Beautiful Destroyer
Chapter Six
Kelsier smiled. "It means that you, Vin, are a very special person. You have a power that most high noblemen envy. It is a power that, had you been born an aristocrat, would have made you one of the most deadly and influential people in all of the final empire."
Kelsier leaned forward again. "But, you weren't born an aristocrat. You're not noble, Vin. You don't have to play by their rules—and that makes you even more powerful."
-Mistborn: The Final Empire
Vin had never fought a mage before. Fouquet's golem, yes, but not Fouquet herself. Still, she listened to Louise's class lectures and had learned a few things.
Mages had three weaknesses. First, spells cost Willpower, which they could only restore by sleeping. No matter how powerful a mage was in the beginning, his magic would run without any quick way of replenishing. Second, a mage could only cast one spell at a time. Some spells would last long after being cast, so a mage could create a golem and fly away, but he could not create a golem while flying. Third, and most important, each spell took time to prepare. A powerful mage could cast a spell more quickly than a novice, but no spell could ever be instantaneous.
Allomancy had none of those weaknesses.
Vin flared iron, Pulling on Wardes' belt buckle and sword-wand, yanking him off balance and ripping his wand from his grasp, all while launching Vin forward. She grabbed the sword-wand by the hilt as it flew past her and pointed it at Wardes. In that moment of flight, her tin-enhanced eyes noted that while shaped like a rapier, the tip of the sword-wand was blunted, and wouldn't be able to pierce anything.
Pity.
But before she reached him, he pulled out a backup wand made of wood and cast a spell, knocking her to the side. She hit the ground and rolled to her feet before her momentum ran out.
Sloppy. Wardes had held out a metal wand for her, and like an idiot she'd taken the bait, exposing herself to his counter attack. Did he prepare after he switched wands, or did he ready it before she attacked? Was that even possible? Louise's teachers had left out far too much.
And what spell did he even cast in the first place? Whatever it was, it remained. A whirlwind blew around him, about an arm's length from his person. Vin had wanted to end the match quickly to keep at least a few secrets, but that didn't seem likely now. Besides, did she have any secrets left? Wardes had known what she was going to do before she did it, so Louise had told him about iron and steel, and probably the rest as well. In return, Vin knew nothing about Wardes. Well, he used wind magic and was apparently quite good, but that was it.
Burning steel, she saw barely any metal on his person, not enough for a decent anchor at any rate. He had done his research, and he had come prepared. In a fight like this, there was only one thing she could do.
"I give up." She turned and walked away.
"You what?" Louise demanded. Her voice sounded unbearably loud to her tin-enhanced ears. "No! No, no, no! You can't give up now! I absolutely forbid it! I did not summon a quitter!"
And it came down to that. As her familiar, Vin added to Louise's status, and while Vin had spent her whole life trying to hide, Louise wanted to show her off. She didn't even care if Vin won or not. She wanted a performance.
And despite herself, Vin was going to give her one. She walked away, but she stopped when she was between a brass flagpole and a suit of armor on the second floor of the inn on the other side of Wardes. She flared iron, using the pole to anchor herself in place and yanking the suit of armor through the window.
Wardes turned around at the sound of shattering glass, giving Vin the distraction she needed to strike. She threw a coin onto the ground and Pushed against it and the flagpole, launching herself into the air. As she hoped, Wardes' whirlwind spell was weaker the further it was from the ground, and she passed through. She couldn't control her jump well enough to land on top of him, but she could grab a handful of coins and shoot them down.
He saw her just in time and jumped out of the way, dismissing the whirlwind spell so it wouldn't blow him away. Vin jumped off the wall and landed, throwing coins at him knowing—hoping—that he would block them with a spell. The distraction gave her time to put him between her and the suit of armor, and she flared iron.
No one in Luthadel wore anything more than a cap and breastplate that could be shed when faced by an Allomancer. Here, armor covered everything, and the suit weighed even more than she did, so when she Pulled, she Pulled herself forward, sword-wand raised, ready to—
"Air Hammer!"
The spell knocked her backward with the force its name claimed, slamming her against a stone wall at the edge of the courtyard. She flared tin, and the blinding sunlight, the deafening cacophony, and the throbbing pain forced her back into lucidity.
Fortunately, she had maintained the Ironpull long enough to trip Wardes with the suit of armor, and Vin recovered first. She dashed forward, closing the distance and pulling out her glass daggers. Just like before when she pulled Nightblood from its sheath, the runes on her left hand flared to life and a new strength filled her, combining with the pewter she was already burning.
Wardes raised his wand just in time for Vin to cut it in half with one dagger, and she stopped herself before plunging the other into his chest. Both her Allomancy and whatever Louise had given her burned within her, filling her with power that demanded to be used … but the fight was over, and she had won.
For a moment they both stood still, him still gripping half a wand and her with a blade inches from his chest. "You are everything Louise promised and more," Wardes said. He sounded neither surprised nor bitter. "I concede the match."
Vin stepped back and put her knives away, feeling suddenly foolish. She had gotten too caught up in the game, and that's what it was, a game. It was the first game she had ever played.
Louise let out a cheer. "And the duel goes to Vin, my familiar!"
Guiche stood beside her, eyes wide and mouth open. "What? How did … why didn't you tell anyone that you summoned a mage?"
"Don't feel bad," Louise said, smiling. "I'm sure your mole is useful for … something." She turned to Vin and walked up to her. "See? I knew you could do it."
Useful. That's what it came down to. Vin was useful to her. They weren't friends; they were just two people with an agenda. No, Louise had an agenda. Vin was just trying to get by. She stopped and looked Louise dead in the eye. "Don't do that again."
Before Louise could respond, Vin dropped a copper half-penny to the ground and jumped into the air.
WWW
Louise stared ahead, stunned, for a moment after Vin left. Don't do that again? What … what had she done? Sure, she had pushed her into the fight, but Vin had needed that push. One way or another, Louise was going to make a noble out of her, but nobility was more than the ability to use magic or the title. It was the courage to stand and fight instead of running and hiding, and Vin was too timid.
"Um, was she upset about something?" Guiche asked.
Coins lay scattered across the courtyard that Vin hadn't bothered to pick up. That wasn't like her at all. They were all coppers, not worth the trouble of retrieving, but whenever Vin had shown Louise her powers before, she had always picked up each one.
"She's always a bit twitchy after a fight," Louise remembered after destroying Fouquet's golem, Vin had wanted to kill Longueville too. She had suspected that it had been the influence the Sword of Destruction had on her, but maybe Vin was just stressed out.
Wardes approached her, sword-wand at his side, and he nodded in respect. "Your familiar fought well, Louise. You should be proud."
Her heart swelled and she smiled. "Thank you, your words are kind. So, what did you think?"
"Her fighting style was underhanded, and unsuited for formal duels, and her spells are not as powerful as traditional magic. However, she is skilled at using the battlefield to her advantage and attacks relentlessly. If she were to pick the location of a fight and get her opponent on the defensive, I doubt she would lose a fight against anyone. I expect her to prove most useful in the coming days."
Louise positively glowed at that. Useful. Ironic that she should be summoned by someone so useless. No, she buried that twinge of jealousy. A familiar's accomplishments were her master's accomplishments. "I'm glad to hear that, Viscount," she said. "And thank you for doing this for us."
"Of course," Wardes said. "The chance to fight Gandalfr herself was a privilege."
"What?" Guiche said. "Would someone do me the slight courtesy of filling me in? Because I feel out of the loop."
Louise looked in the direction that Vin had left. The hotel roof? Lovely, and Louise was the only one in the group who couldn't fly. "Well, I should probably go check on her. I'll tell her what you said."
WWW
When she was in Camon's crew, Vin would always find some dark corner or obscure ledge between jobs. Not to hide, of course. Hiding would only get her an extra beating, but if it stopped the other crew members from stumbling across her, then she was that much better off.
But just like before, someone always came looking for her. After only a few minutes of sitting on the roof of the hotel, she saw Louise stick her head up over the edge.
"There you are," Louise said, climbing up. "Ugh, have I mentioned how frustrating it is being the only person in the group who can't fly? You are helping me back down afterwards."
What do you want now?
Louise made her way across the roof's slanted shingles and sat down next to her. "Wardes was impressed. Well, you did win."
Win? Win what? A fight that she had been forced into? A fight that had exposed her abilities to two people, one of which she had just met. Damn it, Louise, flaunt your own secrets, not mine! It was likely that she would have been forced into revealing her Allomancy at some point, but it should have been her choice, not hers.
No, what she had won was knowledge, that Louise could not be trusted.
Louise could not be trusted.
She wasn't malicious or cruel. Vin knew cruelty. She had known little else until Kelsier had found her. But Louise was something different, something new and as alien as the flowers of this world.
Louise was innocent, and that made her even more dangerous.
"His word carries weight, you know. If this mission goes well and with both of us backing you up, I wouldn't be surprised if you ended up knighted."
She imagined that. Vin, a noble. Kelsier would be sick.
"Vin?" Louise said, putting a hand on her shoulder. "Say something."
Vin did not flinch at her touch, though she watched her warily. She knew Louise wasn't the sort of person to try to stab her with a poisoned needle, but Vin always relied more on instinct than on logic. "What do you want me to say?"
Louise glared at her, growing frustrated. "I don't know! Thank you, maybe? I'm really putting myself out there for you, and sometimes I feel like you don't even care."
"Why do you?" she whispered.
"What?"
"Why do you care? What does it matter to you if I have a title or not?"
Louise stared at her. "You're a mage, Vin. You're not meant to be a peasant."
Vin let out a weak chuckle and thought about what Kelsier would do. Kill people, probably. Regardless, recognition was more trouble than it was worth, and the prestige and privilege would only get her killed.
You need to leave, Reen said in her head. Escape. Go somewhere no one knows you. Where you can be safe. Where you can be free.
Did such a place exist in this world? In any world? Even if it did, Vin doubted it would last. She could make new enemies more quickly than she could make new friends. Besides, Louise was charging headlong into danger with neither the reason nor the experience to be afraid, and she needed someone she could depend on. Vin would never again trust her with her secrets or her life, but she would not abandon her now.
I can't leave like you did. Reen had left her like he always said he would. I'm not like you. Not yet.
WWW
The next day they bought passage on a merchant vessel toward Albion. Louise knew that Vin had never been to Albion and had looked forward to telling her familiar all about it, but the girl had gone up to the crow's nest and hadn't come down since.
Guiche had floated up to chat with her. It didn't take a genius to figure out what was on his mind, what with Vin being the only single girl his age within ten miles. Louise only hoped that Vin was smart enough to turn him down.
What was going on in her familiar's head was harder to pin down.
"Is something bothering you, Louise?" Wardes said gently.
"No, I'm fine." She shook her head. "No, I'm not. It's Vin. Ever since you two dueled, she's been in a ... in a mood. I don't get it. I mean, she won, so there's no reason for her to be upset. Right?"
Wardes stroked his beard thoughtfully. "Well, I have heard that the moods of girls her age are strange things, as fickle as the winds in the town square."
Louise started to nod, then stopped herself. "Wait, we're the same age."
"You, of course, are the exception, as firm and steady as the Fire Dragon Mountains."
She began to smile, then stopped again. "Aren't they volcanic?"
He chuckled. "So they are, Louise. So they are. But please, tell me more about the situation with your familiar. You haven't, forgive me for asking, mistreated her in any way?"
"No! Far from it. She was half dead when I summoned her, and I spent a fortune nursing her back to health. After that, I was always fair to her, making sure that she had a place to sleep and food to eat. Then, when I found out that she was a mage? I've been doing everything I could to get her a noble title like she deserves, and she acts like she's doing me a favor by letting me!"
"Ah," he said, nodding.
"What?"
He gazed out over the clouds as they sailed further north. "What is the difference between a noble and a commoner?"
Louise stared at the question. "Magic? We have been chosen by Brimir to lead and protect the peasantry countless generations ago, so we're nobility."
"But can't wealthy commoners purchase a title of nobility in some parts of the world?"
Louise rolled her eyes. "Yeah, in Germania." The Germanians had been accused of nearly everything besides having standards.
He gave a thin smile. "Quite right, quite right. But what of noble houses that have had their titles revoked? A fallen noble is no less a mage in exile."
"I ..." Louise hadn't thought of that. She didn't think of fallen nobles in general when she could help it. When she couldn't help it, she worried—unreasonably, in Cattleya's opinion—that her father would one day kick her out of the family if she couldn't learn to cast even the most basic of spells.
But nobles could fall. If someone brought dishonor to her house, she could be removed from said house. If a noble committed treason or another terrible crime, that noble might take the coward's way out and abandon their name to save their skin.
"Wealth then?" Louise shook her head before Wardes could reply. "No, there are plenty of bankrupt nobles. Cowardly ones too, unfortunately, so it can't be courage. What, then?"
"Time," he said. "We hold vast estates in the past and the future, while commoners live only in the present. They come from nothing and leave nothing behind. We trace our lineages back to the Founder's day and hope our houses will remain long after we die. A commoner is content with his daily bread, while nobles like us subsist on reputation.
"Despite the magic she can use, your familiar fights like a commoner. Did you see it, Louise? That was what I meant when I called her methods underhanded. When I enter a duel, I begin assuming that my opponent has studied me and knows every spell I can cast. I can't use tricks, and must rely on skill alone. Your familiar fought more like an assassin than a duelist."
Louise's eyes grew wide and glanced up to where Vin was perched in the crow's nest. "An assassin?"
He nodded. "She fought in layers, one attack serving as a distraction for the one beneath it. And did you witness her desperate haste? She wished to close the duel as quickly as possible to not give me time to think, as in her arena it is more valued to think quickly than to think well."
"Um, is that bad?" She had seen few duels in her life, and had never had them explained to her in much detail. Two mages stood a distance apart and cast spells at each other until one of them conceded the match, and anything else was beyond her.
"Underhanded," he said. "If we were to duel her a hundred times, I'd expect to best her in ninety of them. But on a stage with no witnesses and no survivors, she'd only need to win the first fight. Tell me, what was she before you summoned her?"
"Uh ..." Vin had spoken little of her previous life. She had claimed to be from another world, which alone stretched the limits of credibility, and that monsters had hunted her for the crime of being born. Beyond that, Louise knew that she had powers that she insisted for reasons only she knew be kept secret and ... and that Vin stood taller under the moon than under the sun, and taller still when there was no light at all. But what she was besides a fugitive ... "I don't know. She hasn't said."
And the thought echoed in her mind, Assassin. She had hoped to convince Princess Henrietta to have her knighted, and Vin might have been an assassin.
"Well, no matter," Wardes said after a moment. "I'm sure she has a good reason to keep secrets from you. She's your familiar, after all. I'm sure she's trustworthy."
WWW
Vin wasn't afraid of heights, but she decided that she did not like flying. Coinjumping made her feel free—free from gravity, free from the ground, free from everyone she left beneath her—while being on a flying ship made her feel trapped. If something happened, she'd have nowhere to run but straight off the edge with nothing to grab onto besides the empty air and the distant sea.
"Well, I'd say my performance is quite nearly flawless," Guiche said. Guiche had never participated in a scam before—not beyond romancing young noble women who thought he was single. Fortunately, his role was simple. Guiche de Gramont was going to play the part of Guiche de Gramont. The idea that he had been sent on an errand from his father to negotiate trade instead of by the princess to contact the Albion prince was fiction, but the broad surface of his persona was verifiable, straightforward, and most of all, uninteresting.
He had levitated up to join her in the crow's nest, and because the crow's nest was cramped with both of them in it, she climbed out onto the crossbeam of the sail. She burned pewter to keep her balance, but the only metals she needed to ration were iron and steel as long as Guiche could be trusted.
She hadn't told him what the metals were for, not yet. If he was smart he'd be able to start putting the pieces together and find out just how vital his alchemy spells were, and then ... and then he'd have power over her.
She could see Albion now, a distant spec sitting on a cloud. A floating island. Even after they docked she'd still be trapped, just in a larger cage. And one with a war inside of it.
"Show it to Louise and Wardes and see what they think," she said. "They'll have a better idea of what to expect." Vin had spent her whole life working on one con or another, but she had no experience with albion nobility. Zinc and brass could compensate for a lot, but she didn't want to have to depend on it.
"I have no doubt they'll be amazed," Guiche said. "I could become a thespian, if such a career were not woefully beneath my station." He paused to study her. She hated it when he looked at her like that, just the wrong combination of curious and hungry. "Speaking of station, what is yours? I have wondered about little else since your duel with the Viscount. You have arrived as the familiar of Louise, you bow and scrape like a servant, and yet you fight like a mage with a form of magic I have never before seen. What are you really?"
A thief pretending to be a servant. A ska pretending to be a noble. A Mistborn pretending to be the mists. "Whatever I need to be. I'll play the part of the servant for this con."
"My servant, you mean." His eyes grew wide. "And if you're going to convince anyone that you are a servant of House Gramont, you'll have to look the part."
"The whole point of this is so that people will look at me as little as possible."
"Oh." He looked down. "Curses."
WWW
On the surface, Scarborough wasn't that different from La Rochelle. They were both port towns with massive trees to dock the airships, and there were far more people passing through than staying in town.
But beneath the surface, Scarborough was a city at war. The people waved the flags of the Reconquista proudly, afraid of even the accusation of disloyalty. In the streets children played soldier, yelling out, "Die, royalist dog!" while beating each other with sticks. The stores were poorly stocked and over priced, but there was the promise that soon the war would be over and things could go back to normal.
Despite all of that, entering the kingdom of Albion was no trouble at all. They had to answer a few questions about their purpose of travel—or at least the three nobles did. As a servant, Vin counted as an accessory. No one asked her anything because no one assumed that she had anything to say worth saying.
Plus she had used brass to Sooth away the inspector's concerns. She had learned to burn brass before she even knew what she was doing, working as Camon's good luck charm to make people easier to scam. Even on another world, her situation had changed little.
After spending the night in Scarborough and changing clothes so they didn't look like half of their group had arrived straight from school, the four of them found themselves at the gates of Count Phillip.
"So," Guiche said, adjusting his feathered, velvet cap. "You haven't met him before?"
Wardes shook his head. His outfit looked the same as before, only without the insignia marking him as a member of the Griffin Knights. Now he was a private bodyguard, not a soldier of Tristain. "No, but I've read about him. He is a trader, and a lord of traders, more interested in the flow of wealth than honor, and only cares about the war as much as it affects his ships and caravans."
"So he's a trader and a traitor," Louise muttered. Her dress was dark green and more sturdy than elegant. She was pretending to be a member of the lesser nobility, though her temperament remained that of a duke's daughter through and through. While Guiche could pretend to be himself, Louise's family was too prestigious and would attract the wrong kind of attention.
Wardes put a hand on her shoulder. "Nearly the whole of Albion is, save the dead. But as long as we are behind enemy lines, it is best not to remind them of their dishonor."
"We're indifferent," Vin said. Her dress was black and white, similar to what Siesta and the rest of the academy maids wore. It was harder to move in than the trousers she was used to, but far easier than the ball gowns she had worn before. While she didn't have any weapons on her, the coin pouch she carried would do in an emergency. "We don't care who wins Albion's civil war, and we're here because the Reconquista has proven to be worth investing in." She turned to Guiche. "If you can't get the Count to tell you about the Prince's location, don't push it. After we attract suspicion, we won't be able to shake it off, and there are other sources of information."
Another way would be to eavesdrop on the locals until they found out what they needed to know. The frontlines of the war would be common knowledge, wouldn't it? Or would it be shrouded in rumor and misinformation? Regardless, eavesdropping would take longer, and every day they stayed in Albion was one more day that someone could figure out what they were really after.
Simply asking about Prince Wales and the surviving royalists was out of the question. They garnered enough suspicion just by arriving from Tristain. Asking about enemy troop movements would mark them as spies, and they need to establish themselves as trade brokers as quickly as possible.
"So which one of us knocks?" Guiche said. "Do I knock because I'm the most important one here? Or do I delegate that to one of you underlings?"
Louise scowled, banged on the door, and shot Guiche a look that could curdle milk. "Say underling again, and I will force feed you your own face."
He gave Wardes an exasperated look. "Behold! Your future wife."
"And I wouldn't have it any other way," Wardes said without a touch of humor. Louise beamed at him.
The door opened, and an austere, matronly woman appraised them. She was stick thin and as tall as Wardes, and though she were dressed as a servant, she carried herself as the lady of the manor. After careful consideration, she deemed them worthy of a single word.
"Yes?"
Guiche cleared his throat and stepped forward. "Ah! Yes, good day to you, um, madam. I am Guiche de Gramont of the Gramont household of Tristain, here to meet with your lord, Count Phillip of Scarborough on my esteemed father's behalf."
The woman frowned. "Do you have an appointment?"
"Uh ..." He glanced backward for support before remembering that he was in charge. "Oh! Appointment! I thought you said ... well, nevermind. Yes, um, I do ... not. Is he in?"
She frowned. "I will ask the Count if he has time to meet with you, Lord Guiche. You may enter."
The four of them followed the woman inside. Vin burned tin and bronze, listening for footsteps and spellcraft. She heard a few bronze-pulses, but they were distant and not coming from the manor. She heard footsteps too, but not many, and the clank of armor was rarer still. If the Count had any guards at all, they were few. Vin frowned at that. In Luthadel, each major noble family had hundreds of guards on duty at all times, taken both from the ska and the lesser nobility. Vin was less familiar with this world, and even less with the Albion aristocracy, but shouldn't there be more than the few guards she heard?
"You may wait here," the woman said after leading them to a sitting room. "I will inform Count Phillip of your arrival, your lordship." She gave Guiche a slight nod that could only be called a bow by the most generous of definitions, glanced at Wardes and Louise, but she narrowed her eyes at Vin before departing.
Vin went stiff and didn't dare to breath for a moment afterward. What was that look? Why did she focus on her like that? Had Vin done something to give herself away? She had practiced the servant's role for years, but maybe servants carried themselves differently here.
"Well, that was rude," Louise said, plopping down on one of the cushioned chairs. "You'd think that a Count would expect more decorum from his staff."
"Hold a moment," Wardes said. He began muttering to himself as he prepared a spell. "There. We may speak freely now. Do not presume too much, my dear. If she is the woman running the Count's household, then her rank, though informal and likely unspoken, would be high. And if the majordomo seemed cold, remember that we are in a kingdom at war. At times like these, people are more comforted by something rigid enough to shelter them than something gentle enough to be blown away."
Louise let out a huff. "Well, I didn't like her. I bet she won't even offer us tea."
Vin closed her eyes and burned tin, causing the noises in the room to heighten—but only the noises in the room. Beyond the walls and doors, there was nothing. Right, Wardes' spell.
She approached him and said softly, "There aren't enough guards here. Barely any." She didn't whisper. Nothing sounded more suspicious than a whisper, but a low voice at the right pitch didn't travel far.
He nodded. "Most able bodied men would have enlisted, leaving only a skeleton crew."
Vin frowned. "Is that safe?"
"Safer than the alternative. If the Count was not seen supporting the war effort, his loyalty would be called into question. I suspect he's compensating with warded doors and windows."
Lovely. The eight basic Allomatic metals and their effects wouldn't fill a page, but the total number of spells in existence could fill several books. "Warded doors? I didn't see her unlock anything on the way in." She knew that every question she asked revealed more and more of her ignorance, but the alternative was even more dangerous.
"Nothing so mundane, of course," Wardes said. "But I'm sure you noticed her necklace?"
Necklace? The servant woman hadn't been wearing a necklace ... not one that Vin could see. But now that she thought about it, there was a slight bulge below the woman's neck. "Under her blouse?"
He nodded. "A wardstone. She will lead us out when the meeting is over, but if we were to wander the manor unescorted, there would be consequences."
Vin raised an eyebrow. "Such as?"
"I cannot say. Most likely not lethal, but certainly unpleasant. A loud noise, perhaps, or a burst of flame."
"I used to have some at home," Guiche said. "If you were to open the wrong door, a golem would arise to apprehend you. Of course, the wards kept on getting triggered by party guests and forgetful servants more than the thieves and assassins my father was hoping for, so he had them replaced. Say, what do you think of this painting, Viscount Wardes? I fear this meeting may require me to make small talk, and I dearly wish for something cultured to say."
The painting, as far as Vin could tell, was bleak. It seemed to be set at the bottom of a well looking up at the narrow spec of light at the top. The silhouette of a face looked down at the viewer.
Vin turned away. Art was frivolous, but at least it could be pleasant. Count Phillip's decorations were neither.
"Glad to see you two finally getting along," Louise said.
"Hm?"
"You and Wardes. I thought you didn't like him."
Vin glanced over at Louise's fiance, analyzing the painting on the wall. "I never disliked him. I just didn't trust him." She narrowed her eyes. "Still don't."
Louise rolled her eyes. "Right. So the man with titles, reputation, and an honorable life is clearly untrustworthy, but you're fine with a halfwit skirt chaser like Guiche coming along."
"That's different," Vin said under her breath. "Guiche is harmless."
Mostly harmless.
Louise studied her. Vin hated it when people looked at her like that. She was a creature of knots and secrets, and Louise worked slowly to unravel her.
"What about me?"
"What do you mean?"
"Guiche is a dot class mage," Louise said bitterly. "I'm not even that. So am I also 'harmless?'"
"I ... what?"
"You're always skulking about, aren't you Familiar? Hiding in shadows or corners or in plain sight. Even now you chose to play the peasant when you could have donned a noble's mantle and worn it better than ... than ..." She shook her head. "You're a coward, you know that? You're so afraid someone's going to stab you in the back, you don't let anyone stand by your side. I've never been able to ..." She cut herself off with a bitter bark of a laugh. "And here we are with an entire kingdom worth of enemies right in front of us."
Vin stared at her at a loss for words. She had no idea where that outburst came from. Louise had always seemed aloof in her own way, distant. But it seemed like after all this time, Vin didn't know her any better than she knew her. Or any better than she had known Reen.
She hoped Wards' spell worked as well as he suggested it did at blocking eavesdroppers. She glanced at him and Guiche standing by the painting. Neither one of them were looking her way, but they seemed to be ignoring her and Louise much more actively than they were paying attention to the work of art in front of them.
Before Vin could come up with a suitable response, if such a thing existed, the doors opened wide and Count Phillip entered the room.
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A/n And here's the next chapter. This fic has been dead for a while now, but has recently been brought back to life due to generous donations to my account. You too can resurrect dead fics at dot com slash slavoksstories.
Now that my shameless plug is over, I'd like to thank everyone who has read and reviewed it in the past, motivating me to get it this far. I'd also like to thank Magery who edited the first part long ago, and Exiled Immortal who edited the end result.