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Kaladin follows Syl into a lower-ceilinged section of Urithiru — bookcases, puttering ardents with reflective bald heads, the scents of paper and leather — and through to the back counter of what he cannot remember the name of and so calls the scribes' supply depot. Syl strides through fully visible with her chin high. The woman behind the counter — bright red lipstick on a pale face, frown lines deep enough to count twice — sees Syl coming and pulls a heavy book out from beneath the counter. A disposable copy. Made with movable type out of Jah Keved, not handwritten, fit to take into the field. The book is The Way of Kings, a gift from Syl to her Radiant now that she has set herself up as his scribe. Kaladin is about to complain about weight, then catches her excitement and thanks her sincerely.

While they wait for the rest of the kit, Syl notices a passing woman in a long pleated skirt under a tailored military jacket; she goes wide-eyed and changes her own form to match. The librarian, asked, names the style: a new version of the ko-takama, an old Alethi female warrior garment from the savage period, originally with no uniform coat above and a higher waist. She suggests trousers or leggings beneath for a flying Windrunner. Syl follows this through to an entirely unnecessary place — solemnly explaining that she put a chull head where humans put a chull head, that she sometimes feeds it grass — until the librarian flees blushing for the back. Kaladin catches up and asks the obvious question; Syl tells him to think about how uncomfortable that would be. He asks whether she exists under the clothing at all, then immediately regrets giving her the opening. She offers to show him; he declines. She explains the underlying rule with one piece of real information: her clothing is part of her the way his hair is part of him, only she can control hers. Her shape, her face, her body are the form she keeps in Shadesmar and she always snaps back to it. She and her kind are as they were imagined — basically human, with certain enviable improvements, and possessing in body what humans do unless it is icky.

The librarian returns with the rest: paper, ink, a set of very thin and light pens that he has heard are made from chicken parts. Syl reaches for one — the heaviest thing he has seen her carry before today was one solitary leaf — and after a deliberate, slow lift gets the pen into her hand. She dips it, sets it on the paper, and crafts a single letter. The librarian dryly congratulates her on now displaying the skill of a four-year-old. Syl wilts.

Kaladin feels the jolt of it like a hot poker. He could make a scene; instead he leans on the counter and asks her what she is afraid of. He tells her about the bully he served under — short, one eye, hugely in debt — and wonders aloud whether she has the same shape of fear underneath. He gives her the benefit of the doubt — that there is a person inside her capable of hearing what he is about to say — and says it: that the attitude she puts on does not make her appear strong, it makes very clear that something is wrong with her. Who berates a person for bettering herself? Who sells books and stationery and then undercuts someone overcoming enormous physical limitations to use them? A single shamespren flutters white at her shoulder; she glances away, but gives the smallest nod. He tells her, more gently, to find someone — not him — to talk to. To grow. It is worth the effort.

He folds Syl's single careful letter, tucks it into his jacket pocket, and tells her he is keeping it because it is wonderful. She glows at him: now she can really be his scribe. So long as he carries her materials. They pack the kit and her book into the ruck, sling it over both shoulders, and head out. In the corridor he muses aloud that most book-quartermasters are presumably not as terrible as that. Syl stops dead. *Book-quartermaster?* The head librarian. Of the library. He admits the word, and she tells him he is absolutely adorable sometimes. He nods toward a hallway where natural light is coming down through a skylight, and the two of them, exhausted of corridors, go looking for the sky.