POV: lestibournes
Summary
Spook is dying somewhere in Urteau, the sword wound from the Marketpit fight gone septic, and his fever has folded him back ten years into the room of his own childhood. He is aware enough of the delirium to let it run — staying focused costs more than he can afford. So he is, again, a small boy on a dirty floor in the eastern lands, ash drifting in the red sunlight outside, a large miner's boot pinning him to the boards.
The men of his village have caught him. The boy had Snapped young — a Tineye before he was put to work, hearing more than he had a right to — and the families who knew the boy have realised what they have on their hands. They argue around him. One says they must turn him in. Another says the obligators will come for everyone who knew him, will see the spikes in their eyes and call them all of a piece. *Things like his run in the family,* one of them mutters; the room knows what is meant. The big miner with his boot on the boy's neck makes the call: there is only one thing to be done. No obligator notices a dead skaa child found in the streets. That is the way of the Final Empire. *Father,* the boy whispers, naming the man with the boot, and the boot only presses harder. *You're not my son.* The boy's chest cannot fill; the room begins to go black.
He hears coins. The pressure on his throat lifts. Copper coins are scattered on the boards in front of him — beautiful, impossible coins, the kind no skaa is ever paid, the kind a skaa dies for trying to spend. Every eye in the room is on them. At the back of the room a gnarled stranger sits at the table, spooning gruel into his mouth without looking up. He says, between bites, that the bag is in exchange for the boy. He says, when the boy's father demands to know where he got the money, that it is none of their business. He says, when the men point out that the boy will betray them all the moment he is caught, that the boy is not going to be caught; he is going to be in Luthadel with him — and if they refuse, the stranger will tell the obligators about them himself. *Unless,* he adds, lowering the spoon, *you're going to kill me too.*
The boot lifts. The boy's father takes a step toward the table, and the boy's mother grabs his arm and tells him, in a voice she does not know the boy can hear, *He'll kill you.* She has sent for her brother, her husband realises. She knew this man would come, and she knew what he would want, and she has done this anyway. She turns her face away from the boy. *This is all I can give you,* her posture says.
The stranger sets down his spoon at last, rises, walks with a pronounced limp to the door, opens it, and says without looking back: *Come on, boy.* Spook follows him out into the hot red sunlight. The hobbling man eventually glances down and asks his name. The boy opens his mouth, then closes it: his old name will not do any more. *Lestibournes,* he says — and the old man does not flinch at the unfamiliar syllables. (Kelsier would later judge it too long, and would shorten it to Spook; Spook never knew whether Clubs had understood the eastern slang.) *Lestibournes.* *Lefting I'm born.* Street slang. *I have been abandoned.*