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She was far less jumpy when she didn't have a particular reason to worry about hi to understand that there was a very co behind the face he had once known as Valette Renoux's He had fallen in love with her courtly side without ever knowing the nervous, furtive Mistborn side It was still a little difficult to see them as the same person

Vin closed the door, then paused briefly, watching hi Despite her oddities--or, more likely because of them--he loved this thin woman with the determined eyes and blunt temperament She was like no one he had ever known--a woman of simple, yet honest, beauty and wit

She did, however, so

"Have you seen anything strange tonight?"

Elend paused "Besides you?"

She frowned, striding across the room Elend watched her s shirt,behind her She wore the cloak's hood down, as usual, and she stepped with a supple grace--the unconscious elegance of a person burning pewter

Focus! he told hi?"

Vin glanced toward the balcony "That Mistborn, the Watcher, is in the city again"

"You're sure?"

Vin nodded "ButI don't think he's going to coht"

Elend frowned The balcony doors were still open, and trails ofthe floor until they finally evaporated Beyond those doors wasdarkness Chaos

It's justto fear "What makes you think the Mistborn won't coed "I just feel he won't"

She often answered that way Vin had grown up a creature of the streets, and she trusted her instincts Oddly, so did Elend He eyed her, reading the uncertainty in her posture Soht He looked into her eyes, holding thelanced away

"What?" he asked

"I sawso in the mist, like a person formed from smoke I could feel it, too, with Alloh"

Elend frownedhis ar yourself too hard You can't keep prowling the city at night and then staying up all day Even Allomancers need rest"

She nodded quietly In his arms, she didn't seem to him like the powerful warrior who had slain the Lord Ruler She felt like a woue, a woman overwhelmed by events--a woman who probably felt a lot like Elend did

She let hiht stiffness to her posture It was as if a piece of her still expected to be hurt--a primal sliver that couldn't understand that it was possible to be touched out of love rather than anger Then, however, she relaxed Elend was one of the few she could do that around When she held hi with a desperation that bordered on terror Somehow, despite her powerful skill as an Alloly vulnerable She seemed to need Elend For that, he felt lucky

Frustrated, at tie proposal and her refusal, though Elend often thought of the encounter

Woht, and I had to go and pick the oddest one of the lot Still, he couldn't really complain She loved hihed, then looked up at hi as he leaned down to kiss her He held it for a long hed After the kiss, she rested her head on his shoulder "We do have another probleht"

"Fighting the assassins?"

Vin nodded

"Well, we kneould happen eventually Our stockpile couldn't last forever"

"Stockpile?" Vin asked "Kelsier only left us six beads"

Elend sighed, then pulled her tight His new government was supposed to have inherited the Lord Ruler's atiu an ado it There was only one problem Nobody had ever found the reserve They had found some small bit--the atium that had made up the bracers that the Lord Ruler had used as a Feruchee However, they had spent those on supplies for the city, and they had actually contained only a very s like the cache was said to have There should still be, soer than those bracers

"We'll just have to deal with it," Elend said

"If a Mistborn attacks you, I won't be able to kill him"

"Only if he has atiu s have much of it"

Kelsier had destroyed the Pits of Hathsin, the only place where atiuht someone with atium

Don't think about that, he told hi Perhaps we can buy some Or maybe we'll find the Lord Ruler's cache If it even exists

Vin looked up at hi the concern in his eyes, and he knew she had arrived at the same conclusions as he There was little that could be accomplished at theas she had Still, as Vin stepped back and let Elend return to his table, he couldn't help thinking about how they could have spent that atium His people would need food for the winter

But, by selling the , ould have put erous Allomantic weapon into the hands of our enean to work again, Vin poked her head over his shoulder, obscuring his laht "What is it?" she asked

"The proposal blocking the Asseain?" she asked, cocking her head and squinting as she tried to