Keep Venture rose before her in the night. The limelights had been extinguished, and only a few phantom torches burned near guard posts.
Vin crouched on the lip on a rooftop, trying to decide what had led her back to the massive keep. The cool wind ruffled her hair and cloak, and she thought she felt a few tiny raindrops on her cheek. She sat for a long moment, her toes growing cold.
Then she noticed motion to her right. She crouched immediately, flaring her tin.
Kelsier sat on a rooftop not three houses away, just barely lit by ambient light. He didn’t seem to have noticed her. He was watching the keep, his face too distant for her to read his expression.
Vin watched him with suspicious eyes. He’d dismissed her meeting with Elend, but perhaps it worried him more than he’d admitted. A sudden spike of fear made her tense.
Could he be here to kill Elend? The assassination of a high noble heir would certainly create tension amongst the nobility.
Vin waited apprehensively. Eventually, however, Kelsier stood and walked away, Pushing himself off the rooftop and into the air.
Vin dropped her bronze bar—it would give her away—and dashed after him. Her iron showed blue lines moving in the distance, and she hurriedly jumped out over the street and Pushed herself off a sewer grate below, determined not to lose him again.
He moved toward the center of the city. Vin frowned, trying to guess his destination. Keep Erikeller was in that direction, and it was a major supplier of armaments. Perhaps Kelsier planned to do something to interrupt its supplies, making House Renoux more vital to the local nobility.
Vin landed on a rooftop and paused, watching Kelsier shoot off into the night. He’s moving fast again. I—
A hand fell on her shoulder.
Vin yelped, jumping back, flaring pewter.
Kelsier regarded her with a cocked eyebrow. “You’re supposed to be in bed, young lady.”
Vin glanced to the side, toward the line of metal. “But—”
“My coin pouch,” Kelsier said, smiling. “A good thief can steal clever tricks as easily as he steals boxings. I’ve started being more careful since you tailed me last week—at first, I assumed you were a Venture Mistborn.”
“They have some?”
“I’m sure they do,” Kelsier said. “Most of the Great Houses do—but your friend Elend isn’t one of them. He’s not even a Misting.”
“How do you know? He could be hiding it.”
Kelsier shook his head. “He nearly died in a raid a couple of years ago—if there were ever a time to show your powers, it would have been then.”
Vin nodded, still looking down, not meeting Kelsier’s eyes.
He sighed, sitting down on the slanted rooftop, one leg hanging over the side. “Have a seat.”
Vin settled herself on the tile roof across from him. Above, the cool mists continued to churn, and it had begun to drizzle slightly—but that wasn’t much different from the regular nightly humidity.
“I can’t have you tailing me like this, Vin,” Kelsier said. “Do you remember our discussion about trust?”
“If you trusted me, you’d tell me where you were going.”
“Not necessarily,” Kelsier said. “Maybe I just don’t want you and the others to worry about me.”
“Everything you do is dangerous,” Vin said. “Why would we worry any more if you told us specifics?”
“Some tasks are even more dangerous than others,” Kelsier said quietly.
Vin paused, then glanced to the side, in the direction Kelsier had been going. Toward the center of the city.
Toward Kredik Shaw, the Hill of a Thousand Spires. The Lord Ruler’s palace.
“You’re going to confront the Lord Ruler!” Vin said quietly. “You said last week that you were going to pay him a visit.”
“ ‘Visit’ is, perhaps, too strong a word,” Kelsier said. “I am going to the palace, but I sincerely hope I don’t run into the Lord Ruler himself. I’m not ready for him yet. Regardless, you are going straight to Clubs’s shop.”
Vin nodded.
Kelsier frowned. “You’re just going to try and follow me again, aren’t you?”
Vin paused, then she nodded again.
“Why?”
“Because I want to help,” Vin said quietly. “So far, my part in this all has essentially boiled down to going to a party. But, I’m Mistborn—you’ve trained me yourself. I’m not going to sit back and let everyone else do dangerous work while I sit, eat dinner, and watch people dance.”
“What you’re doing at those balls is important,” Kelsier said.
Vin nodded, glancing down. She’d just let him go, then she’d follow him. Part of her reasoning was what she’d said before: She was beginning to feel a camaraderie for this crew, and it was like nothing she had ever known. She wanted to be part of what it was doing; she wanted to help.
However, another part of her whispered that Kelsier wasn’t telling her everything. He might trust her; he might not. However, he certainly had secrets. The Eleventh Metal, and therefore the Lord Ruler, were involved in those secrets.
Kelsier caught her eyes, and he must have seen her intention to follow in them. He sighed, leaning back. “I’m serious, Vin! You can’t go with me.”
“Why not?” she asked, abandoning pretense. “If what you’re doing is so dangerous, wouldn’t it be safer if you had another Mistborn watching your back?”
“You still don’t know all of the metals,” Kelsier said.
“Only because you haven’t taught me.”
“You need more practice.”
“The best practice is doing,” Vin said. “My brother trained me to steal by taking me on burglaries.”
Kelsier shook his head. “It’s too dangerous.”
“Kelsier,” she said in a serious tone. “We’re planning to overthrow the Final Empire. I don’t really expect to live until the end of the year anyway.
“You keep telling the others what an advantage it is to have two Mistborn on the team. Well, it’s not going to be much of an advantage unless you actually let me be a Mistborn. How long are you going to wait? Until I’m ‘ready’? I don’t think that will ever happen.”
Kelsier eyed her for a moment, then he smiled. “When we first met, half the time I couldn’t get you to say a word. Now you’re lecturing me.”
Vin blushed. Finally, Kelsier sighed, reaching beneath his cloak to pull something out. “I can’t believe I’m considering this,” he muttered, handing her the bit of metal.
Vin studied the tiny, silvery ball of metal. It was so reflective and bright that it almost seemed to be a drop of liquid, yet it was solid to the touch.
“Atium,” Kelsier said. “Tenth, and most powerful, of the known Allomantic metals. That bead is worth more than the entire bag of boxings I gave you before.”
“This little bit?” she asked with surprise.
Kelsier nodded. “Atium only comes from one place—the Pits of Hathsin—where the Lord Ruler controls its production and distribution. The Great Houses get to buy a monthly stipend of atium, which is one of the main ways the Lord Ruler controls them. Go ahead and swallow it.”
Vin eyed the bit of metal, uncertain she wanted to waste something so valuable.
“You can’t sell it,” Kelsier said. “Thieving crews try, but they get tracked down and executed. The Lord Ruler is very protective of his atium supply.”
Vin nodded, then swallowed the metal. Immediately, she felt a new well of power appear within her, waiting to be burned.
“All right,” Kelsier said, standing. “Burn it as soon as I start walking.”
Vin nodded. As he began to walk forward, she drew upon her new well of strength and burned atium.
Kelsier seemed to fuzz slightly to her eyes; then a translucent, wraithlike image shot out into the mists in front of him. The image looked just like Kelsier, and it walked just a few steps in front of him. A very faint, trailing after-image extended from the duplicate back to Kelsier himself.