Kaladin shadows singer scouts through Urithiru’s laundry corridors, hoping to seize a Voidlight spanreed for Navani after failing to reach the Oathgates. He conceals his glow, relies on Syl’s scouting, and narrowly avoids discovery by lashing a broom across a door, though the scrape triggers a flash of battlefield trauma he forces himself to overcome.

At a guarded corridor, Syl observes a red lightninglike spren leaving a visible trail, suggesting the tower is interfering with spren invisibility. To bypass the four alert guards, Kaladin has Syl mimic a Voidspren and angrily order them to investigate a glowing, Lashed rope. As they’re distracted, Kaladin slips past and discovers a large ventilation cleft leading toward a spanreed hub.

Peering from the shaft, he watches two femalen attendants manage dozens of reeds. When multiple important reeds activate and a guard requests a report about signs of a Radiant—threatening to draw the Pursuer—Kaladin acts fast. He lowers a brush tied to a rope and uses a Reverse Lashing to pull up a leather case containing roughly twenty paired spanreeds, then retreats without alerting the attendants.

Preparing to repeat the distraction to exit, Kaladin notices a blinking garnet and is addressed by a disembodied voice identifying itself as one of the tower’s protective nodes. It warns that an exposed node is being targeted and that the “Lady of Pains” is coming to seize its mind. Despite overwhelming fatigue, Kaladin commits to defend the node, asks Syl to help him find a better weapon, and heads for the indicated location.