So he had been seen. Damn. At least they didn’t seem to know he’d crept into the building.

“Well, well,” the ancient creature said. “My foresight does not seem so foolish now, does it, Captain? The powers of Threnody wish to join the main stage. Engage the device.”

Kelsier had an immediate sinking feeling. Whatever that device did, he suspected it would not go well for him. He turned to bolt down the corridor, making for one of the windows. Behind him, the powerful golden light of the gemstone faded.

Kelsier felt nothing.

“Well,” the captain said from behind, voice echoing. “Nobody from Threnody within a day’s march of here. Looks like a false alarm after all.”

Kelsier hesitated in the empty corridor. Then, cautious, he crept back to peek into the room. The guards and the wizened creature all stood around the device, seeming displeased.

“I do not doubt your foresight, ancient one,” the guard captain continued. “But I do trust my forces on the Threnodite border. There are no shadows here.”

“Perhaps,” the creature said, resting her fingers on the gemstone. “Perhaps there was someone, but the guard was wrong about it being a Cognitive Shadow. Have the guards be on alert, and leave the device on just in case. This timing strikes me as too opportune to be coincidental. I must speak with the rest of the Ire.”

As she said the word, this time Kelsier got a sense of its meaning in the language of the green plants. It meant “age,” and he had a sudden impression of a strange symbol made from four dots and some lines that curved, like ripples in a river.

Kelsier shook his head, dispelling the vision. The creature was walking in Kelsier’s direction. He scrambled away, barely reaching a window and climbing out as the creature pushed open the door and strode through the hallway.

New plan, Kelsier decided, hanging outside on the wall, feeling completely exposed. Follow the weird lady giving orders.

He let her get a distance ahead of him, then entered the corridor and followed silently. She rounded the outer corridor of the fortress before eventually reaching the end of it, where it stopped at a guarded door. She passed inside, and Kelsier thought for a moment, then climbed out another window.

He had to be careful; if the guards above weren’t already keeping close watch on the walls, they soon would be. Unfortunately, he doubted he could get through that doorway without bringing every guard in the place down on him. Instead he climbed along the outside of the fortress until he reached the next window past the guarded door. This one was smaller than the others he’d gone through, more like an arrow slit than a true window. Fortunately, it looked into the room the strange woman had entered.