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It is a crystalline day in Shadesmar when Adolin — guarded by two honorspren soldiers as always — climbs to the top of the walls of Lasting Integrity. The fortress is enormous, hundreds of feet tall, hollow, sheer, roofless. He has spent weeks learning that none of its surfaces obey ordinary gravity: walking up the inside wall feels like walking on flat ground, and stepping off the edge onto the battlements flips his orientation so that the wall he just walked becomes a sheer drop. The view from the top is spectacular — the bead ocean lit cold by the sun, the lights of Tukar glittering inland, glass forests dotted with lifespren that blink in coordinated, rhythmic waves.

His camp is still visible inland — Godeke, Felt, and Malli waiting for the trial's outcome, the rest of his soldiers gone to bring word to his father. The trial is delayed; the honorspren want time to prepare. The wait, in theory, helps him. In practice the spren of this fortress are about as easy to persuade as rocks. What Adolin really came up here to see is the unusual thing on the nearby coast: a gathering of deadeyes, two hundred and growing, standing motionless, silent — many of them Shardblades whose bodies vanish into mist when their owners summon them in the Physical Realm. Vaiu, his shorter, bare-chested, winged-spear-carrying jailer, observes that they should be wandering the oceans rather than congregating here; he speculates that the deadeyes sense the coming trial. *If you can call it justice,* Adolin says, *to punish a man for what his ancestors did.* You are the one who suggested this course, Vaiu reminds him. The second guard, Alvettaren, says nothing as usual. Time for legal training, Vaiu says; the High Judge returns soon.

Inside the fortress, Veil hates the building's defiance of physical law. Stepping out of the small house she shares with Adolin, she sees the actual sky behind her and three other inhabited planes of stone above and to either side. Shallan will not come out — ever since Pattern's lying came to light she has been recluse, accompanied lately by something they have begun calling Formless. Veil lets Radiant take over to manage the geometry. They are on their way to the next-to-last interview on Mraize's short-list — the search for Restares, phantom leader of the Sons of Honor, a shorter human male with thinning hair likely hiding under an alias. Veil has worked through the other humans grandfathered into Lasting Integrity's year-old xenophobia ban — a caravan of traders from Nalthis (the same land that Azure came from, somewhere out beyond the edges of the map), several Horneaters, four wanderers — and Mraize has cleared them all. One name remains: a recluse who calls himself Sixteen because he emerges from his box of a home once every sixteen days exactly, never bathes, never eats. Today is the day.

Veil settles on a bench by the statue garden — sculptures of honorspren killed in the Recreance — and opens her sketchbook to coax Shallan out. Pattern arrives, eager. He admits he no longer believes the Nalthian traders can be Restares in disguise; Veil tells him to keep watching anyway. He is sad to be working apart from her. Shallan inside her hisses: he wants an excuse to keep spying. Radiant presses Pattern honestly — has he lied? Yes. Has he been using Mraize's cube to spy on them in secret? *I am sorry, Radiant. I couldn't think of another way.* Yes. Radiant is relieved at how easy that was. Shallan, deep inside, is seething.

Pattern tells them he tries to be worthy of trust — but he has brought someone for Shallan to meet. A figure in a stiff, dusty robe like his own and a head trapped in twisted shadow stands behind a statue: a Cryptic turned deadeye. Shallan emerges, slams Radiant into a dark closet, and refuses. *I want nothing from you, Pattern. You are a traitor and a liar.* He wilts onto the bench.

Then, off to the side, Sixteen emerges from his small box of a house, hunched in a cloak, hurrying through the statue park. *Excellent. It is time to fulfil Mraize's mission.* She moves to intercept him with a creeping precision picked up from Veil — sideways feet, heel to toe, into his blind spot, pretending to sketch when he glances around. She gets right up behind him, grabs his shoulder, and spins him. His hood falls. He is Shin — pale skin, childlike eyes — completely bald. Not the short Alethi with wispy hair that Mraize described. Not Restares (unless Mraize is wrong, or Restares is a Lightweaver). He shouts in a language she does not recognise and flees back to his house. Her heart pounding, she realises her hand was already in her satchel — reaching for a weapon. She did not need it. This was not him.

Pattern catches up, his perkiness somewhat restored. The other spren he wanted her to meet is gone. *Well! That was exciting. But this is not him, is it?* *No,* Shallan says. *It's not.* He starts to ask if he can explain. *No,* she cuts him off. *It is done. Let's move forward instead.* He pauses, sensing the change — *What has happened to you? Something has changed. Are you… Veil?* *No,* she says. *I'm me. And I've finally made a difficult decision that was a long time coming. Come on, we need to report to Mraize. His intel was wrong — Restares is not in this fortress.*