Kelsier stood atop Club's shop, looking out at the swirling mists. He took a deep breath, feeling the fresh autumn air to his core. Next to that feeling was another feeling which he loved even more: a vast pool of alomantic energy, which moved in him like the mirror image of the mists he watched swirl over Luthadel.
Vin walked up next to him, glanced up at his face, and then out at the red misty twilight.
"Remember Vin: the mists are your friends. They belong to us. They hide you; support you. They give you power." He slowly inhaled, then changed the subject:
"I'll bring you back to Fadrix in a few hours. First though, we need to do some training. The first thing I want you to do for training tonight is very simple."
"What's that?" Vin asked.
"Keep up."
At that, Kelsier leapt off the roof, tossing a coin a little ahead of him, then pushing of it and the rim of a rain barrel simultaneously to send him skirting over a nearby housing complex.
Vin swore then leaped after him as fast as she could. She'd only been practicing for two weeks, but already she felt comfortable pushing and pulling herself through the mists. More than comfortable actually… it was exhilarating.
Her previous worries about the minutia of acting the part of Valette Renoux and avoiding Sazed's lessons vanished. She did not think – she just let her instincts take over. Heck, she felt practically one with the mists.
Unfortunately, that didn't mean she could move like Kelsier. He would leap off one coin, but then mid-jump he'd shoot of in another, seemingly random direction. And then before he'd land he'd change directions again! Vin clenched her teeth, determined to catch him this time.
She couldn't see him anymore, but a pale blue line directed her towards what had to be his coin pouch up ahead.
He seems to be headed for the wall, she thought. She decided she'd take a chance and head straight there instead of following this back and forth path he'd currently been leading her on. She sent her coin pouch hurling through air to make it seem like she'd kept going in the same direction, then turned and made a bee-line for the wall.
She landed not very delicately, her mistcloak spinning around with tendrils landing atop her head.
After she untangled herself she looked around. Kelsier was nowhere to be seen. She couldn't sense him with her steel either.
Well that worked well, she chided herself.
She heard a noise and spun around instinctively. It came from over the wall. She peered out into the plains. Nothing. She flared tin, then saw something terrible. A mistwraith. But it wasn't alone. Vin's eye's widened and she shrank down against the ramparts to hide.
A steel inquisitor. Monstrous black axe in hand, it appeared to be fighting the mistwraith. Or… fighting might not be the right word. It looked like it was chopping the mistwraith into bits.
Vin peered horrified for a moment over the edge, her instincts screaming at her to get out of there.
Too slow though. At that moment the inquisitor seemed to hesitate… and then looked directly at her. She shrunk down below the wall, her hair standing on end.
In less than a second a hand gripped her shoulder. She spun, whipping out her glass daggers ready to fight to the death.
A horrified guard stood in front of her.
"I'm sorry my lady. You weren't moving – I wanted to check if you were… o – kay…" He must have thought I was dead or something, she thought frantically.
Vin ignored the guard and snapped her attention back over the edge. The inquisitor had disappeared. It was time for her to disappear too.
Vin looked at the guard distrustfully, amazed that he'd gotten so close without her noticing. Her attention was focused elsewhere, but sneaking up on a mistborn? Something was off here. But no time to deal with that – there was an inquisitor…
Without saying a word, she threw herself over the ramparts and back into Luthadel. She decided to head back to Club's shop. She moved slower than she wished, as she had launched her coin pouch away earlier in an attempt to trick Kelsier, so now had to rely on sources of metal in the city below for leverage. She was still getting the hang of this, and was moving frustratingly slow, often having to stop and realign herself so she kept going in the right direction.
She prayed to Sazed's forgotten gods that the inquisitor hadn't seen her.
Some roofs down, she saw a form running along the roofs parallel to her through the mist.
The inquisitor, she thought. She stopped running and rolled under a chimney ledge to hide. No way was she gonna be able to out run the monster.
She heard nothing but the sighing of the wind.
After ten minutes she decided it was time to move on.
She got up, and there, standing right before her, staring off into the mists, was Kelsier.
Vin's stomached lurched, at first thinking it was the inquisitor. Kelsier didn't seem to have seen her yet though. She moved up closer and called to him – "Kelsier?"
He turned around, then smiled widely.
"You caught me V- what happened to you? Fall off a roof?"
Vin looked down and notice that her shirt and trousers were torn up the side. She hadn't noticed that for some reason, even though they obviously felt a lot baggier now that she'd noticed the tear. Her clothes must have torn when she dove under the chimney.
Vin only had to say one word: "Inquisitor."
Five minutes later they were back in Club's shop, the smell of baywraps coming from the kitchen. Vin and Kelsier were alone in the planning room.
"… And that's when I saw you standing in front of me."
"An inquisitor? What was it doing killing a mistwraith?"
Vin thought back to when she was on the wall.
"It had the attitude of someone chopping wood – it wasn't out of passion or anything like that. Kelsier… could it be that it was collecting parts of the mistwraith for something?"
"Perhaps. I'll have to look into this more, Vin. But for tonight, training's over. That wasn't me following you Vin, I came from the east, not the west. Maybe it wasn't an inquisitor either though. Regardless, you need to lay low now. It looks like we've lost whoever that was for now.
You should get some sleep. I have a lot to think about. Stay at Club's shop tonight and you can go back to Manor Renoux tomorrow morning."
(to be continued)