Shadows of Self

Wax finds the Soothing parlor where the Coinshot spotted Chapaou, the driver of Bleeder’s carriage. As Wax suspected, the carriage has a scratch through the silver paint of the crest, and when the proprietress leads him to Chapaou, the man is pacing erratically in the private room he booked with a Soother and a massage therapist. He tells Wax he wanted to forget what he saw, which was himself.

Marasi and MeLaan find Aradel on the roof, speaking with Coinshots who report to him there are still too many people on the streets, gathering in pubs. He orders them to prepare his men to shut down the pubs as soon as he gains permission from the governor to institute martial law. Once alone, Marasi tells Aradel of what she found about the floods, then introduces him to MeLaan, who uses a more formal speech, as he would expect of her. She proves she is a kandra but makes a wisecrack about his snoring, despite her formal, holy appearance. Away from MeLaan, Aradel asks Marasi to essentially spy on Wax, as Aradel would like to receive more than the half-hearted and reckless messages Wax generally gives him. Marasi agrees to report to Aradel, but she insists she will tell Wax she is doing so.

Chapaou tells Wax everything he remembers from the night as Wax inspects a small bundle Bleeder left in the back of the carriage. Bleeder says he peeked back into the carriage because he didn’t like that the Pathian priest returned with blood on his hands. He saw Bleeder mid-transformation, and when Bleeder saw him looking, she approximated Chapaou’s own face, terrifying the man. He kept driving, but when he dropped her where she wanted, she told him she would make him free. As Chapaou speaks, Wax finds in the bundle the mallet used to pound the spikes into the Survivorist priest and the bones and clothing of the Pathian priest Bleeder imitated. He also finds some sort of powder that glows, though he does not know what it is. He gives Chapaou money and tells him to go home, since Bleeder most likely does not want the man dead, and then Wax heads for where Chapaou dropped Bleeder.

Wax observes the governor’s mansion and the surrounding area from the roof. More people than usual walk the streets, revealing the unrest in the city. As he watches, Bleeder speaks into his mind again. Wax lowers himself to the ground so he can walk, testing whether she moves to follow and hear him speak. She is insistent that she will save Wax and the city. He spots movement in a window, but he pauses when she asks about Lessie. She tells him to ask Harmony why he did not save her. She hints Harmony may have known that Lessie kept Wax in the Roughs but that Harmony needed Wax in the city. Then, she runs for the governor’s mansion.

Wax follows, but Bleeder uses the Feruchemical speed she stole. She kills nearly all the guards. Wax nearly catches her when Wayne, disguised as a guard, catches Wax and himself in a speed bubble. Wax shoots her as much as he can through the bubble and then uses Steelpushing to send one of the syringes MeLaan gave him at Bleeder. The syringe misses, embedding itself in the wall, and Bleeder heals her wounds with her kandra abilities and runs into the safe room where the governor is being held.

By the time Wax makes it to the room, the governor’s head of security is dead. The governor claims the man stepped in front of the bullet heading for Innate and saved him. Bleeder fled after that. Wax is not sure whether she fled because she ran out of Feruchemical speed or because she did not plan to kill Innate yet, only make a statement.

Innate still refuses to leave the city, planning to stay and deal with the unrest. When Wax walks through the other entrance to the safe room, the one Bleeder fled through, he finds a drawing she made on the wall and words reminding Wax she believes she will free him.

Wayne and Wax think about their next steps while the governor Innate speaks with several leaders of the city; Marasi is in the room as well to pass along Aradel’s request for martial law. While they talk, MeLaan digests the body of one of the dead guards so she can imitate the woman and not be noticed by Paalm if she returns.

Wax shows MeLaan powder he pulled from Paalm’s things in the abandoned carriage, and she informs him it is a fungus from the kandra Homeland, which is now a holy place rather than where the kandra live; the idea of Paalm there bothers MeLaan. Through MeLaan, Harmony gives Wax permission to go there and investigate in case Paalm was living there.

Wax is informed his carriage is waiting. He sent a note to his uncle, offering not to arrest the man if he met Wax to talk. Wax hopes he can gain information about Paalm from his uncle. Unfortunately, Edwarn sees possibility in Paalm’s plans, since his people, the Set, want to cause upheaval, anyway, and then seize power. Edwarn refuses to give Wax information.

Marasi watches and listens as the leaders of the city clamor to give Innate their opinions about what should be done in the city. Some wish to let things happen as they would and then putter out, while some think that martial law is not a harsh enough solution. After dismissing them, Innate writes out permission for Aradel to institute martial law, putting him in charge of all the other octants, which did not make the same request. He gives the paper to Marasi along with orders for Aradel.

Marasi requests a carriage from a servant, but she must wait for one while they are out delivering other messages. While waiting, she enters the governor’s safe room, outside of which a servant is still cleaning the blood of Innate’s guards. Marasi pulls down one of the books containing the Words of Founding out of curiosity; she notices three of the volumes are scuffed at the bottom. Curious, she inspects them; inside one, she finds a hidden key. She considers if she should use it, but she knows the law well enough that she believes she can conduct a search. In a hidden safe, she finds letters from important lords in the city. They are somewhat coded, but she aligns them to her own research and realizes they are proof she was right: Innate is corrupt and was bought. She takes the letters, but she worries about what to do. She believes Innate should be held to account, but she also knows she might be playing into Bleeder’s plan.

Wax flies over the city after leaving his uncle’s carriage, hoping to clear his head before going to the kandra Homeland. He observes the electric lights in the center of the city compared to the edges, where electric lights still have not been implemented. He wishes he could return to the Roughs, where justice was simpler. Bleeder’s questions about why Harmony did not save Lessie linger in his head.

Governor Innate demands to be left alone to consider what he will say to the crowds gathering outside the mansion. Wayne and the disguised MeLaan wait outside and discuss accents, as MeLaan is trying to get the dead woman’s accent right. While they are waiting, Ranette, a friend of Wax’s from the Roughs, arrives. She brings a bullet Wax ordered her, by messenger, to create, made to his specifications. She gives it to Wayne and shares her concerns about the crowds gathering in the city.

Marasi gives Aradel his permission for martial law, and as they head to the governor’s mansion, she tells Aradel about the letters she found. He is conflicted, but he agrees they still must protect the governor and deal with his corruption later.

Wax approaches the Field of Rebirth, where the Originators came out from underground shelters into a new world centuries ago and where Elend, the last emperor, and Vin, the Ascendant Warrior, are entombed. He moves past protesting constables and enters the ancient caverns, which were turned into a museum. Near the end, he uses his Steelsight to find a hidden switch for a door. Closing the door and seeking a match to light his way, he hears a “growling” voice say, “I’ve been waiting for you” (307).

Wax fires into the darkness but discovers the voice belongs to TenSoon, one of the oldest kandra and the one who served the Ascendant Warrior. He leads Wax further into the caverns and to what used to be prisons for kandra like him, who betrayed the laws of kandra before the world was remade. Inside one of the pits is a pile of pages ripped from the Words of Founding, but with words written over the pages with blood. Wax lays them out to find a pattern. He finds out through TenSoon that although Harmony did not take full control of Bleeder, he did push her very hard to do something she did not want to do; it may have been the trigger for her fixation on freedom and her decision to pull out one of her spikes. Wax thinks of hints she left him about cutting out tongues and blinding others, and he realizes Bleeder is always one step ahead. He realizes she knows the other kandra are moving throughout the city in disguises and trying to soothe tensions. She will use it against them.

Wayne moves through the crowd of angry protestors outside the mansion to get a feel for what is going on. He moves with them, imitating them to move more easily. A man in worker’s clothing gives a speech to the crowd, inciting their anger against the elite. A priest jumps up to the same statue to calm the masses instead, claiming there are better ways to make their grievances known. As Wayne watches, the original speaker stabs the priest with a syringe of the same liquid MeLaan gave Wax, revealing to the entire crowd the priest is actually a kandra. He incites further anger by claiming the kandra work for the elite; then someone recognizes Wayne, and the speaker claims the elite sent Wayne out among them.

Wax and TenSoon run for the way out, but on the way, they hear howls from a creature that TenSoon cannot recognize. When they see the creatures hunting them, they see they were humans, but Paalm used Hemalurgy in some new way to turn them into monsters under her control, moving like animals. Wax and TenSoon kill them, but more are coming, so they run for an escape route.

Wayne runs with the mob in his newest disguise, using it to get away from the crowd and back to the mansion. As he listens, he hears a voice speaking and recognizes the accent is off somehow—only slightly but enough for Wayne to know who Paalm is impersonating.

TenSoon leads Wax to what looks like a dead end; the kandra recently found another possible route in and out of the Homeland, but it is just a crack in the wall of the tunnel. Wax increases his weight with Feruchemy and creates more of an opening for them to enter, and they both begin to climb. Wax recognizes midway through the climb he is in what used to be the Pits of Hathsin, where the Lord Emperor sent prisoners to mine atrium in horrific conditions—and where the Survivor, Kelsier, became the only person to leave the Pits alive. As they reach the sewers of the city, TenSoon asks why Paalm wants to distract him as well as TenSoon, and Wax realizes why. The governor plans to speak to the city, and Wax comes to the conclusion that Paalm did not kill the man yet because she wanted an audience when she did so to incite more anger and panic.