“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.
It was like . . . a reverse shadow. The duplicate did everything Kelsier did—except, the image moved first. It turned, and then Kelsier followed its same path.
The image’s mouth began moving. A second later, Kelsier spoke. “Atium lets you see just a bit into the future. Or, at least, it lets you see what people are going to do a little bit in the future. In addition, it enhances your mind, allowing you to deal with the new information, allowing you to react more quickly and collectedly.”
The shadow stopped, then Kelsier walked up to it, stopping as well. Suddenly, the shadow reached out and slapped her, and Vin moved reflexively, putting her hand up just as Kelsier’s real hand began to move. She caught his arm midswing.
“While you’re burning atium,” he said, “nothing can surprise you. You can swing a dagger, knowing confidently that your enemies will run right into it. You can dodge attacks with ease because you’ll be able to see where every blow will fall. Atium makes you quite nearly invincible. It enhances your mind, making you able to make use of all the new information.”
Suddenly, dozens of other images shot from Kelsier’s body. Each one sprang in a different direction, some striding across the roof, others jumping into the air. Vin released his arm, rising and backing away in confusion.
“I just burned atium too,” Kelsier said. “I can see what you’re going to do, and that changes what I’m going to do—which in turn changes what you’re going to do. The images reflect each of the possible actions we might take.”
“It’s confusing,” Vin said, watching the insane jumble of images, old ones constantly fading, new ones constantly appearing.
Kelsier nodded. “The only way to defeat someone who is burning atium is to burn it yourself—that way, neither of you has an advantage.”
The images vanished.
“What did you do?” Vin asked with a start.
“Nothing,” Kelsier said. “Your atium probably ran out.”
Vin realized with surprise that he was right—the atium was gone. “It burns so quickly!”