I consider myself to be a man of principle. But, what man does not? Even the cutthroat, I have noticed, considers his actions “moral” after a fashion.

Perhaps another person, reading of my life, would name me a religious tyrant. He could call me arrogant. What is to make that man’s opinion any less valid than my own?

I guess it all comes down to one fact: In the end, I’m the one with the armies.

Ash fell from the sky.

Vin watched the downy flakes drift through the air. Leisurely. Careless. Free. The puffs of soot fell like black snowflakes, descending upon the dark city of Luthadel. They drifted in corners, blowing in the breeze and curling in tiny whirlwinds over the cobblestones. They seemed so uncaring. What would that be like?

Vin sat quietly in one of the crew’s watch-holes—a hidden alcove built into the bricks on the side of the safehouse. From within it, a crewmember could watch the street for signs of danger. Vin wasn’t on duty—the watch-hole was simply one of the few places where she could find solitude.

And Vin liked solitude. When you’re alone, no one can betray you. Reen’s words. Her brother had taught her so many things, then had reinforced them by doing what he’d always promised he would—by betraying her himself. It’s the only way you’ll learn. Anyone will betray you, Vin. Anyone.

The ash continued to fall. Sometimes, Vin imagined she was like the ash, or the wind, or the mist itself. A thing without thought, capable of simply being, not thinking, caring, or hurting. Then she could be . . . free.

She heard a shuffling a short distance away, then the trap door at the back of the small chamber snapped open.

“Vin!” Ulef said, sticking his head into the room. “There you are! Camon’s been searching for you for a half hour.”

That’s kind of why I hid in the first place.

“You should get going,” Ulef said. “The job’s almost ready to begin.”

Ulef was a gangly boy. Nice, after his own fashion—naive, if one who had grown up in the underworld could ever really be called “naive.” Of course, that didn’t mean he wouldn’t betray her. Betrayal had nothing to do with friendship—it was a simple fact of survival. Life was harsh on the streets, and if a skaa thief wanted to keep from being caught and executed, he had to be practical.

And ruthlessness was the very most practical of emotions. Another of Reen’s sayings.

“Well?” Ulef asked. “You should go. Camon’s mad.”

When is he not? However, Vin nodded, scrambling out of the cramped—yet comforting—confines of the watch-hole. She brushed past Ulef and hopped out of the trap door, moving into a run-down pantry. The room was one of many at the back of the store that served as a front for the safehouse. The crew’s lair itself was hidden in a tunneled stone cavern beneath the building.

She left the building through a back door, Ulef trailing behind her. The job would happen a few blocks away, in a richer section of town. It was an intricate job—one of the most complex Vin had ever seen. Assuming Camon wasn’t caught, the payoff would be great indeed. If he was caught. . . . Well, scamming noblemen and obligators was a very dangerous profession—but it certainly beat working in the forges or the textile mills.

Vin exited the alleyway, moving out onto a dark, tenement-lined street in one of the city’s many skaa slums. Skaa too sick to work lay huddled in corners and gutters, soot drifting around them. Vin kept her head down and pulled up her cloak’s hood against the still-falling flakes.

Free. No, I’ll never be free. Reen made certain of that when he left.