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Shallan descends into the inverted-pyramid library of the Palanaeum — lit only by hundreds of emerald lamps the Devotary of Insight keeps tended, doubling as Kharbranth's royal treasury — to fetch books for Jasnah. The wardship is, by every external measure, working. Jasnah has begun trusting her to attend her at her bath. The hidden portfolio in her room now holds careful sketches of Jasnah's rarest Soulcaster uses tucked between innocent landscape studies. She must stay focused. She is having trouble.

Kabsal catches up with her at the writing desk between the stacks. He has brought a bowed metal plate, a small bow, and a shallow brass sand-bowl. He demonstrates cymatics for her — bow the plate, the loose sand jumps into a stable geometric figure at each pitch — and then shows her, with an air of a man delivering a small wonder, that the patterns at certain notes precisely match the city-plans of Kholinar, Vedenar, Thaylen City, and the lost city of Akinah. Proof, he argues quietly, of the Almighty's design — like the symmetry of glyphs, of the alphabet, of the Silver Kingdoms' names (Alethela, Valhav, Shin Kak Nish), of her own name. He takes her safehand briefly as he closes the demonstration. *Don't forget that, Shallan. No matter what she says.*

He hears the footsteps before she does and rises. Jasnah walks into the alcove behind them with a parshman at her shoulder and a basket of half a dozen heavy books in her hand. *Can that plate of yours reproduce a pattern corresponding to Urithiru, priest, or do you only have the standard four?* — *Urithiru is just a fable.* — *Odd. One would think your type used to believing in fables.* Kabsal flushes, gathers his things with as much dignity as he can, and goes. Shallan tells Jasnah she was exceptionally rude. Jasnah agrees pleasantly that she sometimes is — and adds, while sorting the books onto the desk: *He is not interested in you in any of the ways you think he is. He will eventually ask you to steal my Soulcaster. I have considerable experience with his type.*