Mistborn #01 The Final Empire

You don’t think that after a thousand years’time, someone would have noticed that you could pierce a coppercloud? I’ve even tried it. I focused for hours on my Master, trying to sense something through his coppercloud.”
    “But . . .” Vin said. “But why . . .?”
    “It must have to do with strength, like you said. Inquisitors can Push and Pull harder than any regular Mistborn—perhaps they’re so strong that they can overwhelm someone else’s metal.”
    “But, Kelsier,” Vin said quietly. “I’m not an Inquisitor.”
    “But you’re strong,” he said. “Stronger than you have any right to be. You killed a full Mistborn tonight!”
    “By luck,” Vin said, face flushing. “I just tricked her.”
    “Allomancy is nothing but tricks, Vin. No, there’s something special about you. I noticed it on that first day, when you shrugged off my attempts to Push and Pull your emotions.”
    She flushed. “It can’t be that, Kelsier. Maybe I’ve just practiced with bronze more than you. . . . I don’t know, I just . . .”
    “Vin,” Kelsier said, “you’re still too self-effacing. You’re good at this—that much is obvious. If that’s why you can see through copperclouds . . . well, I don’t know. But learn to take a little pride in yourself, kid! If there’s anything I can teach you, it’s how to be self-confident.”
    Vin smiled.
    “Come on,” he said, standing and holding out a hand to help her up. “Sazed is going to fret all night if you don’t let him finish stitching that cheek wound, and Ham’s dying to hear about your battle. Good job leaving Shan’s body back at Keep Venture, by the way—when House Elariel hears that she was found dead on Venture property . . .”
    Vin allowed him to pull her up, but she glanced toward the trapdoor apprehensively. “I . . . don’t know if I want to go down yet, Kelsier. How can I face them?”
    Kelsier laughed. “Oh, don’t worry. If you didn’t say some stupid things every once in a while, you certainly wouldn’t fit in with this group. Come on.”
    Vin hesitated, then let him lead her back down to the warmth of the kitchen.

    “Elend, how can you read at times like this?” Jastes asked.
    Elend looked up from his book. “It calms me.”
    Jastes raised an eyebrow. The young Lekal sat impatiently in the coach, tapping his fingers on the armrest. The window shades were drawn, partially to hide the light of Elend’s reading lantern, partially to keep out the mists. Though Elend would never admit it, the swirling fog made him just a bit nervous. Noblemen weren’t supposed to be afraid of such things, but that didn’t change the fact that the deep, caliginous mist was just plain creepy.
    “Your father is going to be livid when you get back,” Jastes noted, still tapping the armrest.
    Elend shrugged, though this comment did make him a little bit nervous. Not because of his father, but because of what had happened this night. Some Allomancers had, apparently, been spying on Elend’s meeting with his friends. What information had they gathered? Did they know about the books he’d read?
    Fortunately, one of them had tripped, falling through Elend’s skylight. After that, it had been confusion and chaos—soldiers and ballgoers running about in a semi-panic. Elend’s first thought had been for the books—the dangerous ones, the ones that if the obligators found he possessed, could get him into serious trouble.
    So, in the confusion, he’d dumped them all in a bag and followed Jastes down to the palace side exit. Grabbing a carriage and sneaking out of the palace grounds had been an extreme move, perhaps, but it had been ridiculously easy. With the number of carriages fleeing the Venture grounds, not a single person had paused to notice that Elend himself was in the carriage with Jastes.
    It’s probably all died down by now, Elend told himself. People will realize that House Venture wasn’t trying to attack them, and that there wasn’t really any danger. Just some spies who got careless.
    He should have returned by now. However, his convenient absence from the palace gave him a perfect excuse to check on another group of spies. And this time, Elend himself had sent them.
    A sudden knock on the door made Jastes jump, and Elend closed his book, then opened the carriage door. Felt, one of the House Venture chief spies, climbed into the carriage, nodding his hawkish, mustached face respectfully to Elend, then Jastes.
    “Well?”