Kaladin flies up through Urithiru toward Dalinar’s meeting room, still seeing damage from the recent battle and remembering the dark rage that followed Teft’s murder. Those memories unsettle him, but he pushes them aside. Syl is distracted by Navani’s nearby presence, and Kaladin, trying to conserve Stormlight for the coming journey, walks the rest of the way. Outside Dalinar’s door, he finds Wit sprawled on a couch, reading and waiting.

Because Dalinar’s meeting is taking a long time, Wit turns the delay into a lesson. After teasing Kaladin about the flute he once gave him, Wit gets Kaladin to ask for instruction and spends the next hour teaching him the basics of fingering, breath, and reading music. Kaladin manages a weak, halting first line of a song and feels proud of the small success. When Syl returns, the conversation turns to the old song of the Wandersail, and Wit explains that its rhythm is tied to Roshar itself. He says the wind was listening when he once played it, and that the Wind is an ancient power left on Roshar from before Honor, Cultivation, and Odium.

Kaladin tells Wit that the Wind warned him about a coming storm and asked for help. Wit takes that seriously, urging Kaladin to listen because the Wind still knows much, though it is weaker than it once was. From there, Wit broadens the discussion into art, arguing that art is not useful in a narrow practical sense but fundamental to what people are. His mood then darkens. Wit admits he senses that something is terribly wrong, fears the future, and says Dalinar will send Kaladin to Shinovar even though Ishar cannot help in the way Dalinar hopes. Even so, Wit insists Kaladin still must go, practice the flute until Roshar itself listens, and follow this path as the final stage of his journey.

Wit then speaks intensely about hope, rejecting the doctrine of the Passions because it falsely blames suffering people for not wanting salvation badly enough. He defines virtue as something worth keeping even when it brings no reward, and says hope matters precisely when it does not guarantee victory. After joking with Kaladin and Syl, Wit becomes serious again and tells Kaladin to help Ishar, not return to Dalinar’s battle, and learn to fight in another way. In a rare sincere farewell, Wit praises Kaladin for giving himself another chance at life and urges him to discover who he is without the spear. Dalinar finally opens the door, and Kaladin goes in to receive the final instructions before leaving for Shinovar.