Mistborn #01 The Final Empire

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,