“Not these kinds of deals, Kelsier. I was able to trick Ruin before, lock him away, by fooling him with our agreement. But that wasn’t a breach of contract, more leaving a hole in the agreement to be exploited. This time there are no holes.”

“Then we go out kicking and screaming,” Kelsier said. “You and me, we’re a team.”

Preservation seemed to condense, his form pulling itself together, threads reweaving. “A team. Yes. A crew.”

“To do the impossible.”

“Defy reality,” Preservation whispered. “Everyone always said you were insane.”

“And I always acknowledged that they had a point,” Kelsier said. “Thing is, while they were correct to question my sanity, they never did have the right reasoning. It’s not my ambition that should worry them.”

“Then what should?”

Kelsier smiled.

Preservation, in turn, laughed—a sound that had lost its edge, the harshness gone. “I can’t help you do … whatever it is you think you’re doing. Not directly. I don’t … think well enough anymore. But…”

“But?”

Preservation solidified a little further. “But I know where you’ll find someone who can.”

Chapter 2

2

KELSIER followed a thread of Preservation, like a glowing tendril of mist, through the city. He made sure to look up periodically, confronting that force in the sky, which had boiled through the mists there and was coming to dominate in every direction.

Kelsier would not back down. He would not let this thing intimidate him again. He’d already killed one god. The second murder was always easier than the first.

The tendril of Preservation led him past shadowy tenements, through a slum that somehow looked even more depressing on this side—all crammed together, the souls of men packed in frightened lumps. His crew had saved this city, but many of the people Kelsier passed didn’t seem to know it yet.

Eventually the tendril led him out broken city gates to the north, past rubble and corpses being slowly sorted. Past living armies and that fearsome army of koloss, out beyond the city and a short hike along the river to … the lake?

Luthadel was built not far from the lake that bore its name, though most of the city’s populace determinedly ignored that fact. Lake Luthadel wasn’t the swimming or sport kind of lake, unless you fancied bathing in a soupy sludge that was more ash than it was water—and good luck catching what few fish remained after centuries of residing next to a city full of half-starved skaa. This close to the ashmounts, keeping the river and lake navigable had demanded the full-time attention of an entire class of people, the canal workers, a strange breed of skaa who rarely mixed with those from the city proper.