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"Then how do you explain the strange numbers, my lord?" Demoux asked

"I'm not sure," Elend said "I'll admit that the number of people who fell sick does produce an odd statistic, but that doesn't say anything about you specifically, Demoux"

"I don'tdown "I mean the number who remained sick while the others recovered"

Elend paused "Wait What is this?"

"Haven't you heard, my lord?" De about it,1 and it's gotten around to the army I don't think that most of them understand the nue is happening"

"What nuot taken by the sickness, my lord," Demoux said

Exactly sixteen percent of the arht

"Of those, so, almost everyone recovered in one day"

"But some didn't," Elend said "Like you"

"Like me," Demoux said softly "Three hundred and twenty-seven of us reot better"

"So?" Elend asked

"That's exactly one-sixteenth of those who fell to the sickness, my lord," Demoux said "And we stayed sick exactly sixteen days To the hour"

The tent flap rustled quietly in the breeze Elend fell quiet, and couldn't completely suppress a shiver "Coincidence," he finally said "Statisticians looking for connections can always find odd coincidences and statistical anoh"

"This doesn't seem like a simple anomaly, my lord," De up, over and over Sixteen"

Elend shook his head "Even if it does, De It's just a number"

"It's the number of months the Survivor spent in the Pits of Hathsin," Demoux said

"Coincidence"

"It's how old Lady Vin hen she becaain, coincidence," Elend said

"There seem to be an awful lot of coincidences related to this,his ar us nowhere I need to knohat people are thinking, not just contradict theht, Des are coincidences You seem to have a theory of what they mean"

"It's what I said earlier, my lord," Demoux said "The mists are of the Survivor They take certain people and kill the the number sixteen as a proof that he really was behind the event So, therefore, the people who grow the most sick are the ones who have displeased him the most"

"Well, except for the ones who died from the sickness," Elend noted

"True," De up "Somaybe there's hope forcomment, Demoux I still don't accept all of this Perhaps there are oddities, but your interpretation is based on speculation Why would the Survivor be displeased with you? You're one of his most faithful priests"

"I took the position for myself, my lord," De what I'd seen, and people listened to me That must be what I did to offend him If he'd wanted that from me, he'd have chosen me when he was alive, don't you think?"

I don't think the Survivor cared ht He just wa1nted to stir up enough anger in the skaa that they would rebel

"Deanize this religion when he was alive Only s after he died--have been able to build up a community of the faithful"

"True," Demoux "But he did appear to some people after his death I wasn't one of those people"