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Shallan wakes in her bedding-heap at Urithiru to Adolin knocking, sunlight already overhead. She slept past noon after spending the night out as Veil; her safehand is still bandaged from the knife wound, an empty jug of Horneater white tipped over in the corner, the previous night's stunts at All's Alley — flashing the Ghostbloods' symbol, drinking herself silly, stabbing a man in front of armed thugs — already feeling dreamlike. Adolin eventually peeks in, brings warmwash water and bears patiently with her quips about menstrual cramps and the perfidy of men. She's slept too long, and the only Stormlight she had left wasn't enough to fully fix the hand or sober her.

She wheedles a single ruby mark off him — his father's loan, so he wouldn't have to carry a lantern through the dim halls — and draws the Light in, holding her breath and suppressing the glow the way she discovered she can; the hand knits, the headache lifts. While she luxuriates Adolin notes that Father is trying to get her more infused spheres for practice but there aren't any. Shallan does the math and is genuinely startled — Hatham's people set out spheres at the surprise highstorm weeks ago, every one of those should be dun by now, and they aren't. She files the puzzle away with a small twinge: when Dalinar ordered her to practice her powers he probably didn't have *getting too drunk to stay sober* in mind. Pattern buzzes from the wall to politely contribute: *no mating.*

Adolin has come for moral support. Father has finally talked Ialai Sadeas into letting him in; he is meant to ask her for leads on her husband's murderer and he expects nothing useful from it. He doesn't like her — not strange like Shallan is strange, *bad strange*, the kind that weighs everyone she meets. Shallan agrees to come and goes to dress. An hour later she joins them on Sebarial's sun-warmed balcony, where the highprince and Palona are sprawled half-naked under Horneater masseuses, eyes closed, with braziers and warmed wine ready to hand. Shallan — who took a cold bath that morning — is outraged. Sebarial reminds her she is on a stipend and hasn't been doing the scribework it was meant to pay for; he intends to take his land in the warcamps back from Thanadal and Vamah before someone else does, with Adolin worrying that thins the army too far. He also informs her, breezily, that the only way the city survives in the mountains is by taxing passage through the Oathgates — so she should hurry up and get the rest of them working.

Shallan and Adolin strike out through the tower's tangled hallways toward the Sadeas quarter. Each princedom's army holds a quarter of the second or third level, with most of level one given over to markets and storage; upper-level exploration has been paused because there is no Stormlight to spare for the lifts. At a quiet guard checkpoint two soldiers playing cards are roused and assigned to her — Vathah and Gaz, her so-called civil guard of deserters and despicable murderers. Shallan does not see the point of being escorted by men with spears when she is a Radiant and he is a Shardbearer. Adolin explains, low, that this is not about her safety. It is about *them*. An honor guard exists so the men holding the spears feel honored to hold them; leave such men idle and you ruin them, give them work and they will serve you well. *A failed soldier is often one that has been failed.* She smiles — *you sound like your father* — and promises to find them something real to do.

They climb a stairwell where the painted arrows have not yet been finished, and Shallan, who reads the strata of the walls instinctively, navigates by sight; she also pokes Adolin about the unspoken thing on his mind — he is afraid he cannot live up to his father — and is content not to be told what it is, because a relationship should keep a little mystery. The mood changes as they cross into Sadeas territory. Ialai had threatened to relocate back to the warcamps but stayed; the tower is now the seat of Alethi politics and there is no denying it. The first guard post is openly hostile; the corridors past it are loud, the soldiers unshaven and coats unbuttoned, the floor-arrows on the walls smeared by men who walked through still-wet paint. Adolin tells her not to misjudge them: their boots are sturdy, their weapons well kept, their drill genuine — Sadeas trained good men by competition where Father trained by discipline. Here, looking clean gets you mocked, because clean means Kholin.

They are ushered in. Ialai Sadeas is short, thick-lipped, green-eyed, sitting on a throne in the center of the room. Standing beside her, in Sadeas uniform, is Mraize.