze roof in an arcing jump. She landed in the very center of the surprised group of people, then thrust her coin pouch upward, ripping it in two.

Coins sprayed into the air, reflecting light from the window below. As the glistening shower of metal fell around Vin, she Pushed.

Coins zipped away from her like a swarm of insects, each one leaving a trail in the mist. Figures cried out as coins hit flesh, and several of the dark forms dropped.

Several did not. Some of the coins snapped away, Pushed aside by invisible Allomantic hands. Four people remained standing: Two of them wore mistcloaks; one of them was familiar.

Shan Elariel. Vin didn’t need to see the cloak to understand; there was only one reason a woman as important as Shan would come on an assassination like this. She was a Mistborn.

“You?” Shan asked in shock. She wore a black outfit of trousers and shirt, her dark hair pulled back, her mistcloak worn almost stylishly.

Two Mistborn, Vin thought. Not good. She scrambled away, ducking as one of the assassins swung a dueling cane at her.

Vin slid across the rooftop, then Pulled herself to a brief halt, spinning with one hand resting against the cold bronze. She reached out and Pulled against the few coins that hadn’t escaped out into the night, yanking them back into her hand.

“Kill her!” Shan snapped. The two men Vin had felled lay groaning on the rooftop. They weren’t dead; in fact, one was climbing unsteadily to his feet.

Thugs, Vin thought. The other two are probably Coinshots.

As if to prove her right, one of the men tried to Push away Vin’s vial of metals. Fortunately, there weren’t enough metals in the vial to give him a very good anchor, and she kept hold of it easily.

Shan turned her attention back to the skylight.

No you don’t! Vin thought, dashing forward again.

The Coinshot cried out as she approached. Vin flipped a coin and shot it at him. He, of course, Pushed back – but Vin anchored herself against the bronze roof and flared Steel, Pushing with a firm effort.

The man’s own Steelpush – transmitted from the coin, to Vin, to the roof – launched him out into the air. He cried out, shooting off into the darkness. He was only a Misting, and couldn’t Pull himself back to the rooftop.

The other Coinshot tried to spray Vin with coins, but she deflected them with ease. Unfortunately, he wasn’t as foolish as his companion, and he released the coins soon after Pushing them. However, it was obvious that he couldn’t hit her. Why did he keep–

The other Mistborn! Vin thought, ducking to a roll as a figure leaped from the dark mists, glass knives flashing in the air.

Vin just barely got out of the way, flaring pewter to give herself balance. She came to her feet beside the wounded Thug, who stood on obviously weak legs. With another flare of pewter, Vin slammed her shoulder into the man’s chest, shoving him to the side.

The man stumbled maladroitly, still holding his bleeding side. Then he tripped and fell right into the skylight. The fine, tinted glass shattered as he fell, and Vin’s tin-enhanced ears could hear cries of surprise from below, followed by a crash as the Thug hit the ground.

Vin looked up, smiling evilly at the stunned Shan. Behind her, the second Mistborn – a man – swore quietly.

“You… You…” Shan sputtered, her eyes flaring dangerously with anger in the night.

Take the warning, Elend, Vin thought, and escape. It’s time for me to go.

She couldn’t face two Mistborn at once – she couldn’t even beat Kelsier most nights. Flaring Steel, Vin launched herself backward. Shan took a step forward and – looking determined – Pushed herself after Vin. The second Mistborn joined her.

Bloody hell! Vin thought, spinning in the air and Pulling herself to the rooftop’s edge near where she had broken the rose window. Below, figures scrambled about, lanterns brightening the mists. Lord Venture probably thought that the fuss meant his son was dead. He was in for a surprise.

Vin launched herself into the air again, jumping out into the misty void. She could hear the two Mistborn land behind her, then push off as well.

This isn’t good, Vin thought with trepidation as she hurled through the misty air currents. She didn’t have any coins left, nor did she have daggers – and she faced two trained Mistborn.

She burned iron, searching frantically for an anchor in the night. A line of blue, moving slowly, appeared beneath her to the right.

Vin yanked on the line, changing her trajectory. She shot downward, the Venture grounds wall appearing as a dark shadow beneath her. Her anchor was the breastplate of an unfortunate guard, who lay atop the wall, holding frantically to a tooth in the battlements to keep himself from being pulled up toward Vin.

Vin slammed feet-first into the man, then spun in the misty air, flipping to land on the cool stone. The guard collapsed to the stone, then cried out, desperately grabbing his stone anchor as another Allomantic force Pulled against him.

Sorry, friend, Vin thought, kicking the man’s hand free from the battlement tooth. He immediately snapped upward, yanked into the air as if pulled by a powerful tether.

The sound of bodies colliding sounded from the darkness above, and Vin saw a pair of forms drop limply to the Venture courtyard. Vin smiled, dashing along the wall. I sure hope that was Shan.

Vin jumped up, landing atop the gatehouse. Near the keep, people were scattering, climbing in carriages to flee.

And so the house war starts, Vin thought. Didn’t think I’d be the one to officially begin it.

A figure plummeted toward her from the mists above. Vin cried out, flaring pewter and jumping to the side. Shan landed dexterously – mistcloak tassels billowing – atop the gatehouse. She had both daggers out, and her eyes burned with anger.

Vin jumped to the side, rolling off the gatehouse and landing on the walltop below. A pair of guards jumped back in alarm, surprised to see a half-naked girl fall into their midst. Shan dropped to the wall behind them, then Pushed, throwing one of the guards in Vin’s direction.

The man cried out as Vin Pushed against his breastplate as well – but he was far heavier than she, and she was thrown backward. She Pulled on the guard to slow herself, and the man crashed down to the walltop. Vin landed lithely beside him, then grabbed his staff as it rolled free from his hand.

Shan attacked in a flash of spinning daggers, and Vin was forced to jump backward again. She’s so good! Vin thought with anxiety. Vin herself had barely trained with daggers; now she wished she’d asked Kelsier for a little more practice. She swung the staff, but she’d never used one of the weapons before, and her attack was laughable.

Shan slashed, and Vin felt a flare of pain in her cheek as she dodged. She dropped the staff in shock, reaching up to her face and feeling blood. She stumbled back, seeing the smile on Shan’s face.

And then Vin remembered the vial. The one she still carried – the one Kelsier had given her.

Atium.

She didn’t bother to grab it from the place she had tucked it at her waist. She burned steel, Pushing it out into the air in front of her. Then, she immediately burned iron and yanked on the bead of atium. The vial shattered, the bead heading back toward Vin. She caught it in her mouth, swallowing the lump and forcing it down.

Shan paused. Then, before Vin could do anything, she downed a vial of her own.

Of course she has atium!

But, how much did she have? Kelsier hadn’t given Vin much – only enough for about thirty seconds. Shan jumped forward, smiling, her long black hair flaring in the air. Vin gritted her teeth. She didn’t have much choice.

She burned atium. Immediately, Shan’s form shot forth dozens of phantom atium shadows. It was a Mistborn standoff: The first one who ran out of atium would be vulnerable. You couldn’t escape an opponent who knew exactly what you were going to do.

Vin scrambled backward, keeping an eye on Shan. The noblewoman stalked forward, her phantoms forming an insane bubble of translucent motion around her. She seemed calm. Secure.

She has plenty of atium, Vin thought, feeling her own storage burn away. I need to get away.

A shadowy length of wood suddenly shot through Vin’s chest. She ducked to the side just as the real arrow – apparently made with no arrowhead – passed through the air where she had been standing. She glanced toward the gate-house, where several soldiers were raising bows.

She cursed, glancing to the side, into the mists. As she did so, she caught a smile from Shan.

She’s just waiting for my atium to burn out. She wants me to run – she knows she can chase me down.

There was only one other option: attack.

Shan frowned in surprise as Vin dashed forward, phantom arrows snapping against the stones just before their real counterparts arrived. Vin dodged between two arrows – her atium enhanced mind knowing exactly how to move – passing so close that she could feel the missiles in the air to either side of her.

Shan swung her daggers, and Vin twisted to the side, dodging one slice and blocking the other with her forearm, earning a deep gash. Her own blood flew in the air as she spun – each droplet tossing out a translucent atium image – and flared pewter, punching Shan square in the stomach.

Shan grunted in pain, bending slightly, but she didn’t fall.

Atium’s almost gone, Vin thought desperately. Only a few seconds left.

So, she extinguished her atium early, exposing herself.

Shan smiled wickedly, coming up from her crouch, right-hand dagger swinging confidently. She assumed that Vin had run out of atium – and therefore assumed that she was exposed. Vulnerable.

At that moment, Vin burned her last bit of atium. Shan paused just briefly in confusion, giving Vin an opening as a phantom arrow streaked through the mists overhead.

Vin caught the real arrow as it followed – the grainy wood burning her fingers – then rammed it down into Shan’s chest. The shaft snapped in Vin’s hand, leaving about an inch protruding from Shan’s body. The woman stumbled backward, staying on her feet.

Damn pewter, Vin thought, ripping a sword from a sheath beside the unconscious soldier at her feet. She jumped forward, gritting her teeth in determination, and Shan – still dazed – raised a hand to Push against the sword.

Vin let the weapon go – it was just a distraction – as she slammed the second half of the broken arrow into Shan’s chest just beside its counterpart.

This time, Shan dropped. She tried to rise, but one of the shafts must have done some serious damage to her heart, for her face paled. She struggled for a moment, then fell lifeless to the stones.

Vin stood, breathing deeply as she wiped the blood from her cheek – only to realize that her bloody arm was just making her face worse. Behind her, the soldiers called out, nocking more arrows.

Vin glanced back toward the keep, bidding farewell to Elend, then Pushed herself out into the night.

31

“I DON’T KNOW,” KELSIER SAID, smiling as he shrugged. “Breeze would make a pretty good Minister of Sanitation.”

The group chuckled, though Breeze just rolled his eyes. “Honestly, I don’t see why I consistently prove to be the target of you people’s humor. Why must you choose the only dignified person in this crew as the butt of your mockery?”

“Because, my dear man,” Ham said, imitating Breeze’s accent, “you are, by far, the best butt we have.”

“Oh, please,” Breeze said as Spook nearly collapsed to the floor with laughter. “This is just getting juvenile. The teenage boy was the only one who found that comment amusing, Hammond.”

“I’m a soldier,” Ham said, raising his cup. “Your witty verbal attacks have no effect on me, for I’m far too dense to understand them.”

Kelsier chuckled, leaning back against the cupboard. One problem with working at night was that he missed the evening gatherings in Clubs’s kitchen. Breeze and Ham continued their general banter. Dox sat at the end of the table, going over ledgers and reports, while Spook sat by Ham eagerly, trying his best to take part in the conversation. Clubs sat in his corner, overseeing, occasionally smiling, and generally enjoying his ability to give the best scowls in the room.

“I should be leaving, Master Kelsier,” Sazed said, checking the wall clock. “Mistress Vin should be about ready to leave.”

Kelsier nodded. “I should get going myself. I still have to–”

The outside kitchen door slammed open. Vin stood silhouetted by the dark mist, wearing nothing but her dressing undergarments – a flimsy white shirt and shorts. Both were sprayed with blood.

“Vin!” Ham exclaimed, standing.

Her cheek bore a long, thin gash, and she had a bandage tied on one forearm. “I’m fine,” she said wearily.

“What happened to your dress?” Dockson immediately demanded.

“You mean this?” Vin asked apologetically, holding up a ripped, soot-stained blue mass of cloth. “It… got in the way. Sorry, Dox.”

“Lord Ruler, girl!” Breeze said. “Forget the dress – what happened to you!”

Vin shook her head, shutting the door. Spook blushed furiously at her outfit, and Sazed immediately moved over, checking the wound on her cheek.

“I think I did something bad,” Vin said. “I… kind of killed Shan Elariel.”

“You did what?” Kelsier asked as Sazed tisked quietly, leaving the small cheek cut alone as he undid the bandage on her arm.

Vin flinched slightly at Sazed’s ministrations. “She was Mistborn. We fought. I won.”

You killed a fully-trained Mistborn? Kelsier thought with shock. You’ve practiced for barely eight months!

“Master Hammond,” Sazed requested, “would you fetch my healer’s bag?”

Ham nodded, rising.

“You might want to grab her something to wear too,” Kelsier suggested. “I think poor Spook’s about to have a heart attack.”

“What’s wrong with this?” Vin asked, nodding toward her clothing. “It’s not that much more revealing than some of the thief’s clothing I’ve worn.”

“Those are undergarments, Vin,” Dockson said.

“So?”

“It’s the principle of the matter,” Dockson said. “Young ladies do not run around in their undergarments, no matter how much those undergarments may resemble regular clothing.”

Vin shrugged, sitting as Sazed held a bandage to her arm. She seemed… exhausted. And not just from the fighting. What else happened at that party?

“Where did you fight the Elariel woman?” Kelsier asked.

“Outside Keep Venture,” Vin said, looking down. “I… think some of the guards spotted me. Some of the nobles might have too, I’m not certain.”

“That’s going to be trouble,” Dockson said, sighing. “Of course, that cheek wound is going to be pretty obvious, even with makeup. Honestly, you Allomancers… Don’t you ever worry about what you’re going to look like the day after you get into one of these fights?”

“I was kind of focused on staying alive, Dox,” Vin said.

“He’s just complaining because he’s worried about you,” Kelsier said as Ham returned with the bag. “That’s what he does.”

“Both wounds will require immediate stitching, Mistress,” Sazed said. “The one on your arm hit the bone, I think.”

Vin nodded, and Sazed rubbed her arm with a numbing agent, then began to work. She bore it without much visible discomfort – though she obviously had her pewter flared.

She looks so exhausted, Kelsier thought. She was such a frail-looking thing, mostly just arms and legs. Hammond put a cloak around her shoulders, but she appeared too tired to care.

And I brought her into this.

Of course, she should know better than to get herself into this kind of trouble. Eventually, Sazed finished his efficient sewing, then tied a new bandage around the arm wound. He moved onto the cheek.

“Why would you fight a Mistborn?” Kelsier asked sternly. “You should have run. Didn’t you learn anything from your battle with the Inquisitors?”

“I couldn’t get away without turning my back on her,” Vin said. “Besides, she had more atium than me. If I hadn’t attacked, she would have chased me down. I had to strike while we were equally matched.”

“But how did you get into this in the first place?” Kelsier demanded. “Did she attack you?”

Vin glanced down at her feet. “I attacked first.”

“Why?” Kelsier asked.

Vin sat for a moment, Sazed working on her cheek. “She was going to kill Elend,” she finally said.

Kelsier exhaled in exasperation. “Elend Venture? You risked your life – risked the plan, and our lives – for that fool of a boy?”

Vin looked up, glaring at him. “Yes.”

“What is wrong with you, girl?” Kelsier asked. “Elend Venture isn’t worth this.”

She stood angrily, Sazed backing away, the cloak falling the floor. “He’s a good man!”

“He’s a nobleman!”

“So are you!” Vin snapped. She waved a frustrated arm toward the kitchen and the crew. “What do you think this is, Kelsier? The life of a skaa? What do any of you know about skaa? Aristocratic suits, stalking your enemies in the night, full meals and nightcaps around the table with your friends? That’s not the life of a skaa!”

She took a step forward, glaring at Kelsier. He blinked in surprise at the outburst.

“What do you know about them, Kelsier?” she asked. “When’s the last time you slept in an alley, shivering in the cold rain, listening to the beggar next to you cough with a sickness you knew would kill him? When’s the last time you had to lay awake at night, terrified that one of the men in your crew would try to rape you? Have you ever knelt, starving, wishing you had the courage to knife the crewmember beside you just so you could take his crust of bread? Have you ever cowered before your brother as he beat you, all the time feeling thankful because at least you had someone who paid attention to you?”

She fell silent, puffing slightly, the crewmembers staring at her.

“Don’t talk to me about noblemen,” Vin said. “And don’t say things about people you don’t know. You’re no skaa – you’re just noblemen without titles.”

She turned, stalking from the room. Kelsier watched her go, shocked, hearing her footsteps on the stairs. He stood, dumbfounded, feeling a surprising flush of ashamed guilt.

And, for once, found himself without anything to say.

Vin didn’t go to her room. She climbed to the roof, where the mists curled in the quiet, unlit night. She sat down in the corner, the rough stone lip of the flat rooftop against her nearly bare back, wood beneath her.

She was cold, but she didn’t care. Her arm hurt a bit, but it was mostly numb. She didn’t feel nearly numb enough herself.

She crossed her arms, huddling down, watching the mists. She didn’t know what to think, let alone what to feel. She shouldn’t have exploded at Kelsier, but everything that had happened… the fight, Elend’s betrayal… it just left her feeling frustrated. She needed to be angry at someone.

You should just be angry at yourself, Reen’s voice whispered. You’re the one who let them get close. Now they’re all just going to leave you.

She couldn’t make it stop hurting. She could only sit and shiver as the tears fell, wondering how everything had collapsed so quickly.

The trapdoor to the rooftop opened with a quiet creak, and Kelsier’s head appeared.

Oh, Lord Ruler! I don’t want to face him now. She tried to wipe away her tears, but she only succeeded in aggravating the freshly stitched wound on her cheek.

Kelsier closed the trapdoor behind him, then stood, so tall and proud, staring up at the mists. He didn’t deserve the things I said. None of them did.

“Watching the mists is comforting, isn’t it?” Kelsier asked.

Vin nodded.

“What is it I once told you? The mists protect you, they give you power… they hide you…”

He looked down, then he walked over and crouched before her, holding out a cloak. “There are some things you can’t hide from, Vin. I know – I’ve tried.”

She accepted the cloak, then wrapped it around her shoulders.

“What happened tonight?” he asked. “What really happened?”

“Elend told me that he didn’t want to be with me anymore.”

“Ah,” Kelsier said, moving over to sit beside her. “Was this before or after you killed his former fiancée?”

“Before,” Vin said.

“And you still protected him?”

Vin nodded, sniffling quietly. “I know. I’m an idiot.”

“No more than the rest of us,” Kelsier said with a sigh. He looked up into the mists. “I loved Mare too, even after she betrayed me. Nothing could change how I felt.”

“And that’s why it hurts so much,” Vin said, remembering what Kelsier had said before. I think I finally understand.

“You don’t stop loving someone just because they hurt you,” he said. “It would certainly make things easier if you did.”

She started to sniffle again, and he put a fatherly arm around her. She pulled close, trying to use his warmth to push away the pain.

“I loved him, Kelsier,” she whispered.

“Elend? I know.”

“No, not Elend,” Vin said. “Reen. He beat me over, and over, and over. He swore at me, he yelled at me, he told me he’d betray me. Every day, I thought about how much I hated him.

“And I loved him. I still do. It hurts so much to think that he’s gone, even though he always told me he would leave.”

“Oh, child,” Kelsier said, pulling her close. “I’m sorry.”

“Everyone leaves me,” she whispered. “I can barely remember my mother. She tried to kill me, you know. She heard voices, in her head, and they made her kill my baby sister. She was probably going to kill me next, but Reen stopped her.

“Either way, she left me. After that, I clung to Reen. He left too. I love Elend, but he doesn’t want me anymore.” She looked up at Kelsier. “When are you going to go? When will you leave me?”

Kelsier looked sorrowful. “I… Vin, I don’t know. This job, the plan…”

She searched his eyes, looking for the secrets therein. What are you hiding from me, Kelsier? Something that dangerous? She wiped her eyes again, pulling away from him, feeling foolish.

He looked down, shaking his head. “Look, now you got blood all over my nice, dirty, pretend informant’s clothing.”

Vin smiled. “At least some of it is noble blood. I got Shan pretty good.”

Kelsier chuckled. “You’re probably right about me, you know. I don’t give the nobility much of a chance, do I?”

Vin flushed. “Kelsier, I shouldn’t have said those things. You’re good people, and this plan of yours… well, I realize what you’re trying to do for the skaa.”

“No, Vin,” Kelsier said, shaking his head. “What you said was true. We’re not really skaa.”

“But, that’s good,” Vin said. “If you were regular skaa, you wouldn’t have the experience or courage to plan something like this.”

“They might lack experience,” Kelsier said. “But not courage. Our army lost, true, but they were willing – with minimal training – to charge a superior force. No, the skaa don’t lack courage. Just opportunity.”

“Then it’s your position as half skaa, half nobleman that has given you opportunity, Kelsier. And you’ve chosen to use that opportunity to help your skaa half. That makes you worthy of being a skaa if anything does.”

Kelsier smiled. “Worthy to be a skaa. I like the sound of that. Regardless, perhaps I need to spend a little less time worrying about which noblemen to kill, and a little more time worrying about which peasants to help.”

Vin nodded, pulling the cloak close as she stared up into the mists. They protect us… give us power… hide us…

She hadn’t felt like she needed to hide in a long time. But now, after the things she’d said below, she almost wished that she could just blow away like a wisp of mist.

I need to tell him. It could mean the plan’s success or failure. She took a deep breath. “House Venture has a weakness, Kelsier.”

He perked up. “It does?”

Vin nodded. “Atium. They make certain the metal is harvested and delivered – it’s the source of their wealth.”

Kelsier paused for a moment. “Of course! That’s how they can pay the taxes, that’s why they’re so powerful… He would need someone to handle things for him…”

“Kelsier?” Vin asked.

He looked back at her.

“Don’t… do anything unless you have to, all right?”

Kelsier frowned. “I… don’t know that I can promise anything, Vin. I’ll try and think of another way, but as things stand now, Venture has to fall.”

“I understand.”

“I’m glad you told me, though.”

She nodded. And now I’ve betrayed him too. There was a peace in knowing, however, that she hadn’t done it out of spite. Kelsier was right: House Venture was a power that needed to be toppled. Oddly, her mention of the house seemed to bother Kelsier more than it did her. He sat, staring into the mists, strangely melancholy. He reached down, absently scratching his arm.

The scars, Vin thought. It isn’t House Venture he’s thinking about – it’s the Pits. Her. “Kelsier?” she said.

“Yes?” His eyes still looking a bit… absent as he watched the mists.

“I don’t think that Mare betrayed you.”

He smiled. “I’m glad you think that way.”

“No, I really mean it,” Vin said. “The Inquisitors were waiting for you when you got to the center of the palace, right?”

Kelsier nodded.

“They were waiting for us too.”

Kelsier shook his head. “You and I fought some guards, made some noise. When Mare and I went in, we were quiet. We’d planned for a year – we were stealthy, secretive, and very careful. Someone set a trap for us.”

“Mare was an Allomancer, right?” Vin asked. “They could have just sensed you coming.”

Kelsier shook his head. “We had a Smoker with us. Redd was his name – the Inquisitors killed him straight off. I’ve wondered if he was the traitor, but that just doesn’t work. Redd didn’t even know about the infiltration until that night, when we went and got him. Only Mare knew enough – dates, times, objectives – to have betrayed us. Besides, there’s the Lord Ruler’s comment. You didn’t see him, Vin. Smiling as he thanked Mare. There was… honesty in his eyes. They say the Lord Ruler doesn’t lie. Why would he need to?”

Vin sat quietly for a moment, considering what he’d said. “Kelsier,” she said slowly, “I think that Inquisitors can sense our Allomancy even when we’re burning copper.”

“Impossible.”

“I did it tonight. I punctured Shan’s coppercloud to locate her and the other assassins. That’s how I got to Elend in time.”

Kelsier frowned. “You’ve got to be mistaken.”

“It happened before too,” Vin said. “I can feel the Lord Ruler’s touch on my emotions, even when I’m burning copper. And I swear that when I was hiding from that Inquisitor who was hunting me, he found me when he shouldn’t have been able to. Kelsier, what if it’s possible? What if hiding yourself by Smoking isn’t just a simple matter of whether or not your copper is on? What if it just depends on how strong you are?”

Kelsier sat thoughtfully. “It could be possible, I suppose.”

“Then Mare wouldn’t have had to betray you!” Vin said eagerly. “Inquisitors are extremely powerful. The ones who were waiting for you, maybe they just felt you burning metals! They knew that an Allomancer was trying to sneak into the palace. Then, the Lord Ruler thanked her because she was the one who gave you away! She was the Allomancer, burning tin, that led them to you.”

Kelsier’s face took on a troubled expression. He turned, sitting himself so he was directly in front of her. “Do it now, then. Tell me what metal I’m burning.”

Vin closed her eyes, flaring bronze, listening… feeling, as Marsh had taught her. She remembered her solitary trainings, time spent focusing on the waves Breeze, Ham, or Spook gave off for her. She tried to pick out the fuzzing rhythm of Allomancy. Tried to…

For a moment, she thought she felt something. Something very strange – a slow pulsing, like a distant drum, unlike any Allomantic rhythm she’d felt before. But it wasn’t coming from Kelsier. It was distant… far away. She focused harder, trying to pick out the direction it was coming from.

But suddenly, as she focused harder, something else drew her attention. A more familiar rhythm, coming from Kelsier. It was faint, difficult to feel over the pulsing of her own heartbeat. It was a bold beat, and quick.

She opened her eyes. “Pewter! You’re burning pewter.”

Kelsier blinked in surprise. “Impossible,” he whispered. “Again!”

She closed her eyes. “Tin,” she said after a moment. “Now steel – you changed as soon as I spoke.”

“Bloody hell!”

“I was right,” Vin said eagerly. “You can feel Allomantic pulses through copper! They’re quiet, but I guess you just have to focus hard enough to–”

“Vin,” Kelsier interrupted. “Don’t you think Allomancers have tried this before? You don’t think that after a thousand years’ time, someone would have noticed that you could pierce a coppercloud? I’ve even tried it. I focused for hours on my Master, trying to sense something through his coppercloud.”

“But…” Vin said. “But why…?”

“It must have to do with strength, like you said. Inquisitors can Push and Pull harder than any regular Mistborn – perhaps they’re so strong that they can overwhelm someone else’s metal.”

“But, Kelsier,” Vin said quietly. “I’m not an Inquisitor.”

“But you’re strong,” he said. “Stronger than you have any right to be. You killed a full Mistborn tonight!”

“By luck,” Vin said, face flushing. “I just tricked her.”

“Allomancy is nothing but tricks, Vin. No, there’s something special about you. I noticed it on that first day, when you shrugged off my attempts to Push and Pull your emotions.”

She flushed. “It can’t be that, Kelsier. Maybe I’ve just practiced with bronze more than you… I don’t know, I just…”

“Vin,” Kelsier said, “you’re still too self-effacing. You’re good at this – that much is obvious. If that’s why you can see through copperclouds… well, I don’t know. But learn to take a little pride in yourself, kid! If there’s anything I can teach you, it’s how to be self-confident.”

Vin smiled.

“Come on,” he said, standing and holding out a hand to help her up. “Sazed is going to fret all night if you don’t let him finish stitching that cheek wound, and Ham’s dying to hear about your battle. Good job leaving Shan’s body back at Keep Venture, by the way – when House Elariel hears that she was found dead on Venture property…”

Vin allowed him to pull her up, but she glanced toward the trapdoor apprehensively. “I… don’t know if I want to go down yet, Kelsier. How can I face them?”

Kelsier laughed. “Oh, don’t worry. If you didn’t say some stupid things every once in a while, you certainly wouldn’t fit in with this group. Come on.”

Vin hesitated, then let him lead her back down to the warmth of the kitchen.

“Elend, how can you read at times like this?” Jastes asked.

Elend looked up from his book. “It calms me.”

Jastes raised an eyebrow. The young Lekal sat impatiently in the coach, tapping his fingers on the armrest. The window shades were drawn, partially to hide the light of Elend’s reading lantern, partially to keep out the mists. Though Elend would never admit it, the swirling fog made him just a bit nervous. Noblemen weren’t supposed to be afraid of such things, but that didn’t change the fact that the deep, caliginous mist was just plain creepy.

“Your father is going to be livid when you get back,” Jastes noted, still tapping the armrest.

Elend shrugged, though this comment did make him a little bit nervous. Not because of his father, but because of what had happened this night. Some Allomancers had, apparently, been spying on Elend’s meeting with his friends. What information had they gathered? Did they know about the books he’d read?

Fortunately, one of them had tripped, falling through Elend’s skylight. After that, it had been confusion and chaos – soldiers and ballgoers running about in a semi-panic. Elend’s first thought had been for the books – the dangerous ones, the ones that if the obligators found he possessed, could get him into serious trouble.

So, in the confusion, he’d dumped them all in a bag and followed Jastes down to the palace side exit. Grabbing a carriage and sneaking out of the palace grounds had been an extreme move, perhaps, but it had been ridiculously easy. With the number of carriages fleeing the Venture grounds, not a single person had paused to notice that Elend himself was in the carriage with Jastes.

It’s probably all died down by now, Elend told himself. People will realize that House Venture wasn’t trying to attack them, and that there wasn’t really any danger. Just some spies who got careless.

He should have returned by now. However, his convenient absence from the palace gave him a perfect excuse to check on another group of spies. And this time, Elend himself had sent them.

A sudden knock on the door made Jastes jump, and Elend closed his book, then opened the carriage door. Felt, one of the House Venture chief spies, climbed into the carriage, nodding his hawkish, mustached face respectfully to Elend, then Jastes.

“Well?” Jastes asked.

Felt sat down with the keen litheness of his kind. “The building is ostensibly a woodcrafter’s shop, m’lord. One of my men has heard of the place – it’s run by one Master Cladent, a skaa carpenter of no small skill.”

Elend frowned. “Why did Valette’s steward come here?”

“We think that the shop is a front, m’lord,” Felt said. “We’ve been observing it ever since the steward led us here, as you ordered. However, we’ve had to be very careful – there are several watchnests hidden on its roof and top floors.”

Elend frowned. “An odd precaution for a simple craftsman’s shop, I should think.”

Felt nodded. “That’s not the half of it, m’lord. We managed to sneak one of our best men up to the building itself – we don’t think he was spotted – but he had a remarkably difficult time hearing what’s going on inside. The windows are sealed and stuffed to keep in sound.”

Another odd precaution, Elend thought. “What do you think it means?” he asked Felt.

“It’s got to be an underground hideout, m’lord,” Felt said. “And a good one. If we hadn’t been watching carefully, and been certain what to look for, we would never have noticed the signs. My guess is that the men inside – even the Terrisman – are members of a skaa thieving crew. A very well-funded and skilled one.”

“A skaa thieving crew?” Jastes asked. “And Lady Valette too?”

“Likely, m’lord,” Felt said.

Elend paused. “A… skaa thieving crew…” he said, stunned. Why would they send one of their members to balls? To perform a scam of some sort, perhaps?

“M’lord?” Felt asked. “Do you want us to break in? I’ve got enough men to take their entire crew.”

“No,” Elend said. “Call your men back, and tell no one of what you’ve seen this night.”

“Yes, m’lord,” Felt said, climbing out of the coach.

“Lord Ruler!” Jastes said as the carriage door closed. “No wonder she didn’t seem like a regular noblewoman. It wasn’t her rural upbringing – she’s just a thief!”

Elend nodded, thoughtful, not certain what to think.

“You owe me an apology,” Jastes said. “I was right about her, eh?”

“Perhaps,” Elend said. “But… in a way, you were wrong about her too. She wasn’t trying to spy on me – she was just trying to rob me.”

“So?”

“I… need to think about this,” Elend said, reaching out and knocking for the carriage to start moving. He sat back as the coach began to roll back toward Keep Venture.

Valette wasn’t the person that she’d said she was. However, he’d already prepared himself for that news. Not only had Jastes’s words about her made him suspicious, Valette herself hadn’t denied Elend’s accusations earlier in the night. It was obvious; she had been lying to him. Playing a part.

He should have been furious. He realized this, logically, and a piece of him did ache of betrayal. But, oddly, the primary emotion he felt was one of… relief.

“What?” Jastes asked, studying Elend with a frown.

Elend shook his head. “You’ve had me worrying over this for days, Jastes. I felt so sick that I could barely function – all because I thought that Valette was a traitor.”

“But she is. Elend, she’s probably trying to scam you!”

“Yes,” Elend said, “but at least she probably isn’t a spy for another house. In the face of all the intrigue, politics, and backbiting that has been going on lately, something as simple as a robbery feels slightly refreshing.”

“But…”

“It’s only money, Jastes.”

“Money is kind of important to some of us, Elend.”

“Not as important as Valette. That poor girl… all this time, she must have been worrying about the scam she would have to pull on me!”

Jastes sat for a moment, then he finally shook his head. “Elend, only you would be relieved to find out that someone was trying to steal from you. Need I remind you that the girl has been lying this entire time? You might have grown attached to her, but I doubt her own feelings are genuine.”

“You may be right,” Elend admitted. “But… I don’t know, Jastes. I feel like I know this girl. Her emotions… they just seem too real, too honest, to be false.”

“Doubtful,” Jastes said.

Elend shook his head. “We don’t have enough information to judge her yet. Felt thinks she’s a thief, but there have to be other reasons a group like that would send someone to balls. Maybe she’s just an informant. Or, maybe she is a thief – but not one who ever intended to rob me. She spent an awful lot of time mixing with the other nobility – why would she do that if I was her target? In fact, she spent relatively little time with me, and she never plied me for gifts.”

He paused – imagining his meeting Valette as a pleasant accident, an event that had thrown a terrible twist into both of their lives. He smiled, then shook his head. “No, Jastes. There’s more here than we’re seeing. Something about her still doesn’t make sense.”

“I… suppose, El,” Jastes said, frowning.

Elend sat upright, a sudden thought occurring to him – a thought that made his speculations about Valette’s motivation seem far less important. “Jastes,” he said. “She’s skaa!”

“And?”

“And she fooled me – fooled us both. She acted the part of an aristocrat almost perfectly.”

“An inexperienced aristocrat, perhaps.”

“I had a real skaa thief with me!” Elend said. “Think of the questions I could have asked her.”

“Questions? What kind of questions?”

“Questions about being skaa,” Elend said. “That’s not the point. Jastes, she fooled us. If we can’t tell the difference between a skaa and a noblewoman, that means that the skaa can’t be very different from us. And, if they’re not that different from us, what right do we have treating them as we do?”

Jastes shrugged. “Elend, I don’t think you’re looking at this in perspective. We’re in the middle of a house war.”

Elend nodded distractedly. I was so hard on her this evening. Too hard?

He had wanted her to believe, totally and completely, that he didn’t want anything more to do with her. Part of that had been genuine, for his own worries had convinced him that she couldn’t be trusted. And she couldn’t be, not at the moment. Either way, he’d wanted her to leave the city. He’d thought that the best thing to do was break off the relationship until the house war was through.

But, assuming she’s really not a noblewoman, then there’s no reason for her to leave.

“Elend?” Jastes asked. “Are you even paying attention to me?”

Elend looked up. “I think I did something wrong tonight. I wanted to get Valette out of Luthadel. But, now I think I hurt her for no reason.”

“Bloody hell, Elend!” Jastes said. “Allomancers were listening to our conference this night. Do you realize what could have happened? What if they’d decided to kill us, rather than just spy on us?”

“Ah, yes, you’re right,” Elend said with a distracted nod. “It’s best if Valette leaves anyway. Anyone close to me will be in danger during the days to come.”

Jastes paused, his annoyance deepening, then he finally laughed. “You’re hopeless.”

“I try my best,” Elend said. “But, seriously, there’s no use worrying. The spies gave themselves away, and likely got chased off – or even captured – in the chaos. We now know some of the secrets that Valette is hiding, so we’re ahead there too. It’s been a very productive night!”

“That’s an optimistic way of looking at it, I guess…”

“Once again, I try my best.” Even still, he would feel more comfortable when they got back to Keep Venture. Perhaps it had been foolhardy to sneak away from the palace before hearing the details of what had happened, but Elend hadn’t exactly been thinking carefully at the time. Besides, he’d had the previously arranged meeting with Felt to attend, and the chaos had made a perfect opportunity to slip away.

The carriage slowly pulled up to the Venture gates. “You should go,” Elend said, slipping out of the carriage door. “Take the books.”

Jastes nodded, grabbing the sack, then bidding Elend farewell as he shut the carriage door. Elend waited as the carriage rolled back away from the gates, then he turned and walked the rest of the way to the keep, the surprised gate guards letting him pass with ease.

The grounds were still ablaze with light. Guards were already waiting for him at the front of the keep, and a group of them rushed out into the mists to meet him. And surround him.

“My lord, your father–”

“Yes,” Elend interrupted, sighing. “I assume I’m to be taken to him immediately?”

“Yes, my lord.”

“Lead on, then, Captain.”

They entered through the lord’s entrance on the side of the building. Lord Straff Venture stood in his study, speaking with a group of guard officers. Elend could tell from the pale faces that they had received a firm scolding, perhaps even threats of beatings. They were noblemen, so Venture couldn’t execute them, but he was very fond of the more brutal disciplinary forms.

Lord Venture dismissed the soldiers with a sharp gesture, then turned to Elend with hostile eyes. Elend frowned, watching the soldiers go. Everything all seemed a little too… tense.

“Well?” Lord Venture demanded.

“Well what?”

“Where have you been?”

“Oh, I left,” Elend said offhandedly.

Lord Venture sighed. “Fine. Endanger yourself if you wish, boy. In a way, it’s too bad that Mistborn didn’t catch you – they could have saved me a great deal of frustration.”

“Mistborn?” Elend asked, frowning. “What Mistborn?”

“The one that was planning to assassinate you,” Lord Venture snapped.

Elend blinked in startlement. “So… it wasn’t just a spying team?”

“Oh, no,” Venture said, smiling somewhat wickedly. “An entire assassination team, sent here after you and your friends.”

Lord Ruler! Elend thought, realizing how foolish he had been to go out alone. I didn’t expect the house war to get so dangerous so quickly! At least, not for me…

“How do we know it was a Mistborn?” Elend asked, gathering his wits.

“Our guards managed to kill her,” Straff said. “As she was fleeing.”

Elend frowned. “A full Mistborn? Killed by common soldiers?”

“Archers,” Lord Venture said. “Apparently, they took her by surprise.”

“And the man who fell through my skylight?” Elend asked.

“Dead,” Lord Venture said. “Broken neck.”

Elend frowned. That man was still alive when we fled. What are you hiding, Father? “The Mistborn. Anyone I know?”

“I’d say so,” Lord Venture said, settling into his desk chair, not looking up. “It was Shan Elariel.”

Elend froze in shock. Shan? he thought, dumbfounded. They’d been engaged, and she’d never even mentioned that she was an Allomancer. That probably meant…

She’d been a plant all along. Perhaps House Elariel had planned to have Elend killed once an Elariel grandson was born to the house title.

You’re right, Jastes. I can’t avoid politics by ignoring it. I’ve been a part of it all for much longer than I assumed.

His father was obviously pleased with himself. A high-profile member of House Elariel was dead on Venture grounds after trying to assassinate Elend… With such a triumph, Lord Venture would be insufferable for days.

Elend sighed. “Did we capture any of the assassins alive, then?”

Straff shook his head. “One fell to the courtyard as he was trying to flee. He got away – he might have been Mistborn too. We found one man dead on the roof, but we aren’t sure if there were others in the team or not.” He paused.

“What?” Elend asked, reading the slight confusion in his father’s eyes.

“Nothing,” Straff said, waving a dismissive hand. “Some of the guards claim there was a third Mistborn, fighting the other two, but I doubt the reports – it wasn’t one of ours.”

Elend paused. A third Mistborn, fighting the other two… “Maybe someone found out about the assassination and tried to stop it.”

Lord Venture snorted. “Why would someone else’s Mistborn try to protect you?”

“Maybe they just wanted to stop an innocent man from being murdered.”

Lord Venture shook his head, laughing. “You are an idiot, boy. You understand that, right?”

Elend flushed, then turned away. It didn’t appear that Lord Venture wanted anything more, so Elend left. He couldn’t go back to his rooms, not with the broken window and the guards, so he made his way to a guest bedroom, calling for a set of hazekillers to watch outside his door and balcony – just in case.

He prepared for bed, thinking about the conversation. His father was probably right about the third Mistborn. That just wasn’t the way things worked.

But… that’s the way it should be. The way it could be, maybe.

There were so many things Elend wished he could do. But, his father was healthy, and young for a lord of his power. It would be decades before Elend assumed the house title, assuming he even survived that long. He wished he could go to Valette, talk to her, explain his frustrations. She’d understand what he was thinking; for some reason, she always seemed to understand him better than others.

And, she’s skaa! He couldn’t get over the thought. He had so many questions, so many things he wanted to find out from her.

Later, he thought as he climbed into bed. For now, focus on keeping the house together. His words to Valette in that area hadn’t been false – he needed to make certain his family survived the house war.

After that… well, perhaps they could find a way to work around the lies and the scams.

32

TWO STREETS OVER FROM CLUBS’S shop, there was a building of unusual height compared with those surrounding it. It was some kind of tenement, Vin thought – a place to pack skaa families. She’d never been inside of it, however.

She dropped a coin, then shot herself up along the side of the six-story building. She landed lightly on the rooftop, causing a figure crouching in the darkness to jump in surprise.

“It’s just me,” Vin whispered, sneaking quietly across the sloped roof.

Spook smiled at her in the night. As the crew’s best Tineye, he usually got the most important watches. Recently, those were the ones during the early evening. That was the time when conflict among the Great Houses was most likely to turn to outright fighting.

“Are they still going at it?” Vin asked quietly, flaring her tin, scanning the city. A bright haze shone in the distance, giving the mists a strange luminescence.

Spook nodded, pointing toward the light. “Keep Hasting. Elariel soldiers with the attacking tonight.”

Vin nodded. Keep Hasting’s destruction had been expected for some time – it had suffered a half-dozen raids from different houses during the last week. Allies withdrawing, finances wrecked, it was only a matter of time before it fell.

Oddly, none of the houses attacked during the daytime. There was a feigned air of secrecy about the war, as if the aristocracy acknowledged the Lord Ruler’s dominance, and didn’t want to upset him by resorting to daylight warfare. It was all handled at night, beneath a cloak of mists.

“Wasing the want of this,” Spook said.

Vin paused. “Uh, Spook. Could you try to speak… normal?”

Spook nodded toward a distant, dark structure in the distance. “The Lord Ruler. Liking he wants the fighting.”

Vin nodded. Kelsier was right. There hasn’t been much of an outcry from the Ministry or the palace regarding the house war, and the Garrison is taking its time getting back to Luthadel. The Lord Ruler expected the house war – and intends to let it run its course. Like a wildfire, left to blaze and renew a field.

Except this time, as one fire died, another would start – Kelsier’s attack on the city.

Assuming Marsh can find out how to stop the Steel Inquisitors. Assuming we can take the palace. And, of course, assuming Kelsier can find a way to deal with the Lord Ruler…

Vin shook her head. She didn’t want to think poorly of Kelsier, but she just didn’t see how it was all going to happen. The Garrison wasn’t back yet, but reports said it was close, perhaps only a week or two out. Some noble houses were falling, but there didn’t seem to be the air of general chaos that Kelsier had wanted. The Final Empire was strained, but she doubted that it would crack.

However, maybe that wasn’t the point. The crew had done an amazing job of instigating a house war; three entire Great Houses were no more, and the rest were seriously weakened. It would take decades for the aristocracy to recover from their own squabbling.

We’ve done an amazing job, Vin decided. Even if we don’t attack the palace – or if that attack fails – we’ll have accomplished something wonderful.

With Marsh’s intelligence about the Ministry and Sazed’s translation of the logbook, the rebellion would have new and useful information for future resistance. It wasn’t what Kelsier had hoped for; it wasn’t a complete toppling of the Final Empire. However, it was a major victory – one that the skaa could look to for years as a source of courage.

And, with a start of surprise, Vin realized that she felt proud to have been part of it. Perhaps, in the future, she could help start a real rebellion – one in a place where the skaa weren’t quite so beaten down.

If such a place exists… Vin was beginning to understand that it wasn’t just Luthadel and its Soothing stations that made skaa subservient. It was everything – the obligators, the constant work in field and mill, the mind-set encouraged by a thousand years of oppression. There was a reason why skaa rebellions were always so small. The people knew – or thought they knew – that there was no fighting against the Final Empire.

Even Vin – who’d assumed herself a “liberated” thief – had believed the same. It had taken Kelsier’s insane, over-the-top plan to convince her otherwise. Perhaps that was why he’d set such lofty goals for the crew – he’d known that only something this challenging would make them realize, in a strange way, that they could resist.

Spook glanced at her. Her presence still made him uncomfortable.

“Spook,” Vin said, “you know that Elend broke off his relationship with me.”

Spook nodded, perking up slightly.

“But,” Vin said regretfully, “I still love him. I’m sorry, Spook. But it’s true.”

He looked down, deflating.

“It’s not you,” Vin said. “Really, it isn’t. It’s just that… well, you can’t help who you love. Trust me, there are some people I really would rather not have loved. They didn’t deserve it.”

Spook nodded. “I understand.”

“Can I still keep the handkerchief?”

He shrugged.

“Thank you,” she said. “It does mean a lot to me.”

He looked up, staring out into the mists. “I’m notting a fool. I… knew it wasing not to happen. I see things, Vin. I see lots of things.”

She laid a comforting hand on his shoulder. I see things… An appropriate statement, for a Tineye like him.

“You’ve been an Allomancer for a long time?” she asked.

Spook nodded. “Wasing the Snap when I was five. Barely even remember it.”

“And since then you’ve been practicing with tin?”

“Mostly,” he said. “Wasing a good thing for me. Letting me see, letting me hear, letting me feel.”

“Any tips you can pass on?” Vin asked hopefully.

He paused thoughtfully, sitting by the edge of the slanted rooftop, one foot dangling over the side. “Tin burning… Notting about the seeing. Wasing about the not seeing.”

Vin frowned. “What do you mean?”

“When burning,” he said, “everything comes. Lots of everything. Distractions here, there. Iffing the power of wants, ignoring the distractions of both.”

If you want to be good at burning tin, she thought, translating as best she could, learn to deal with distraction. It isn’t about what you see – it’s about what you can ignore.

“Interesting,” Vin said thoughtfully.

Spook nodded. “When looking, seeing the mist and seeing the houses and feeling the wood and hearing the rats below. Choose one, and don’t get distracted.”

“Good advice,” Vin said.

Spook nodded as a sound thumped behind them. They both jumped and ducked down, and Kelsier chuckled as he walked across the rooftop. “We really have to find a better way of warning people that we’re coming up. Every time I visit a spynest, I worry that I’m going to startle someone off the rooftop.”

Vin stood, dusting off her clothing. She wore mistcloak, shirt, and trousers; it had been days since she’d worn a dress. She only put in token appearances at Mansion Renoux. Kelsier was too worried about assassins to let her stay there for long.

At least we bought Kliss’s silence, Vin thought, annoyed at the expense. “It’s time?” she asked.

Kelsier nodded. “Nearly so, at least. I want to stop somewhere on the way.”

Vin nodded. For their second meeting, Marsh had chosen a location that he was supposedly scouting for the Ministry. It was a perfect opportunity to meet, since Marsh had an excuse to be in the building all night, ostensibly Seeking for any Allomantic activity nearby. He would have a Soother with him for a good deal of the time, but there would be an opening near the middle of the night when Marsh figured he would have a good hour alone. Not much time if he had to sneak out and back, but plenty of time for a pair of stealthy Mistborn to pay him a quick visit.

They bid farewell to Spook and Pushed off into the night. However, they didn’t travel the rooftops for long before Kelsier led them down onto the street, landing and walking to conserve strength and metals.

It’s kind of odd, Vin thought, remembering her first night practicing Allomancy with Kelsier. I don’t even think of the empty streets as creepy anymore.

The cobblestones were slick from mistwater, and the deserted street eventually disappeared into the distant haze. It was dark, silent, and lonely; even the war hadn’t changed very much. Soldier groups, when they attacked, went in clumps, striking quickly and trying to overrun the defenses of an enemy house.

Yet, despite the emptiness of the nighttime city, Vin felt comfortable in it. The mists were with her.

“Vin,” Kelsier said as they walked. “I want to thank you.”

She turned to him, a tall, proud figure in a majestic mistcloak. “Thank me? Why?”

“For the things you said about Mare. I’ve been thinking a lot about that day… about her. I don’t know if your ability to see through copperclouds explains everything, but… well, given the choice, I’d rather believe that Mare didn’t betray me.”

Vin nodded, smiling.

He shook his head ruefully. “It sounds foolish, doesn’t it? As if… all these years, I’ve just been waiting for a reason to give in to self-delusion.”

“I don’t know,” Vin said. “Once, maybe I would have thought you a fool, but… well, that’s kind of what trust is, isn’t it? A willful self-delusion? You have to shut out that voice that whispers about betrayal, and just hope that your friends aren’t going to hurt you.”

Kelsier chuckled. “I don’t think you’re helping the argument any, Vin.”

She shrugged. “Makes sense to me. Distrust is really the same thing – only on the other side. I can see how a person, given the choice between two assumptions, would choose to trust.”

“But not you?” Kelsier asked.

Vin shrugged again. “I don’t know anymore.”

Kelsier hesitated. “This… Elend of yours. There’s a chance that he was just trying to scare you into leaving the city, right? Perhaps he said those things for your own good.”

“Maybe,” Vin said. “But, there was something different about him… about the way he looked at me. He knew I was lying to him, but I don’t think he realized that I was skaa. He probably thought I was a spy from one of the other houses. Either way, he seemed honest in his desire to be rid of me.”

“Maybe you thought that because you were already convinced that he was going to leave you.”

“I…” Vin trailed off, glancing down at the slick, ashen street as they walked. “I don’t know – and it’s your fault, you know. I used to understand everything. Now it’s all confused.”

“Yes, we’ve messed you up right properly,” Kelsier said with a smile.

“You don’t seem bothered by the fact.”

“Nope,” Kelsier said. “Not a bit. Ah, here we are.”

He stopped beside a large, wide building – probably another skaa tenement. It was dark inside; skaa couldn’t afford lamp oil, and they would have put out the building’s central hearth after preparing the evening meal.

“This?” Vin asked uncertainly.

Kelsier nodded, walking up to tap lightly on the door. To Vin’s surprise, it opened hesitantly, a wiry skaa face peeking out into the mists.

“Lord Kelsier!” the man said quietly.

“I told you I’d visit,” Kelsier said, smiling. “Tonight seemed like a good time.”

“Come in, come in,” the man said, pulling the door open. He stepped back, careful not to let any of the mist touch him as Kelsier and Vin entered.

Vin had been in skaa tenements before, but never before had they seemed so… depressing. The smell of smoke and unwashed bodies was almost overpowering, and she had to extinguish her tin to keep from gagging. The wan light of a small coal stove showed a crowd of people packed together, sleeping on the floor. They kept the room swept of ash, but there was only so much they could do – black stains still covered clothing, walls, and faces. There were few furnishings, not to mention far too few blankets to go around.

I used to live like this, Vin thought with horror. The crew lairs were just as packed – sometimes more so. This… was my life.

People roused as they saw that they had a visitor. Kelsier had his sleeves rolled up, Vin noticed, and the scars on his arms were visible even by emberlight. They stood out starkly, running lengthwise up from his wrist past his elbows, crisscrossing and overlapping.

The whispers began immediately.

“The Survivor…”

“He’s here!”

“Kelsier, the Lord of the Mists…”

That’s a new one, Vin thought with a raised eyebrow. She stayed back as Kelsier smiled, stepping forward to meet the skaa. The people gathered around him with quiet excitement, reaching out to touch his arms and cloak. Others just stood and stared, watching him with reverence.

“I come to spread hope,” Kelsier said to them quietly. “House Hasting fell tonight.”

There were murmurs of surprise and awe.

“I know many of you worked in the Hasting smithies and steel mills,” Kelsier said. “And, honestly, I cannot say what this means for you. But it is a victory for all of us. For a time, at least, your men won’t die before the forges or beneath the whips of Hasting taskmasters.”

There were murmurs through the small crowd, and one voice finally spoke the concern loud enough for Vin to hear. “House Hasting is gone? Who will feed us?”

So frightened, Vin thought. I was never like that… was I?

“I’ll send you another shipment of food,” Kelsier promised. “Enough to last you for a while, at least.”

“You’ve done so much for us,” another man said.

“Nonsense,” Kelsier said. “If you wish to repay me, then stand up just a little straighter. Be a little less afraid. They can be beaten.”

“By men like you, Lord Kelsier,” a woman whispered. “But not by us.”

“You’d be surprised,” Kelsier said as the crowd began to make way for parents bringing their children forward. It seemed like everyone in the room wanted their sons to meet Kelsier personally. Vin watched with mixed feelings. The crew still had reservations regarding Kelsier’s rising fame with the skaa, though they kept their word and remained silent.

He really does seem to care for them, Vin thought, watching Kelsier pick up a small child. I don’t think it’s just a show. This is how he is – he loves people, loves the skaa. But… it’s more like the love of a parent for a child than it is like the love of a man for his equals.

Was that so wrong? He was, after all, a kind of father to the skaa. He was the noble lord they always should have had. Still, Vin couldn’t help feeling uncomfortable as she watched the faintly illuminated, dirty faces of those skaa families, their eyes worshipful and reverent.

Kelsier eventually bid the group farewell, telling them he had an appointment. Vin and he left the cramped room, stepping out into blessedly fresh air. Kelsier remained quiet as they traveled toward Marsh’s new Soothing station, though he did walk with a bit more of a spring in his step.

Eventually, Vin had to say something. “You visit them often?”

Kelsier nodded. “At least a couple of houses a night. It breaks up the monotony of my other work.”

Killing noblemen and spreading false rumors, Vin thought. Yes, visiting the skaa would be a nice break.

The meeting place was only a few streets away. Kelsier paused in a doorway as they approached, squinting in the dark night. Finally, he pointed at a window, just faintly lit. “Marsh said he’d leave a light burning if the other obligators were gone.”

“Window or stairs?” Vin asked.

“Stairs,” Kelsier said. “The door should be unlocked, and the Ministry owns the entire building. It will be empty.”

Kelsier was right on both counts. The building didn’t smell musty enough to be abandoned, but the bottom few floors were obviously unused. Vin and he quickly climbed up the stairwell.

“Marsh should be able to tell us the Ministry reaction to the House War,” Kelsier said as they reached the top floor. Lanternlight flickered through the door at the top, and he pushed it open, still speaking. “Hopefully, that Garrison won’t get back too quickly. The damage is mostly done, but I’d like the war to go on for–”

He froze in the doorway, blocking Vin’s view.

She flared pewter and tin immediately, falling to a crouch, listening for attackers. There was nothing. Just silence.

“No…” Kelsier whispered.

Then Vin saw the trickle of dark red liquid seeping around the side of Kelsier’s foot. It pooled slightly, then began to drip down the first step.

Oh, Lord Ruler…

Kelsier stumbled into the room. Vin followed, but she knew what she’d see. The corpse lay near the center of the chamber, flayed and dismembered, the head completely crushed. It was barely recognizable as human. The walls were sprayed red.

Could one body really produce this much blood? It was just like before, in the basement of Camon’s lair – only with a single victim.

“Inquisitor,” Vin whispered.

Kelsier, heedless of the gore, stumbled to his knees beside Marsh’s corpse. He raised a hand as if to touch the skinless body, but remained frozen there, stunned.

“Kelsier,” Vin said urgently. “This was recent – the Inquisitor could still be near.”

He didn’t move.

“Kelsier!” Vin snapped.

Kelsier shook, looking around. His eyes met hers, and lucidity returned. He stumbled to his feet.

“Window,” Vin said, rushing across the room. She paused, however, when she saw something sitting on a small desk beside the wall. A wooden table leg, tucked half-hidden beneath a blank sheet of paper. Vin snatched it as Kelsier reached the window.

He turned back, looking over the room one last time, then jumped out into the night.

Farewell, Marsh, Vin thought regretfully, following.

“ ‘I think that the Inquisitors suspect me,’ ” Dockson read. The paper – a single sheet recovered from inside the table leg – was clean and white, free from the blood that stained Kelsier’s knees and the bottom of Vin’s cloak.

Dockson continued, reading as he sat at Clubs’s kitchen table. “ ‘I’ve been asking too many questions, and I know they sent at least one message to the corrupt obligator who supposedly trained me as an acolyte. I thought to seek out the secrets that the rebellion has always needed to know. How does the Ministry recruit Mistborn to be Inquisitors? Why are Inquisitors more powerful than regular Allomancers? What, if any, are their weaknesses?

“ ‘Unfortunately, I’ve learned next to nothing about the Inquisitors – though the politicking within the regular Ministry ranks continues to amaze me. It’s like the regular obligators don’t even care about the world outside, except for the prestige they earn by being the most clever or successful in applying the Lord Ruler’s dictates.

“ ‘The Inquisitors, however, are different. They are far more loyal to the Lord Ruler than the regular obligators – and this is, perhaps, part of the dissension between the two groups.

“ ‘Regardless, I feel that I am close. They do have a secret, Kelsier. A weakness. I’m sure of it. The other obligators whisper of it, though none of them know it.

“ ‘I fear that I’ve prodded too much. The Inquisitors tail me, watch me, ask after me. So, I prepare this note. Perhaps my caution is unnecessary.

“ ‘Perhaps not.’ ”

Dockson looked up. “That’s… all it says.”

Kelsier stood at the far side of the kitchen, back to the cupboard, reclining in his usual position. But… there was no levity in his posture this time. He stood with arms folded, head slightly bowed. His disbelieving grief appeared to have vanished, replaced with another emotion – one Vin had sometimes seen smoldering darkly behind his eyes. Usually when he spoke of the nobility.

She shivered despite herself. Standing as he was, she was suddenly aware of his clothing – dark gray mistcloak, long-sleeved black shirt, charcoal trousers. In the night, the clothing was simply camouflage. In the lit room, however, the black colors made him look menacing.

He stood up straight, and the room grew tense.

“Tell Renoux to pull out,” Kelsier said softly, his voice like iron. “He can use the planned exit story – that of a ‘retreat’ back to his family lands because of the house war – but I want him gone by tomorrow. Send a Thug and a Tineye with him as protection, but tell him to abandon his canal boats one day out of the city, then return to us.”

Dockson paused, then glanced at Vin and the others. “Okay…”

“Marsh knew everything, Dox,” Kelsier said. “They broke him before they killed him – that’s how Inquisitors work.”

He let the words hang. Vin felt a chill. The lair was compromised.

“To the backup lair, then?” Dockson asked. “Only you and I knew its location.”

Kelsier nodded firmly. “I want everyone out of this shop, apprentices included, in fifteen minutes. I’ll meet you at the backup lair in two days.”

Dockson looked up at Kelsier, frowning. “Two days? Kell, what are you planning?”

Kelsier strode over to the door. He threw it open, letting in the mist, then glanced back at the crew with eyes as hard as any Inquisitor’s spikes.

“They hit me where it couldn’t have hurt worse. I’m going to do likewise.”

Walin pushed himself in the darkness, feeling his way through the cramped caverns, forcing his body through cracks nearly too small. He continued downward, searching with his fingers, ignoring his numerous scrapes and cuts.

Must keep going, must keep going… His remaining sanity told him that this was his last day. It had been six days since his last success. If he failed a seventh time, he would die.

Must keep going.

He couldn’t see; he was too far beneath the surface to catch even a reflected glimpse of sunlight. But, even without light, he could find his way. There were only two directions: up and down. Movements to the side were unimportant, easily disregarded. He couldn’t get lost as long as he kept moving down.

All the while, he quested with his fingers, seeking the telltale roughness of budding crystal. He couldn’t return this time, not until he’d been successful, not until…

Must keep going.

His hands brushed something soft and cold as he moved. A corpse, stuck rotting between two rocks. Walin moved on. Bodies weren’t uncommon in the tight caverns; some of the corpses were fresh, most were simply bones. Often, Walin wondered if the dead ones weren’t really the lucky ones.

Must keep going.

There wasn’t really “time” in the caverns. Usually, he returned above to sleep – though the surface held taskmasters with whips, they also had food. It was meager, barely enough to keep him alive, but it was better than the starvation that would come from staying below too long.

Must keep–

He froze. He lay with his torso pinched in a tight rift in the rock, and had been in the process of wiggling his way through. However, his fingers – always searching, even when he was barely conscious – had been feeling the walls. And they’d found something.

His hand quivered with anticipation as he felt the crystal buds. Yes, yes, that was them. They grew in a wide, circular pattern on the wall; they were small at the edges, but got gradually bigger near the center. At the direct middle of the circular pattern, the crystals curved inward, following a pocketlike hollow in the wall. Here, the crystals grew long, each one having a jagged, sharp edge. Like teeth lining the maw of a stone beast.

Taking a breath, praying to the Lord Ruler, Walin rammed his hand into the fist-sized, circular opening. The crystals ripped his arm, tearing long, shallow gashes in his skin. He ignored the pain, forcing his arm in further, up to his elbow, searching with his fingers for…

There! His fingers found a small rock at the center of the pocket – a rock formed by the mysterious drippings of the crystals. A Hathsin geode.

He grasped it eagerly, pulling it out, ripping his arm again as he withdrew it from the crystal-lined hole. He cradled the small rock sphere, breathing heavily with joy.

Another seven days. He would live another seven days.

Before hunger and fatigue could weaken him further, Walin began the laborious climb back upward. He squeezed through crevasses, climbed up juttings in walls. Sometimes he had to move to the right or left until the ceiling opened up, but it always did. There were really only two directions: up and down.

He kept a wary ear out for others. He had seen climbers killed before, slain by younger, stronger men who hoped to steal a geode. Fortunately, he met nobody. It was good. He was an older man – old enough to know that he never should have tried to steal food from his plantation lord.

Perhaps he had earned his punishment. Perhaps he deserved to die in the Pits of Hathsin.

But I won’t die today, he thought, finally smelling sweet, fresh air. It was night above. He didn’t care. The mists didn’t bother him anymore – even beatings didn’t bother him much anymore. He was just too tired to care.

Walin began to climb out of the crack – one of dozens in the small, flat valley known as the Pits of Hathsin. Then he froze.

A man stood above him in the night. He was dressed in a large cloak that appeared to have been shredded to strips. The man looked at Walin, quiet and powerful in his black clothing. Then he reached down.

Walin cringed. The man, however, grabbed Walin’s hand and pulled him out of the crack.

“Go!” the man said quietly in the swirling mists. “Most of the guards are dead. Gather as many prisoners as you can, and escape this place. You have a geode?”

Walin cringed again, pulling his hand toward his chest.

“Good,” the stranger said. “Break it open. You’ll find a nugget of metal inside – it is very valuable. Sell it to the underground in whatever city you eventually find yourself; you should earn enough to live on for years. Go quickly! I don’t know how long you have until an alarm is raised.”

Walin stumbled back, confused. “Who… who are you?”

“I am what you will soon be,” the stranger said, stepping up to the rift. The ribbons of his enveloping black cloak billowed around him, mixing with the mists as he turned toward Walin. “I am a survivor.”

Kelsier looked down, studying the dark scar in the rock, listening as the prisoner scrambled away in the distance.

“And so I return,” Kelsier whispered. His scars burned, and memories returned. Memories of months spent squeezing through cracks, of ripping his arms on crystalline knives, of seeking each day to find a geode… just one, so that he could live on.

Could he really go back down into those cramped, quiet depths? Could he enter the darkness again? Kelsier held up his arms, looking at the scars, still white and stark on his arms.

Yes. For her dreams, he could.

He stepped over to the rift and forced himself to climb down inside of it. Then he burned tin. Immediately, he heard a cracking sound from below.

Tin illuminated the rift beneath him. Though the crack widened, it also branched, sending out twisting rifts in all directions. Part cavern, part crack, part tunnel. He could already see his first crystalline atium-hole – or what was left of it. The long, silvery crystals were fractured and broken.

Using Allomancy near atium crystals caused them to shatter. That was why the Lord Ruler had to use slaves, and not Allomancers, to collect his atium for him.

Now the real test, Kelsier thought, squeezing down further into the crack. He burned iron, and immediately he saw several blue lines pointing downward, toward atium-holes. Though the holes themselves probably didn’t have an atium geode in them, the crystals themselves gave off faint blue lines. They contained residual amounts of atium.

Kelsier focused on one of the blue lines and Pulled lightly. His tin enhanced ears heard something shatter in the crack beneath him.

Kelsier smiled.

Nearly three years before, standing over the bloody corpses of the taskmasters who had beaten Mare to death, he had first noticed that he could use iron to sense where crystal pockets were. He’d barely understood his Allomantic powers at the time, but even then, a plan had begun to form in his mind. A plan for vengeance.

That plan had evolved, growing to encompass so much more than he’d originally intended. However, one of its key parts had remained sequestered away in a corner of his mind. He could find the crystal pockets. He could shatter them, using Allomancy.

And they were the only means of producing atium in the entire Final Empire.

You tried to destroy me, Pits of Hathsin, he thought, climbing down further into the rift. It’s time to return the favor.

33

“SO… THAT’S IT?” VIN ASKED. “For the plan, I mean.”

Ham shrugged. “If the Inquisitors broke Marsh, that means they know everything. Or, at least, they know enough. They’ll know that we plan to strike the palace, and that we’re going to use the house war as a cover. We’ll never get the Lord Ruler out of the city now, and we’ll certainly never get him to send the palace guard into the city. It doesn’t look good, Vin.”

Vin sat quietly, digesting the information. Ham sat cross-legged on the dirty floor, leaning against the bricks of the far wall. The backup lair was a dank cellar with only three rooms, and the air smelled of dirt and ash. Clubs’s apprentices took up one room to themselves, though Dockson had sent away all of the other servants before coming to the safe house.

Breeze stood by the far wall. He occasionally shot uncomfortable looks at the dirty floor and dusty stools, but then decided to remain standing. Vin didn’t see why he bothered – it was going to be impossible to keep his suits clean while living in what was, essentially, a pit in the ground.

Breeze wasn’t the only one taking their self-imposed captivity resentfully; Vin had heard several of the apprentices grumble that they’d almost rather have been taken by the Ministry. Yet, during their two days in the cellar, everyone had stayed in the safe house except when absolutely necessary. They understood the danger: Marsh could have given the Inquisitors descriptions and aliases for each crewmember.

Breeze shook his head. “Perhaps, gentlemen, it is time to pack up this operation. We tried hard, and considering the fact that our original plan – gathering the army – ended up so dreadfully, I’d say that we’ve done quite a marvelous job.”

Dockson sighed. “Well, we certainly can’t live off of saved funds for much longer – especially if Kell keeps giving our money away to the skaa.” He sat beside the table that was the room’s only piece of furniture, his most important ledgers, notes, and contracts organized into neat piles before him. He had been remarkably efficient at gathering every bit of paper that could have incriminated the crew or given further information about their plan.

Breeze nodded. “I, for one, am looking forward to a change. This has all been fun, delightful, and all of those other fulfilling emotions, but working with Kelsier can be a bit draining.”

Vin frowned. “You’re not going to stay on his crew?”

“It depends on his next job,” Breeze said. “We aren’t like other crews you’ve known – we work as we please, not because we are told to. It pays for us to be very discerning in the jobs we take. The rewards are great, but so are the risks.”

Ham smiled, resting with his arms behind his head, completely unconcerned about the dirt. “It kind of makes you wonder how we ended up on this particular job, eh? Very high risk, very little reward.”

“None, actually,” Breeze noted. “We’ll never get that atium now. Kelsier’s words about altruism and working to help the skaa were all well and good, but I was always hoping that we’d still get to take a swipe at that treasury.”

“True,” Dockson said, looking up from his notes. “But, was it worth it anyway? The work we did – the things we accomplished?”

Breeze and Ham paused, then they both nodded.

“And that’s why we stayed,” Dockson said. “Kell said it himself – he picked us because he knew we would try something a little different to accomplish a worthwhile goal. You’re good men – even you, Breeze. Stop scowling at me.”

Vin smiled at the familiar banter. There was a sense of mourning regarding Marsh, but these were men who knew how to move on despite their losses. In that way, they really were like skaa, after all.

“A house war,” Ham said idly, smiling to himself. “How many noblemen dead, do you think?”

“Hundreds, at least,” Dockson said without looking up. “All killed by their own greedy noble hands.”

“I’ll admit that I had my doubts about this entire fiasco,” Breeze said. “But the interruption in trade this will cause, not to mention the disorder in the government… well, you’re right, Dockson. It was worth it.”

“Indeed!” Ham said, mimicking Breeze’s stuffy voice.

I’m going to miss them, Vin thought regretfully. Maybe Kelsier will take me with him on his next job.

The stairs rattled, and Vin moved reflexively back into the shadows. The splintery door opened, and a familiar, black-clothed form strode in. He carried his mistcloak over his arm, and his face looked incredibly wearied.

“Kelsier!” Vin said, stepping forward.

“Hello, all,” he said in a tired voice.

I know that tiredness, Vin thought. Pewter drag. Where has he been?

“You’re late, Kell,” Dockson said, still not looking up from his ledgers.

“I strive for nothing if not consistency,” Kelsier said, dropping his mistcloak on the floor, stretching, then sitting down. “Where are Clubs and Spook?”

“Clubs is sleeping in the back room,” Dockson said. “Spook went with Renoux. We figured you’d want him to have our best Tineye to keep a watch.”

“Good idea,” Kelsier said, letting out a deep sigh and closing his eyes as he leaned against the wall.

“My dear man,” Breeze said, “you look terrible.”

“It’s not as bad as it looks – I took it easy coming back, even stopped to sleep for a few hours on the way.”

“Yes, but where were you?” Ham asked pointedly. “We’ve been worried sick that you were out doing something… well, stupid.”

“Actually,” Breeze noted, “we took it for granted that you were doing something stupid. We’ve just been wondering how stupid this particular event would turn out to be. So, what is it? Did you assassinate the lord prelan? Slaughter dozens of noblemen? Steal the cloak off the Lord Ruler’s own back?”

“I destroyed the Pits of Hathsin,” Kelsier said quietly.

The room fell into a stunned silence.

“You know,” Breeze finally said, “you’d think that by now we’d have learned not to underestimate him.”

“Destroyed them?” Ham asked. “How do you destroy the Pits of Hathsin? They’re just a bunch of cracks in the ground!”

“Well, I didn’t actually destroy the pits themselves,” Kelsier explained. “I just shattered the crystals that produce atium geodes.”

“All of them?” Dockson asked, dumbstruck.

“All of them that I could find,” Kelsier said. “And that was several hundred pockets’ worth. It was actually a lot easier to get around down there, now that I have Allomancy.”

“Crystals?” Vin asked, confused.

“Atium crystals, Vin,” Dockson said. “They produce the geodes – I don’t think anyone actually knows how – that have atium beads at the center.”

Kelsier nodded. “The crystals are why the Lord Ruler can’t just send down Allomancers to Pull out the atium geodes. Using Allomancy near the crystals makes them shatter – and it takes centuries for them to grow back.”

“Centuries during which they won’t produce atium,” Dockson added.

“And so you…” Vin trailed off.

“I pretty much ended atium production in the Final Empire for the next three hundred years or so.”

Elend. House Venture. They’re in charge of the Pits. How will the Lord Ruler react when he finds out about this?

“You madman,” Breeze said quietly, eyes open wide. “Atium is the foundation of the imperial economy – controlling it is one of the main ways that the Lord Ruler maintains his hold over the nobility. We may not get to his reserves, but this will eventually have the same effect. You blessed lunatic… you blessed genius!”

Kelsier smiled wryly. “I appreciate both compliments. Have the Inquisitors moved against Clubs’s shop yet?”

“Not that our watchmen have seen,” Dockson said.

“Good,” Kelsier said. “Maybe they didn’t get Marsh to break. At the very least, maybe they don’t realize that their Soothing stations were compromised. Now, if you don’t mind, I’m going to sleep. We have a lot of planning to do tomorrow.”

The group paused.

“Planning?” Dox finally asked. “Kell… we were kind of thinking that we should pull out. We caused a house war, and you just took out the imperial economy. With our cover – and our plan – compromised… Well, you can’t honestly expect us to do anything more, right?”

Kelsier smiled, staggering to his feet and moving into the back room. “We’ll talk tomorrow.”

“What do you think he’s planning, Sazed?” Vin asked, sitting on a stool beside the cellar’s hearth as the Terrisman prepared the afternoon meal. Kelsier had slept through the night, and had yet to rise this afternoon.

“I really have no idea, Mistress,” Sazed replied, sipping the stew. “Though, this moment – with the city so unbalanced – does seem like the perfect opportunity to move against the Final Empire.”

Vin sat thoughtfully. “I suppose we could still seize the palace – that’s what Kell always wanted to do. But, if the Lord Ruler has been warned, the others don’t see that happening. Plus, it doesn’t seem like we have enough soldiers to do much in the city. Ham and Breeze never finished their recruiting.”

Sazed shrugged.

“Maybe Kelsier plans to do something about the Lord Ruler,” Vin mused.

“Perhaps.”

“Sazed?” Vin said slowly. “You collect legends, right?”

“As a Keeper I collect many things,” Sazed said. “Stories, legends, religions. When I was young, another Keeper recited all of his knowledge to me so that I could store it, and then add to it.”

“Have you ever heard about this ‘Eleventh Metal’ legend that Kelsier talks about?”

Sazed paused. “No, Mistress. That legend was new to me when I heard of it from Master Kelsier.”

“But he swears that it’s true,” Vin said. “And I… believe him, for some reason.”

“It is very possible that there are legends I haven’t heard of,” Sazed said. “If the Keepers knew everything, then why would we need to keep searching?”

Vin nodded, still a bit uncertain.

Sazed continued to stir the soup. He seemed so… dignified, even while performing such a menial task. He stood in his steward’s robes, unconcerned with how simple a service he was performing, easily taking over for the servants the crew had dismissed.

Quick footsteps sounded on the stairs, and Vin perked up, sliding off her stool.

“Mistress?” Sazed asked.

“Someone on the stairs,” Vin said, moving to the doorway.

One of the apprentices – Vin thought his name was Tase – burst into the main room. Now that Lestibournes was gone, Tase had become the crew’s main lookout.

“People are gathering in the square,” Tase said, gesturing toward the stairs.

“What’s this?” Dockson said, entering from the other room.

“People in the fountain square, Master Dockson,” the boy said. “Word on the street is that the obligators are planning more executions.”

Retribution for the Pits, Vin thought. That didn’t take long.

Dockson’s expression darkened. “Go wake Kell.”

“I intend to watch them,” Kelsier said, walking through the room, dressed in simple skaa clothing and cloak.

Vin’s stomach twisted. Again?

“You all may do as you wish,” Kelsier said. He looked much better after his extended rest – his exhaustion was gone, replaced with the characteristic strength Vin had come to expect from him.

“The executions are probably a reaction to what I did at the Pits,” Kelsier continued. “I’m going to watch those people’s deaths – because indirectly, I caused them.”

“It’s not your fault, Kell,” Dockson said.

“It’s all of our faults,” Kelsier said bluntly. “That doesn’t make what we do wrong – however, if it weren’t for us, these people wouldn’t have to die. I, for one, think that the least we can do for these people is bear witness to their passing.”

He pulled open the door, climbing the steps. Slowly, the rest of the crew followed him – though Clubs, Sazed, and the apprentices remained with the safe house.

Vin climbed the musty-aired steps, eventually joining the others on a grimy street in the middle of a skaa slum. Ash fell from the sky, floating in lazily flakes. Kelsier was already walking down the street, and the rest of them – Breeze, Ham, Dockson, and Vin – quickly moved to catch up with him.

The safe house wasn’t far from the fountain square. Kelsier, however, paused a few streets away from their destination. Dull-eyed skaa continued walking around them, jostling the crew. Bells rang in the distance.

“Kell?” Dockson asked.

Kelsier cocked his head. “Vin, you hear that?”

She closed her eyes, then flared her tin. Focus, she thought. Like Spook said. Cut through the shuffling feet and murmuring voices. Hear over the doors shutting and the people breathing. Listen…

“Horses,” she said, dampening her tin and opening her eyes. “And carriages.”

“Carts,” Kelsier said, turning toward the side of the street. “The prisoner carts. They’re coming this way.”

He looked up at the buildings around him, then grabbed hold of a raingutter and began to shimmy up a wall. Breeze rolled his eyes, nudging Dockson and nodding toward the front of the building, but Vin and Ham – with pewter – easily followed Kelsier up to the roof.

“There,” Kell said, pointing at a street a short ways away. Vin could just barely make out a row of barred prison carts rolling toward the square.

Dockson and Breeze entered the slanted rooftop through a window. Kelsier remained where he was, standing by the roof’s lip, staring out at the prison carts.

“Kell,” Ham said warily. “What are you thinking?”

“We’re still a short distance from the square,” he said slowly. “And the Inquisitors aren’t riding with the prisoners – they’ll come down from the palace, like last time. There can’t be more than a hundred soldiers guarding those people.”

“A hundred men are plenty, Kell,” Ham said.

Kelsier didn’t seem to hear the words. He took another step forward, approaching up onto the roof’s edge. “I can stop this… I can save them.”

Vin stepped up beside him. “Kell, there might not be many guards with the prisoners, but the fountain square is only a few blocks away. It’s packed with soldiers, not to mention the Inquisitors!”

Ham, unexpectedly, didn’t back her up. He turned, glancing at Dockson and Breeze. Dox paused, then shrugged.

“Are you all crazy?” Vin demanded.

“Wait a moment,” Breeze said, squinting. “I’m no Tineye, but don’t some of those prisoners look a bit too well dressed?”

Kelsier froze, then he cursed. Without warning, he jumped off the rooftop, dropping to the street below.

“Kell!” Vin said. “What–” Then she paused, looking up in the red sunlight, watching the slowly approaching procession of carts. Through tin-enhanced eyes, she thought that she recognized someone sitting near the front of one of the carts.

Spook.

“Kelsier, what’s going on!” Vin demanded, dashing down the street behind him.

He slowed just a bit. “I saw Renoux and Spook in that first cart. The Ministry must have hit Renoux’s canal procession – the people in those cages are the servants, staff, and guards we hired to work at the mansion.”

The canal procession… Vin thought. The Ministry must know that Renoux was a fake. Marsh broke after all.

Behind them, Ham appeared out of the building and onto the street. Breeze and Dockson were slower in coming.

“We have to work quickly!” Kelsier said, picking up his pace again.

“Kell!” Vin said, grabbing his arm. “Kelsier, you can’t save them. They’re too well guarded, and it’s daylight in the middle of the city. You’ll just get yourself killed!”

He paused, halting in the street, turning in Vin’s grasp. He looked into her eyes, disappointed. “You don’t understand what this is all about, do you, Vin? You never did. I let you stop me once before, on the hillside by the battlefield. Not this time. This time I can do something.”

“But…”

He shook his arm free. “You still have some things to learn about friendship, Vin. I hope someday you realize what they are.”

Then he took off, charging in the direction of the carts. Ham barreled past Vin, heading in a different direction, pushing his way through skaa on their way to the square.

Vin stood stupidly for a few moments, standing in the falling ash as Dockson caught up to her.

“It’s insanity,” she mumbled. “We can’t do this, Dox. We’re not invincible.”

Dockson snorted. “We’re not helpless either.”

Breeze puffed up behind them, pointing toward a side street. “There. We need to get me to a place where I can see the soldiers.”

Vin let them tow her along, suddenly feeling shame mix with her worry.

Kelsier…

Kelsier tossed away a pair of empty vials, their contents ingested. The vials sparkled in the air beside him, falling to shatter against the cobblestones. He ducked through one final alleyway, bursting out onto an eerily empty thoroughfare.

The prisoner carts rolled toward him, entering a small courtyard square formed by the intersection of two streets. Each rectangular vehicle was lined with bars; each one was packed with people who were now distinctly familiar. Servants, soldiers, housekeepers – some were rebels, many were just regular people. None of them deserved death.

Too many skaa have died already, he thought, flaring his metals. Hundreds. Thousands. Hundreds of thousands.

Not today. No more.

He dropped a coin and jumped, Pushing himself through the air in a wide arc. Soldiers looked up, pointing. Kelsier landed directly in their center.

There was a quiet moment as the soldiers turned in surprise. Kelsier crouched amid them, bits of ash falling from the sky.

Then he Pushed.

He flared steel with a yell, standing and Pushing outward. The burst of Allomantic power hurled soldiers away by their breastplates, tossing a dozen men into the air, sending them crashing into companions and walls.

Men screamed. Kelsier spun, Pushing against a group of soldiers and sending himself flying toward a prison cart. He smashed into it, flaring his steel and grabbing the metal door with his hands.

Prisoners huddled back in surprise. Kelsier ripped the door free with a burst of pewter-enhanced power, then tossed it toward a group of approaching soldiers.

“Go!” he told the prisoners, jumping down and landing lightly in the street. He spun.

And came face-to-face with a tall figure wearing a brown robe. Kelsier paused, stepping back as the tall form reached up, lowering his hood, revealing a pair of eyes impaled by spikes.

The Inquisitor smiled, and Kelsier heard footsteps approaching down side alleyways. Dozens. Hundreds.

“Damnation!” Breeze swore as soldiers flooded the square. Dockson pulled Breeze into an alley. Vin followed them in, crouching in the shadows, listening to soldiers yelling in the crossroads outside.

“What?” she demanded.

“Inquisitor!” Breeze said, pointing toward a robed figure standing before Kelsier.

“What?” Dockson said, standing.

It’s a trap, Vin realized with horror. Soldiers began to pile into the square, appearing from hidden side streets. Kelsier, get out of there!

Kelsier Pushed off a fallen guard, throwing himself backward in a flip over one of the prison carts. He landed in a crouch, eyeing the new squads of soldiers. Many of them carried staves and wore no armor. Hazekillers.

The Inquisitor Pushed himself through the ash-filled air, landing with a thump in front of Kelsier. The creature smiled.

It’s the same man. The Inquisitor from before.

“Where’s the girl?” the creature said quietly.

Kelsier ignored the question. “Why only one of you?” he demanded.

The creature’s smile deepened. “I won the draw.”

Kelsier flared pewter, dashing to the side as the Inquisitor pulled out a pair of obsidian axes. The square was quickly becoming clogged with soldiers. From inside the carts he could hear people crying out.

“Kelsier! Lord Kelsier! Please!”

Kelsier cursed quietly as the Inquisitor bore down on him. He reached out, Pulling against one of the still full carts and yanking himself into the air over a group of soldiers. He landed, then dashed to the cart, intending to free its occupants. As he arrived, however, the cart shook. Kelsier glanced up just in time to see a steel-eyed monster grinning down at him from atop the vehicle.

Kelsier Pushed himself backward, feeling the wind of an axehead swing beside his head. He landed smoothly, but immediately had to jump to the side as a group of soldiers attacked. As he landed, he reached out – Pulling against one of the carts to anchor himself – and Pulled against the fallen iron door he had thrown before. The barred door lurched into the air and crashed through the squad of soldiers.

The Inquisitor attacked from behind, but Kelsier jumped away. The still tumbling door careened across the cobblestones in front of him, and as he passed over it, Kelsier Pushed, sending himself streaking into the air.

Vin was right, Kelsier thought with frustration. Below, the Inquisitor watched him, trailing him with unnatural eyes. I shouldn’t have done this. Below, a group of soldiers rounded up the skaa that he had freed.

I should run – try to lose the Inquisitor. I’ve done it before.

But… he couldn’t. He wouldn’t, not this time. He had compromised too many times before. Even if it cost him everything else, he had to free those prisoners.

And then, as he began to fall, he saw a group of men charging the crossroads. They bore weapons, but no uniforms. At their head ran a familiar form.

Ham! So that’s where you went.

“What is it?” Vin asked anxiously, craning to see into the square. Above, Kelsier’s form plunged back toward the fight, dark cloak trailing behind him.

“It’s one of our soldier units!” Dockson said. “Ham must have fetched them.”

“How many?”

“We kept them in patches of a couple hundred.”

“So they’ll be outnumbered.”

Dockson nodded.

Vin stood. “I’m going out.”

“No, you’re not,” Dockson said firmly, grabbing her cloak and pulling her back. “I don’t want a repeat of what happened to you last time you faced one of those monsters.”

“But…”

“Kell will be just fine,” Dockson said. “He’ll just try to stall long enough for Ham to free the prisoners, then he’ll run. Watch.”

Vin stepped back.

To her side, Breeze was mumbling to himself. “Yes, you’re afraid. Let’s focus on that. Soothe everything else away. Leave you terrified. That’s an Inquisitor and a Mistborn fighting – you don’t want to interfere with that…”

Vin glanced back toward the square, where she saw a soldier drop his staff and flee. There are other ways to fight, she realized, kneeling beside Breeze. “How can I help?”

Kelsier ducked back from the Inquisitor again as Ham’s unit crashed into the imperial soldiers and began cutting its way toward the prisoner carts. The attack diverted the attention of the regular soldiers, who appeared all too happy to leave Kelsier and the Inquisitor to their solitary battle.

To the side, Kelsier could see skaa beginning to clog the streets around the small courtyard, the fighting drawing the attention of those waiting up above at the fountain square. Kelsier could see other squads of imperial soldiers trying to push their way toward the fight, but the thousands of skaa crowding the streets seriously slowed their progress.

The Inquisitor swung, and Kelsier dodged. The creature was obviously growing frustrated. To the side, a small group of Ham’s men reached one of the prisoner carts and broke open its lock, freeing the prisoners. The rest of Ham’s men kept the imperial soldiers busy as the prisoners fled.

Kelsier smiled, eyeing the annoyed Inquisitor. The creature growled quietly.

“Valette!” a voice screamed.

Kelsier turned in shock. A well-dressed nobleman was pushing his way through the soldiers toward the center of the fighting. He carried a dueling cane and was protected by two beleaguered bodyguards, but he mostly avoided harm by virtue of neither side being certain of wanting to strike down a man of obvious noble blood.

“Valette!” Elend Venture yelled again. He turned to one of the soldiers. “Who told you to raid House Renoux’s convoy! Who authorized this!”

Great, Kelsier thought, keeping a wary eye on the Inquisitor. The creature regarded Kelsier with a twisted, hateful expression.

You just go right on hating me, Kelsier thought. I only have to hang on long enough for Ham to free the prisoners. Then, I can lead you away.

The Inquisitor reached out and casually beheaded a fleeing servant as she ran by.

“No!” Kelsier yelled as the corpse fell at the Inquisitor’s feet. The creature grabbed another victim and raised its axe.

“All right!” Kelsier said, striding forward, pulling a pair of vials from his sash. “All right. You want to fight me? Come on!”

The creature smiled, pushing the captured woman aside and striding toward Kelsier.

Kelsier flicked the corks off and downed both vials at once, then tossed them aside. Metals flared in his chest, burning alongside his rage. His brother, dead. His wife, dead. Family, friends, and heroes. All dead.

You push me to seek revenge? he thought. Well, you shall have it!

Kelsier paused a few feet in front of the Inquisitor. Fists clinched, he flared his steel in a massive Push. Around him, people were thrown back by their metal as they were hit by the awesome, invisible wave of power. The square – packed with imperial soldiers, prisoners, and rebels – opened up in a small pocket around Kelsier and the Inquisitor.

“Let’s do it, then,” Kelsier said.

34

DEAD AND DYING MEN COLLAPSED to the cobblestones. Skaa crowded the roads. Prisoners cried out, calling his name. Heat from a smoky sun burned the streets.

And ash fell from the sky.

Kelsier dashed forward, flaring pewter and whipping out his daggers. He burned atium, as did the Inquisitor – and they both probably had enough to last for an extended fight.

Kelsier slashed twice in the hot air, striking at the Inquisitor, his arms a blur. The creature dodged amid an insane vortex of atium-shadows, then swung an axe.

Kelsier jumped, pewter lending his leap inhuman height, and passed just over the swinging weapon. He reached out and Pushed against a group of fighting soldiers behind him, throwing himself forward. He planted both feet in the Inquisitor’s face and kicked off, flipping backward in the air.

The Inquisitor stumbled. As Kelsier fell, he Pulled on a soldier, yanking himself backward. The soldier was pulled off his feet by the force of the Ironpull, and he began to streak toward Kelsier. Both men flew in the air.

Kelsier flared iron, Pulling against a patch of soldiers to his right while still Pulling against the single soldier. The result was a pivot. Kelsier flew to the side, and the soldier – held as if by tether to Kelsier’s body – swung in a wide arc like a ball on a chain.

The unfortunate soldier crashed into the stumbling Inquisitor, smashing them both into the bars of an empty prison cart.

The soldier toppled, unconscious, to the ground. The Inquisitor bounced off the iron cage, falling to its hands and knees. A line of blood ran down the creature’s face, across its eye tattoos, but it looked up, smiling. It didn’t seem the least bit dizzy as it stood.

Kelsier landed, cursing quietly to himself.

With an incredible burst of speed, the Inquisitor grabbed the empty, boxlike prison cell by a pair of bars, then ripped the entire thing free of the cartwheels.

Bloody hell!

The creature spun and hurled the massive iron cage at Kelsier, who stood only a few feet away. There was no time to dodge. A building stood right behind him; if he Pushed himself back, he’d be crushed.

The cage crashed toward him, and he jumped, using a Steelpush to guide his body through the open doorway of the spinning cage. He twisted within the cell, Pushing outward in all directions, holding himself in the metal cage’s exact center as it smashed into the wall, then bounced free.

The cage rolled, then began to skid across the ground. Kelsier let himself drop, landing on the underside of the roof as the cage slowly slid to a halt. Through the bars, he could see the Inquisitor watching him amid a sea of fighting soldiers, its body surrounded by a twisting, dashing, moving cloud of atium-images. The Inquisitor nodded its head to Kelsier in a slight sign of respect.

Kelsier Pushed out with a yell, flaring pewter to keep from crushing himself. The cage exploded, the metal top flipping into the air, the bars ripping free and bursting outward. Kelsier Pulled the bars behind him and Pushed the ones in front of him, sending a stream of metal shooting toward the Inquisitor.

The creature raised a hand, expertly dividing the large missiles. Kelsier, however, followed the bars with his own body – shooting himself toward the Inquisitor with a Steelpush. The Inquisitor Pulled himself to the side, using an unfortunate soldier as an anchor. The man cried out as he was wrenched away from his duel – but he choked off as the Inquisitor jumped, Pushing against the soldier and crushing the man to the ground.

The Inquisitor shot into the air. Kelsier slowed himself with a Push against a group of soldiers, tracking the Inquisitor. Behind him, the top of the cage crashed back to the ground, throwing up chips of stone. Kelsier blasted against it and hurled himself upward, after the Inquisitor.

Flakes of ash streaked past him. Ahead, the Inquisitor turned, Pulling against something below. The creature switched directions immediately, instead hurling toward Kelsier.

Head-on collision. Bad idea for the guy without spikes in his head. Kelsier frantically Pulled against a soldier, lurching downward as the Inquisitor passed diagonally overhead.

Kelsier flared pewter, then crashed into the soldier he had Pulled up toward him. The two of them spun in midair. Fortunately, the soldier wasn’t one of Ham’s.

“Sorry, friend,” Kelsier said conversationally, Pushing himself to the side.

The soldier shot away, eventually smashing into the side of a building as Kelsier used him to soar over the battlefield. Below, Ham’s main squad had finally reached the last prison cart. Unfortunately, several more groups of imperial soldiers had pushed their way through the gawking skaa crowds. One of them was a large team of archers – armed with obsidian-tipped arrows.

Kelsier cursed, letting himself fall. The archers set up, obviously preparing to fire straight into the fighting crowd. They would kill some of their own soldiers, but the brunt of their attack would be borne by the fleeing prisoners.

Kelsier dropped to the cobblestones. He reached to the side, Pulling against some discarded bars from the cage he had destroyed. They flew toward him.

The archers drew. But he could see their atium-shadows.

Kelsier released the bars and Pushed himself to the side just slightly, allowing the bars to fly between the archers and the fleeing prisoners.

The archers fired.

Kelsier grabbed the bars, flaring both steel and iron, Pushing against one tip of each bar and Pulling against the opposite tip. The bars lurched in the air, immediately beginning to spin like furious, lunatic windmills. Most of the flying arrows were sprayed to the side by the spinning rods of iron.

The bars clanged to the ground amid the scattered, discarded arrows. The archers stood, stupefied, as Kelsier jumped to the side again, then Pulled lightly on the bars, flipping them up into the air in front of him. He Pushed, sending the bars crashing toward the archers. He turned away as men screamed and died, his eyes seeking his true foe.

Where is that creature hiding?

He looked into a scene of chaos. Men fought, ran, fled, and died – each one bearing a prophetic atium-shadow to Kelsier’s eyes. In this case, however, the shadows effectively doubled the number of people moving on the battlefield, and only served to increase the sense of confusion.

More and more soldiers were arriving. Many of Ham’s men were down, most of the rest were retreating – fortunately, they could simply discard their armor and blend into the skaa crowds. Kelsier was more worried about that last prisoner cart – the one with Renoux and Spook in it. The trajectory at which Ham’s group had entered the battle had required them to move up the line of carts, back to front. Trying to get to Renoux first would have required passing by the five other carts, leaving their people still trapped.

Ham obviously didn’t intend to leave until Spook and Renoux were free. And, where Ham fought, the rebel soldiers held. There was a reason Pewterarms were also called Thugs: there was no subtlety to their fighting, no clever Iron-pulls or Steelpushes. Ham simply attacked with raw strength and speed, throwing enemy soldiers out of his way, laying waste to their ranks, leading his squad of fifty men toward the final prison cart. As they reached it, Ham stepped back to fight off a group of enemy soldiers as one of his men broke the cart’s lock.

Kelsier smiled with pride, eyes still searching for the Inquisitor. His men were few, but the enemy soldiers seemed visibly unsettled by the skaa rebels’ determination. Kelsier’s men fought with passion – despite their other, numerous hindrances, they still had this one advantage.

This is what happens when you finally convince them to fight. This is what hides within them all. It’s just so hard to release…

Renoux exited the cart, then stepped to the side, watching as his servants rushed free from their cage. Suddenly, a well-dressed figure burst from the melee, grabbing Renoux by the front of his suit.

“Where’s Valette?” Elend Venture demanded, his desperate voice carrying to Kelsier’s tin-enhanced ears. “Which cage was she in?”

Kid, you’re really starting to annoy me, Kelsier thought, Pushing himself a path through the soldiers as he ran toward the cart.

The Inquisitor appeared, leaping out from behind a pile of soldiers. It landed on top of the cage, shaking the entire structure, an obsidian axe grasped in each clawlike hand. The creature met Kelsier’s eyes and smiled, then dropped from the top of the cage and buried an axe in Renoux’s back.

The kandra jerked, eyes opening wide. The Inquisitor turned toward Elend next. Kelsier wasn’t certain if the creature recognized the boy. Perhaps the Inquisitor thought Elend to be a member of Renoux’s family. Perhaps it didn’t care.

Kelsier paused for just a moment.

The Inquisitor raised his axe to strike.

She loves him.

Kelsier flared steel within, stoking it, raging it until his chest burned like the Ashmounts themselves. He blasted against the soldiers behind him – throwing dozens of them backward – and streaked toward the Inquisitor. He crashed into the creature as it began to swing.

The discarded axe clicked against the stones a few feet away. Kelsier gripped the Inquisitor by its neck as the two hit the ground; then he began to squeeze with pewter-enhanced muscles. The Inquisitor reached up, grabbing Kelsier’s hands, desperately trying to force them apart.

Marsh was right, Kelsier thought through the chaos. It fears for its life. It can be killed.

The Inquisitor gasped raggedly, the metal spikeheads protruding from its eyes just inches from Kelsier’s face. To his side Kelsier saw Elend Venture stumble back.

“The girl is fine!” Kelsier said through gritted teeth. “She wasn’t on the Renoux barges. Go!”

Elend paused uncertainly; then one of his bodyguards finally appeared. The boy let himself get dragged away.

Can’t believe I just saved a nobleman, Kelsier thought, struggling to choke the Inquisitor. You’d better appreciate this, girl.

Slowly, with straining muscles, the Inquisitor forced Kelsier’s hands apart. The creature began to smile again.

They’re so strong!

The Inquisitor pushed Kelsier back, then Pulled against a soldier, yanking itself in a skidding motion across the cobblestones. The Inquisitor hit a corpse and flipped backward, up to its feet. Its neck was red from Kelsier’s grip, bits of flesh torn by his fingernails, but it smiled still.

Kelsier Pushed against a soldier, flipping himself up as well. To his side, he saw Renoux leaning against the cart. Kelsier caught the kandra’s eyes and nodded slightly.

Renoux dropped to the ground with a sigh, axe in his back.

“Kelsier!” Ham yelled over the crowd.

“Go!” Kelsier told him. “Renoux is dead.”

Ham glanced at Renoux’s body, then nodded. He turned to his men, calling orders.

“Survivor,” a rasping voice said.

Kelsier spun. The Inquisitor strode forward, stepping with pewter’s lithe power, surrounded by a haze of atium-shadows.

“Survivor of Hathsin,” it said. “You promised me a fight. Must I kill more skaa?”

Kelsier flared his metals. “I never said we were done.” Then, he smiled. He was worried, he was pained, but he was also exhilarated. All of his life, there had been a piece of him that had wished to stand and fight.

He’d always wanted to see if he could take an Inquisitor.

Vin stood, trying desperately to see over the crowd.

“What?” Dockson asked.

“I thought I saw Elend!”

“Here? That sounds a bit ridiculous, don’t you think?”

Vin flushed. Probably. “Regardless, I’m going to try and get a better view.” She grabbed the side of the alleyway.

“Be careful,” Dox said. “If that Inquisitor sees you…”

Vin nodded, scrambling up the bricks. Once she got high enough, she scanned the intersection for familiar figures. Dockson was right: Elend was nowhere to be seen. One of the carts – the one off of which the Inquisitor had ripped the cage – lay on its side. Horses stomped about, hedged in by the fighting and the skaa crowds.

“What do you see?” Dox called up.

“Renoux is down!” Vin said, squinting and burning tin. “Looks like an axe in his back.”

“That may or may not be fatal for him,” Dockson said cryptically. “I don’t know a lot about kandra.”

Kandra?

“What about the prisoners?” Dox called.

“They’re all free,” Vin said. “The cages are empty. Dox, there are a lot of skaa out there!” It looked like the entire population from the fountain square had crowded down to the small intersection. The area was in a small depression, and Vin could see thousands of skaa packing the streets sloping upward in all directions.

“Ham’s free!” Vin said. “I don’t see him – alive or dead – anywhere! Spook’s gone too.”

“And Kell?” Dockson asked urgently.

Vin paused. “He’s still fighting the Inquisitor.”

Kelsier flared his pewter, punching the Inquisitor, careful to avoid the flat disks of metal sticking out the front of its eyes. The creature stumbled, and Kelsier buried his fist in its stomach. The Inquisitor growled and slapped Kelsier across the face, throwing him down with one blow.

Kelsier shook his head. What does it take to kill this thing? he thought, Pushing himself up to his feet, backing away.

The Inquisitor strode forward. Some of the soldiers were trying to search the crowd for Ham and his men, but many just stood still. A fight between two powerful Allomancers was something whispered about, but never seen. Soldier and peasant stood dumbfounded, watching the battle with awe.

He’s stronger than I am, Kelsier acknowledged, watching the Inquisitor warily. But strength isn’t everything.

Kelsier reached out, grabbing smaller metal sources and Pulling them away from their owners – metal caps, fine steel swords, coin pouches, daggers. He threw them at the Inquisitor – carefully manipulating Steelpushes and Ironpulls – and kept his atium burning so that each item he controlled would have a fanning multitude of atium-images in the Inquisitor’s eyes.

The Inquisitor cursed quietly as it deflected the swarming bits of metal. Kelsier, however, just used the Inquisitor’s own Pushes against it, Pulling each item back, whipping them around at the creature. The Inquisitor blasted outward, Pushing against all the items at once, and Kelsier let them go. As soon as the Inquisitor stopped Pushing, however, Kelsier Pulled his weapons back.

The imperial soldiers formed a ring, watching warily. Kelsier used them, Pushing against breastplates, lurching himself back and forth in the air. The quick changes in position let him move constantly, disorienting the Inquisitor, allowing him to Push his different flying pieces of metal where he wanted them.

“Keep an eye on my belt buckle,” Dockson asked, wobbling slightly as he clung to the bricks beside Vin. “If I fall off, give me a Pull to slow the fall, eh?”

Vin nodded, but she wasn’t paying much attention to Dox. She was watching Kelsier. “He’s incredible!”

Kelsier lurched back and forth in the air, his feet never touching the ground. Bits of metal buzzed around him, responding to his Pushes and Pulls. He controlled them with such skill, one would have thought they were living things. The Inquisitor slapped them away with a fury, but was obviously having trouble keeping track of them all.

I underestimated Kelsier, Vin thought. I assumed that he was less skilled than the Mistings because he’d spread himself too thin. But that wasn’t it at all. This. This is his specialty – Pushing and Pulling with expert control.

And iron and steel are the metals he personally trained me in. Maybe he understood all along.

Kelsier spun and flew amid a maelstrom of metal. Every time something hit the ground, he flicked it back up. The items always flew in straight lines, but he kept moving, Pushing himself around, keeping them in the air, periodically shooting them at the Inquisitor.

The creature spun, confused. It tried to Push itself upward, but Kelsier shot several larger pieces of metal over the creature’s head, and it had to Push against them, throwing off its jump.

An iron bar hit the Inquisitor in the face.

The creature stumbled, blood marring the tattoos on the side of its face. A steel helmet struck it in the side, tossing it backward.

Kelsier began to shoot pieces of metal quickly, feeling his rage and anger mount. “Were you the one who killed Marsh?” he yelled, not bothering to listen for an answer. “Were you there when I was condemned, years ago?”

The Inquisitor raised a warding hand, Pushing away the next swarm of metals. It limped backward, putting its back against the overturned wooden cart.

Kelsier heard the creature growl, and a sudden Push of strength washed through the crowd, toppling soldiers, causing Kelsier’s metal weapons to shoot away.

Kelsier let them go. He dashed forward, rushing the disoriented Inquisitor, scooping up a loose cobblestone.

The creature turned toward him, and Kelsier yelled, swinging the cobblestone, his strength fueled almost more by rage than by pewter.

He hit the Inquisitor square in the eyes. The creature’s head snapped back, smacking against the bottom of the overturned cart. Kelsier struck again, yelling, repeatedly smashing his cobblestone into the creature’s face.

The Inquisitor howled in pain, reaching clawlike hands for Kelsier, moving as if to jump forward. Then it suddenly jerked to a stop, its head stuck against the cart’s wood. The spike tips that jutted from the back of its skull had been pounded into the wood by Kelsier’s attack.

Kelsier smiled as the creature screamed in rage, struggling to pull its head free from the wood. Kelsier turned to the side, seeking an item he had seen on the ground a few moments before. He kicked over a corpse, snatching the obsidian axe off the ground, its rough-chipped blade glittering in the red sunlight.

“I’m glad you talked me into this,” he said quietly. Then he swung with a two-handed blow, slamming the axehead through the Inquisitor’s neck and into the wood behind.

The Inquisitor’s body slumped to the cobblestones. The head remained where it was, staring out with its eerie, tattooed, unnatural gaze – pinned to the wood by its own spikes.

Kelsier turned to face the crowd, suddenly feeling incredibly wearied. His body ached from dozens of bruises and cuts, and he didn’t even know when his cloak had ripped free. He faced the soldiers defiantly, however, his scarred arms plainly visible.

“The Survivor of Hathsin!” one whispered.

“He killed an Inquisitor…” said another.

And then the chanting began. The skaa in the surrounding streets began to scream his name. The soldiers looked around, realizing with horror that they were surrounded. The peasants began to press in, and Kelsier could feel their anger and hope.

Maybe this doesn’t have to go the way I assumed, Kelsier thought triumphantly. Maybe I don’t have–

Then it hit. Like a cloud moving before the sun, like a sudden storm on a quiet night, like a pair of fingers snuffing a candle. An oppressive hand stifled the budding skaa emotions. The people cringed, and their cries died out. The fire Kelsier had built within them was too new.

So close… he thought.

Up ahead, a single, black carriage crested the hill and began to move down from the fountain square.

The Lord Ruler had arrived.

Vin nearly lost her grip as the wave of depression hit her. She flared her copper, but – as always – she could still slightly feel the Lord Ruler’s oppressive hand.

“Lord Ruler!” Dockson said, though Vin couldn’t tell if it was a curse or an observation. Skaa that had been packed in to view the fight somehow managed to make room for the dark carriage. It rolled down a corridor of people toward the corpse-littered square.

Soldiers pulled back, and Kelsier stepped away from the fallen cart, moving out to face the oncoming carriage.

“What is he doing?” Vin asked, turning toward Dockson, who had propped himself up on a small outcropping. “Why doesn’t he run? This is no Inquisitor – this isn’t something to fight!”

“This is it, Vin,” Dockson said, awed. “This is what he’s been waiting for. A chance to face the Lord Ruler – a chance to prove those legends of his.”

Vin turned back toward the square. The carriage rolled to a stop.

“But…” she said quietly. “The Eleventh Metal. Did he bring it?”

“He must have.”

Kelsier always said that the Lord Ruler was his task, Vin thought. He let the rest of us work on the nobility, the Garrison, and the Ministry. But this… Kelsier always planned to do this himself.

The Lord Ruler stepped from his carriage, and Vin leaned forward, burning tin. He looked like…

A man.

He was dressed in a black and white uniform somewhat like a nobleman’s suit, but far more exaggerated. The coat reached all the way to his feet, and trailed behind him as he walked. His vest wasn’t colored, but a pure black, though it was accented with brilliant white markings. As Vin had heard, his fingers glittered with rings, the symbol of his power.

I’m so much stronger than you, the rings proclaimed, that it doesn’t matter if I wear metal.

Handsome, with jet black hair and pale skin, the Lord Ruler was tall, thin, and confident. And he was young – younger than Vin would have expected, even younger than Kelsier. He strode across the square, avoiding corpses, his soldiers pulling back and forcing the skaa away.

Suddenly, a small group of figures burst through the line of soldiers. They wore the mismatched armor of rebels, and the man leading them looked just a bit familiar. He was one of Ham’s Thugs.

“For my wife!” the Thug said, holding up a spear and charging.

“For Lord Kelsier!” yelled the other four.

Oh no… Vin thought.

The Lord Ruler, however, ignored the men. The lead rebel bellowed in defiance, then rammed his spear through the Lord Ruler’s chest.

The Lord Ruler just continued to walk, passing the soldier, spear sticking all the way through his body.

The rebel paused, then grabbed a spear from one of his friends and drove this one through the Lord Ruler’s back. Again, the Lord Ruler ignored the men – as if they, and their weapons, were completely beneath his contempt.

The lead rebel stumbled back, then spun as his friends began to scream under an Inquisitor’s axe. He joined them shortly, and the Inquisitor stood above the corpses for a moment, hacking gleefully.

The Lord Ruler continued forward, two spears sticking – as if unnoticed – from his body. Kelsier stood waiting. He looked ragged in his ripped skaa clothing. Yet, he was proud. He didn’t bend or bow beneath the weight of the Lord Ruler’s Soothing.

The Lord Ruler stopped a few feet away, one of the spears nearly touching Kelsier’s chest. Black ash fell lightly around the two men, bits of it curling and blowing in the faint wind. The square fell horribly silent – even the Inquisitor stopped his gruesome work. Vin leaned forward, clinging precariously to the rough brickwork.

Do something, Kelsier! Use the metal!

The Lord Ruler glanced at the Inquisitor that Kelsier had killed. “Those are very hard to replace.” His accented voice carried easily to Vin’s tin-enhanced ears.

Even from a distance, she could see Kelsier smile.

“I killed you, once,” the Lord Ruler said, turning back to Kelsier.

“You tried,” Kelsier replied, his voice loud and firm, carrying across the square. “But you can’t kill me, Lord Tyrant. I represent that thing you’ve never been able to kill, no matter how hard you try. I am hope.”

The Lord Ruler snorted in disdain. He raised a casual arm, then backhanded Kelsier with a blow so powerful that Vin could hear the crack resound through the square.

Kelsier lurched and spun, spraying blood as he fell.

“NO!” Vin screamed.

The Lord Ruler ripped one of the spears from his own body, then slammed it down through Kelsier’s chest. “Let the executions begin,” he said, turning toward his carriage and ripping out the second spear, then tossing it aside.

Chaos followed. Prompted by the Inquisitor, the soldiers turned and attacked the crowd. Other Inquisitors appeared from the square above, riding black horses, ebony axes glistening in the afternoon light.

Vin ignored it all. “Kelsier!” she screamed. His body lay where it had fallen, spear jutting from his chest, scarlet blood pooling around him.

No. No. NO! She jumped from the building, Pushing against some people and throwing herself over the massacre. She landed in the center of the oddly empty square – Lord Ruler gone, Inquisitors busy killing skaa. She scrambled to Kelsier’s side.

There was almost nothing remaining of the left side of his face. The right side, however… it still smiled faintly, single dead eye staring up into the red-black sky. Bits of ash fell lightly on his face.

“Kelsier, no…” Vin said, tears streaming down her face. She prodded his body, feeling for a pulse. There was none.

“You said you couldn’t be killed!” she cried. “What of your plans? What of the Eleventh Metal? What of me?”

He didn’t move. Vin had trouble seeing through the tears. It’s impossible. He always said we aren’t invincible… but that meant me. Not him. Not Kelsier. He was invincible.

He should have been.

Someone grabbed her and she squirmed, crying out.

“Time to go, kid,” Ham said. He paused, looking at Kelsier, assuring for himself that the crewleader was dead.

Then he towed her away. Vin continued to struggle weakly, but she was growing numb. In the back of her mind, she heard Reen’s voice.

See. I told you he would leave you. I warned you. I promised you…

THE END OF PART FOUR