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Shallan lies on the Narak floor and stares, jaw dropped, at the empty space where Mraize, Iyatil and Lieke just *transferred* to Shadesmar. So Iyatil (or one of them) is a corrupted Elsecaller or Willshaper — and her assumption that the Ghostbloods were *new* to their spren was wrong; this is rehearsed work. Darcira kneels by her, asking why she did not summon armour, and is told: the anti-Light is unknown territory, and Shallan could not afford the bolt touching the armour-spren. She has Darcira pull the bolt — the agony is brief, the colder *wrongness* of anti-Light in her veins fades slowly. Painspren in the wrong colour crawl up around her until she can finally draw Stormlight back in safely. The power moves quickly: she does not explode, which is nice, and she breathes out less Light than usual — an elevated oath, she notes to herself, makes her less *porous*. The strange foreign leathers she is wearing — some animal from another planet — have taken more of the bolt's force than hogshide should have, which makes Darcira curious and Shallan briefly aware that she is in the carcass of a creature from another world.

Jayn and the other Lightweavers arrive from the trophy room with her satchel; the Windrunner support team explains that Erinor heard the chasms underneath through the stone, they were exploring the hidden back-exit when the signal came, and the Ghostbloods charged into them rather than checking. *I took it intentionally*, Shallan says of her wound, half-believing it, and Pattern declares from her satchel that he is very glad she did not die without him — he should like to be there when she does. She walks to the patch of floor where the three vanished and looks. Her powers' strange tilt toward Shadesmar has always been a puzzle to her, since the first attempt in Kharbranth — only, now she sees, that hadn't been the first time. She draws on Stormlight and peeks across without pulling herself fully through. There they are: Mraize, Iyatil and Lieke on a mandra-pulled boat, heading toward Urithiru across the bead sea. The cell here is broken; the plot is not. She has *two* spren — that is why she can do this without trying; instead of her pulling them across, they pull *her*. She blinks the vision away and decides she will not face them alone.

Outside the Urithiru war-room, Lift sits on a table beside the five-year-old Gav — Elhokar's small son, current heir to Alethkar, who looks even younger than he is and has seen too much. They have been told to stay out of the meeting; in compensation she is teaching him how to build an exploding chamber pot. She eats pork ribs and ogles Sigzil as he walks past giving orders to subordinates — confident, not too tall, intelligent, possibly fond of poetry. Wyndle forms beside her in vines and a mustachioed gemstone-eyed face he thinks is dignified, and chides her use of the storming-ardent's vulgarity. She makes Gav forget the word. Gav doesn't talk much; today he opens a little: *do you think Grampa and Gram want me? Are they sad they have to take care of me?* She doesn't hug him — he flinches when non-family touch him — but nudges his side and tells him *they love you; big folk is always busy and forgets we are people too*. Gav notes solemnly that she sneaks into places she is told not to and that this is *wrong*. She tries to explain to him that the world is full of things people say you should not do that are actually fine, and full of things you really, really should not, and nobody tells you which is which.

She calls up the tower — invisible to other humans, a dancing column of light between disc-spren in floor and ceiling — and demands news of her missing chicken, the red, talking one taken from her when she was in *that guy with the scar*'s cage. The Sibling reports no such chicken anywhere in her halls. Drehy flies in for a report; Lift leans for a better view and informs Wyndle that the man's husband is hot too. Gav asks Wyndle whether spren have families, and gets a small kind aside about gardening shoes; then volunteers, very quietly, that *his* mother gave him to Voidbringers to be tormented and killed and is dead now, that his father was killed trying to rescue him, slain by the *traitor Vyre*. Lift nudges him, and they lock their two crooked fingers in their secret handshake — the secret being that secret handshakes are stupid but you use them anyway, mostly to give a scared friend a place to belong.

Gav starts saying he will learn the Shardblade and find everyone who hurt his father and burn out their eyes, then chop them up. He looks at her, ashamed. *Yeah, all right*, she says. *I'll hold them for you.* Revenge will not be as fun as he hopes, and one day he will have to let it go — but today he is five and needs a friend, not another adult telling him to be grown-up. The tower meanwhile informs her that her own body hosts millions of tiny living things that eat dead skin and defecate on her. Wyndle has heard of these — *germs, Heralds' wisdom*. Lift is appropriately disgusted and concedes to the Sibling that no, no one should listen to anything she or Gav say, because they are kids. Then she offers Wyndle the secret handshake too, and means it; he forms a hand from vines, trembling, and is honoured.

At last Wit, Dalinar and Navani stride out of the meeting room with Aladar and Sebarial looking shaken behind them, all heading straight for the lifts. Gav hopefully asks his Grampa about swords; Dalinar tells him there is something more he has to do. Gav wilts and a long grey gloomspren streamer pools at him. Navani tells him to come ride in the lift with them. He hops down and rushes over. The nursemaid follows, having been treating Lift as adequate childcare. *Gram, what's "shit" mean?* Gav asks on the way out. Lift winces. Maybe teaching the crown prince of Alethkar to cuss was not her smartest move. *I'm feelin' kinda grown-up today*, she announces to Wyndle on the now-empty table. *On account of good manners and a full stomach.* And then, when he asks the inevitable question: *Storming right* she is going to follow them anyway.