Kelsier glared back at Gemmel as the mists began to grow in the air around them. Sometimes Gemmel seemed more beast than man. He began muttering to himself, speaking as if to a friend Kelsier couldn’t see or hear.

Gemmel leaned closer, still muttering, his breath pungent and sharp, his eyes wide and frenzied. This man wasn’t completely sane. No. That was a gross understatement. This man had only a fringe of sanity left to him, and even that fringe was beginning to fray. But he was the only Mistborn who Kelsier knew, and damn it, Kelsier was going to learn from the man. It was either that or start taking lessons from some nobleman.

“Now you listen,” Gemmel said, almost pleading. “Listen for once. I’m here to teach you how to fight. Not how to talk. You already do that. We didn’t come here so you could saunter in playing nobleman, like you did in the old days. I won’t let you talk through this, I won’t. You’re Mistborn. You fight.”

“I will use whatever tool I have to.”

“You’ll fight! Do you want to be weak again, let them take you again?”

Kelsier was silent.

“You want vengeance on them? Don’t you?”

“Yes,” Kelsier growled. Something massive and dark shifted within him, a beast awakened by Gemmel’s prodding. It cut through even the numbness.

“You want to kill, don’t you? For what they did to you and yours? For taking her from you? Well, boy?”

“Yes!” Kelsier barked, flaring his metals, shoving Gemmel back. Memories. A dark hole lined by crystals sharp as razors. Her sobs as she died. His sobs as they broke him. Crumpled him. Ripped him apart.

His screams as he remade himself.

“Yes,” he said, coming up onto his feet, pewter burning within him. He forced

himself to smile. “Yes, I’ll have vengeance, Gemmel. But I’ll have it my way.”

“And what way is that?”

Kelsier faltered.

It was an unfamiliar experience for him. He’d always had a plan, before. Plans upon plans. Now, without her, without anything... The spark was snuffed out, the spark that had always driven him to reach beyond what others thought possible. It had led him from plan to plan, heist to heist, riches to riches.

It was gone now, replaced by that knot of numbness. The only thing he could feel these days was rage, and that rage couldn’t guide him.

He didn’t know what to do. He hated that. He’d always known what to do.

But now...