Shallan wakes in Sebarial’s manor to Pattern’s humming, finds food left by the staff, and notes that Vathah’s men have been quartered nearby. Searching her trunks, she discovers Tyn’s spanreed blinking and reviews surviving notes, realizing the contact is a relay in distant Tashikk. Determined to chase leads on Urithiru despite the danger, she prepares to answer.

With Pattern’s observation, Shallan identifies a coded authentication in the opening words of each exchange, narrowly avoiding exposing herself. Accepting that infiltration is necessary, she sketches a new identity and infuses Stormlight, producing a complete Lightweaving: a darkeyed, tan-skinned woman with black hair and a scar. She tests the illusion’s limits, noting a flaw at the nose and that maintaining it consumes Stormlight from her spheres.

The messenger resumes contact, pressing for a meeting that very night because Jasnah’s ward reportedly arrived. Writing as Tyn, Shallan claims she is unwell and will send her apprentice instead. After the intermediary negotiates, the Ghostbloods agree to meet at a tenement in Sebarial’s warcamp at Salas’s moonheight, leaving Shallan scant minutes to prepare.

Shallan dons Tyn’s practical clothing—trousers, shirt, a glove for her safehand, and a long white coat—then stocks infused spheres. To hide the nose flaw, she adds Bluth’s white hat to shade her face. Steeling herself with Jasnah’s lesson that authority is an illusion one can project, Shallan slips out the ground-floor window into the night to attend the clandestine meeting.