Page 154 of The Well of Ascension

“The kandra are a close-knit group, Mistress,” OreSeur said. “And our numbers are small. There is a good chance that I know him quite well.”

Vin tapped her finger against the windowsill, frowning as she tried to decide if the information was useful.

“I still don’t think it’s Dockson,” she finally said, replacing the earring. “We’ll ignore him for now. If I can’t get any other leads, we’ll come back…” She trailed off as something caught her attention. A figure walking in the courtyard, bearing no light.

Ham,she thought. But the walk wasn’t right.

She Pushed on the shield of the lamp hanging on the wall a short distance away. It snapped closed, the lamp shaking as the hallway fell into darkness.

“Mistress?” OreSeur asked as Vin climbed up into the window, flaring her tin as she squinted into the night.

Definitely not Ham,she thought.

Her first thought was of Elend—a sudden terror that assassins had come while she was talking to Dockson. But, it was early in the night, and Elend would still be speaking with his counselors. It was an unlikely time for an assassination.

And only one man? Not Zane, not judging from the height.

Probably just a guard,Vin thought.Why do I have to be so paranoid all the time?

And yet…she watched the figure walking into the courtyard, and her instincts kicked in. He seemed to be moving suspiciously, as if he were uncomfortable—as if he didn’t want to be seen.

“In my arms,” she said to OreSeur, tossing a padded coin out the window.

He hopped up obligingly, and she leaped out the window, fell twenty-five feet, and landed with the coin. She released OreSeur and nodded into the mists. He followed closely as she moved into the darkness, stooping and hiding, trying to get a good look at the lone figure. The man walked briskly, moving toward the side of the palace, where the servants’ entrances were. As he passed, she finally saw his face.

Captain Demoux?she thought.

She sat back, crouching with OreSeur beside a small stack of wooden supply boxes. What did she really know of Demoux? He was one of the skaa rebels recruited by Kelsier almost two years before. He’d taken to command, and had been promoted quickly. He was one of the loyal men who had stayed behind when the rest of the army had followed Yeden to their doom.

After the Collapse, he’d stayed in with the crew, eventually becoming Ham’s second. He had received no small amount of training from Ham—which might explain why he’d go out at night without a torch or lantern. But, even so….

If I were going to replace someone on the crew,Vin thought,I wouldn’t pick an Allomancer—that would make the impostor too easy to spot. I’d pick someone ordinary, someone who wouldn’t have to make decisions or attract notice.

Someone close to the crew, but not necessarily on it. Someone who is always near important meetings, but someone that others don’t really know that well….

She felt a small thrill. If the impostor were Demoux, it would mean that one of her good friendshadn’tbeen killed. And it would mean that the kandra’s master was even smarter than she’d given him credit for being.

He rounded the keep, and she followed quietly. However, whatever he’d been doing this night, it was already completed—for he moved in through one of the entrances on the side of the building, greeting the guards posted there to watch.

Vin sat back in the shadows. He’d spoken to the guards, so he hadn’t snuck out of the palace. And yet…she recognized the stooped posture, the nervous movements. He’d been nervous about something.

That’s him,she thought.The spy.

But now, what should she do about it?

34

There was a place for me, in the lore of the Anticipation—I thought myself the Announcer, the prophet foretold to discover the Hero of Ages. Renouncing Alendi then would have been to renounce my new position, my acceptance, by the others.

And so I did not.

“That won’t work,” Elend said, shaking his head. “We need a unanimous decision—minus the person being ousted, of course—in order to depose a member of the Assembly. We’d never manage to vote out all eight merchants.”

Ham looked a bit deflated. Elend knew that Ham liked to consider himself a philosopher; indeed, Ham had a good mind for abstract thinking. However, he wasn’t a scholar. He liked to think up questions and answers, but he didn’t have experience studying a text in detail, searching out its meaning and implications.

Elend glanced at Sazed, who sat with a book open on the table before him. The Keeper had at least a dozen volumes stacked around him—though, amusingly, his stacks were neatly arranged, spines pointing the same direction, covers flush. Elend’s own stacks were characteristically haphazard, pages of notes sticking out at odd angles.

It was amazing how many books one could fit into a room, assuming one didn’t want to move around very much. Ham sat on the floor, a small pile of books beside him, though he spent most of his time voicing one random idea or another. Tindwyl had a chair, and did not study. The Terriswoman found it perfectly acceptable to train Elend as a king; however, she refused to research and give suggestions about keeping his throne. This seemed, in her eyes, to cross some unseen line between being an educator and a political force.

---