Ham walked through the kitchen and into the workroom. “So,” he said, dropping his packs, “anyone know which room is mine?”
“I’ll ask Master Cladent,” one of the apprentices said, moving into the front room.
Ham smiled, stretching, then turned toward Vin. “Morning, Vin. You know, you don’t have to hide from me. We’re on the same team.”
Vin relaxed but remained where she was, standing beside a line of mostly finished chairs. “You’re going to live here too?”
“It always pays to stay near the Smoker,” Ham said, turning and disappearing back into the kitchen. He returned a moment later with a stack of four large baywraps. “Anyone know where Kell is?”
“Sleeping,” Vin said. “He came in late last night, and hasn’t gotten up yet.”
Ham grunted, taking a bite of a baywrap. “Dox?”
“In his room on the third floor,” Vin said. “He got up early, came down to get something to eat, and went back upstairs.” She didn’t add that she knew, from peeking through the keyhole, that he was sitting at his desk scribbling on some papers.
Ham raised an eyebrow. “You always keep track of where everyone is like that?”
“Yes.”
Ham paused, then chuckled. “You’re an odd kid, Vin.” He gathered up his packs as the apprentice returned, and the two moved up the stairs. Vin stood, listening to their footsteps. They stopped about halfway down the first hallway, perhaps a few doors from her room.
The scent of steamed barley enticed her. Vin eyed the kitchen. Ham had gone in and taken food. Was she allowed to do the same?
Trying to look confident, Vin strode into the kitchen. A pile of baywraps sat on a platter, probably to be delivered to the apprentices as they worked. Vin picked up two of them. None of the women objected; in fact, a few of them even nodded respectfully toward her.
I’m an important person now, she thought with a measure of discomfort. Did they know that she was . . . Mistborn? Or was she simply treated with respect because she was a guest?
Eventually, Vin took a third baywrap and fled to her room. It was more food than she could possibly eat; however, she intended to scrape out the barley and save the flatbread, which would keep well should she need it later.
A knock came at her door. Vin answered it, pulling the door open with a careful motion. A young man stood outside—the boy who had been with Clubs back at Camon’s lair the night before.
Thin, tall, and awkward-looking, he was dressed in gray clothing. He was perhaps fourteen, though his height might have made him look older than he was. He seemed nervous for some reason.
“Yes?” Vin asked.
“Um . . .”
Vin frowned. “What?”
“You’re wanted,” he said in a thick Eastern accent. “Ups in the where above with the doing. With Master Jumps to the third floor. Uh, I’ve gotta go.” The boy blushed, then turned and hurried away, scrambling up the stairs.
Vin stood in the doorway of her room, dumbfounded. Was that supposed to make any sense? she wondered.
She peeked into the hallway. The boy had seemed like he expected her to follow him. Finally, she decided to do so, carefully making her way up the steps.
Voices were coming from an open door at the end of the hallway. Vin approached and peeked around the corner to find a well-decorated room, set with a fine rug and comfortable-looking chairs. A hearth burned at the side of the room, and the chairs were arranged to point toward a large charcoal writing board set atop an easel.
Kelsier stood, leaning one elbow resting against the brick hearth, a cup of wine in his hand. Angling herself slightly, Vin could see that he was talking to Breeze. The Soother had arrived well into midday, and had appropriated half of Clubs’s apprentices to unload his possessions. Vin had watched from her window as the apprentices had carried the luggage—disguised as boxes of lumber scraps—up to Breeze’s room. Breeze himself hadn’t bothered to help.
Ham was there, as was Dockson, and Clubs was settling himself into the large, overstuffed chair farthest from Breeze. The boy who had fetched Vin sat on a stool beside Clubs, and he was obviously making a point of trying not to look at her. The final occupied chair held the man Yeden, dressed—as before—in common skaa worker’s clothing. He sat in his chair without resting against its back, as if he disapproved of its plushness. His face was darkened with soot, as Vin expected of a skaa worker.
There were two empty chairs. Kelsier noticed Vin standing by the doorway, and gave her one of his inviting smiles. “Well, there she is. Come in.”
Vin scanned the room. There was a window, though its shutters were closed against approaching gloom. The only chairs were the ones in Kelsier’s half circle. Resigned, she moved forward and took the empty chair beside Dockson. It was too big for her, and she settled into it with her knees folded beneath her.
“That’s all of us,” Kelsier said.
“Who’s the last chair for?” Ham asked.
Kelsier smiled, winked, but ignored the question. “All right, let’s talk. We’ve got something of a task ahead of ourselves, and the sooner we begin outlining a plan, the better.”
“I thought you had a plan,” Yeden said uncomfortably.
“I have a framework,” Kelsier said. “I know what needs to happen, and I have a few ideas on how to do it. But, you don’t gather a group like this and just tell them what to do. We need to work this out together, beginning with a list of problems we need to deal with if we want the plan to work.”
“Well,” Ham said, “let me get the framework straight first. The plan is to gather Yeden an army, cause chaos in Luthadel, secure the palace, steal the Lord Ruler’s atium, then leave the government to collapse?”
“Essentially,” Kelsier said.
“Then,” Ham said, “our main problem is the Garrison. If we want chaos in Luthadel, then we can’t have twenty thousand troops here to keep the peace. Not to mention the fact that Yeden’s troops will never take the city while there is any sort of armed resistance on the walls.”
Kelsier nodded. Picking up a piece of chalk, he wrote Luthadel Garrison up on the board. “What else?”
“We’ll need a way to make said chaos in Luthadel,” Breeze said, gesturing with a cup of wine. “Your instincts are right, my dear man. This city is where the Ministry makes its headquarters and the Great Houses run their mercantile empires. We’ll need to bring Luthadel down if we want to break the Lord Ruler’s ability to govern.”
“Mentioning the nobility brings up another point,” Dockson added. “The Great Houses all have guard forces in the city, not to mention their Allomancers. If we’re going to deliver the city to Yeden, we’ll have to deal with those noblemen.”
Kelsier nodded, writing Chaos and Great Houses beside Luthadel Garrison on his board.
“The Ministry,” Clubs said, leaning back in his plush chair so much that Vin almost couldn’t see his grumpy face. “There’ll be no change in government as long as the Steel Inquisitors have anything to say about it.”
Kelsier added Ministry to the board. “What else?”
“Atium,” Ham said. “You might as well write it up there—we’ll need to secure the palace quickly, once general mayhem starts, and make certain nobody else takes the opportunity to slip into the treasury.”
Kelsier nodded, writing Atium: Secure Treasury on the board.
“We will need to find a way to gather Yeden’s troops,” Breeze added. “We’ll have to be quiet, but quick, and train them somewhere that the Lord Ruler won’t find them.”
“We also might want to make certain that the skaa rebellion is ready to take control of Luthadel,” Dockson added. “Seizing the palace and digging in will make for a spectacular story, but it would be nice if Yeden and his people were actually ready to govern, once this is all over.”