Personally, Vin didn’t find the library’s location nearly as amusing as its contents. Or, rather, lack thereof. Though the room was lined with shelves, nearly all of them showed signs of having been pillaged by Elend. The rows of books lay pocked by forlorn empty spots, their companions taken away one by one, as if Elend were a predator, slowly whittling down a herd.
Vin smiled. It probably wouldn’t be too long before Elend had stolen every book in the small library, carrying the tomes up to his study, then forgetfully placing them in one of his piles—ostensibly for return. Still, there were a large number of volumes left—ledgers, books of figures, and notebooks on finances; things that Elend usually found of little interest.
Dockson sat at the library’s desk now, writing in a ledger. He noticed her arrival, and glanced over with a smile, but then turned back to his notations—apparently not wanting to lose his place. Vin waited for him to finish, OreSeur at her side.
Of all the members of the crew, Dockson seemed to have changed the most during the last year. She remembered her first impressions of him, back in Camon’s lair. Dockson had been Kelsier’s right-hand man, and the more “realistic” of the pair. And yet, there had always been an edge of humor to Dockson—a sense that he enjoyed his role as the straight man. He hadn’t foiled Kelsier so much as complemented him.
Kelsier was dead. Where did that leave Dockson? He wore a nobleman’s suit, as he always had—and of all the crewmembers, the suits seemed to fit him the best. If he shaved off the half beard, he could pass for a nobleman—not a rich high courtier, but a lord in early middle age who had lived his entire life trading goods beneath a great house master.
He wrote in his ledgers, but he had always done that. He still played the role of the responsible one in the crew. So, what was different? He was the same person, did the same things. He just felt different. The laughter was gone; the quiet enjoyment of the eccentricity in those around him. Without Kelsier, Dockson had somehow changed from temperate to … boring.
And that was what made her suspicious.
This has to be done, she thought, smiling at Dockson as he set down his pen and waved her to take a seat.
Vin sat down, OreSeur padding over to stand beside her chair. Dockson eyed the dog, shaking his head slightly. “That’s such a remarkably well-trained beast, Vin,” he said. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen one quite like it. …”
Does he know? Vin wondered with alarm. Would one kandra be able to recognize another in a dog’s body? No, that couldn’t be. Otherwise OreSeur could find the impostor for her. So, she simply smiled again, patting OreSeur’s head. “There is a trainer in the market. He teaches wolfhounds to be protective—to stay with young children and keep them out of danger.”
Dockson nodded. “So, any purpose to this visit?”
Vin shrugged. “We never chat anymore, Dox.”
Dockson sat back in his chair. “This might not be the best time for chatting. I have to prepare the royal finances to be taken over by someone else, should the vote go against Elend.”
Would a kandra be able to do the ledgers? Vin wondered. Yes. They’d have known—they’d have been prepared.
“I’m sorry,” Vin said. “I don’t mean to bother you, but Elend has been so busy lately, and Sazed has his project. …”
“It’s all right,” Dockson said. “I can spare a few minutes. What’s on your mind?”
“Well, do you remember that conversation we had, back before the Collapse?”
Dockson frowned. “Which one?”
“You know. … The one about your childhood.”
“Oh,” Dockson said, nodding. “Yes, what about it?”
“Well, do you still think the same way?”
Dockson paused thoughtfully, fingers slowly tapping on the desktop. Vin waited, trying not to show her tension. The conversation in question had been between the two of them, and during it, Dockson had first spoken to her of how much he’d hated the nobility.
“I suppose I don’t,” Dockson said. “Not anymore. Kell always said that you gave the nobility too much credit, Vin. But you started to change even him there at the end. No, I don’t think that noble society needs to be completely destroyed. They aren’t all monsters as once presumed.”
Vin relaxed. He not only knew the conversation, he knew the details of the tangents they’d discussed. She had been the only one there with him. That had to mean that he wasn’t the kandra, right?
“This is about Elend, isn’t it?” Dockson asked.
Vin shrugged. “I suppose.”
“I know that you wish he and I could get along better, Vin. But, all things considered, I think we’re doing pretty well. He is a decent man; I can acknowledge that. He has some faults as a leader: he lacks boldness, lacks presence.”
Not like Kelsier.
“But,” Dockson continued, “I don’t want to see him lose his throne. He has treated the skaa fairly, for a nobleman.”
“He’s a good person, Dox,” Vin said quietly.
Dockson looked away. “I know that. But … well, every time I talk to him, I see Kelsier standing over his shoulder, shaking his head at me. Do you know how long Kell and I dreamed of toppling the Lord Ruler? The other crewmembers, they thought Kelsier’s plan was a newfound passion—something that came to him in the Pits. But it was older than that, Vin. Far older.
“We always hated the nobility, Kell and I. When we were youths, planning our first jobs, we wanted to be rich—but we also wanted to hurt them. Hurt them for taking from us things they had no right to. My love … Kelsier’s mother. … Every coin we stole, every nobleman we left dead in an alleyway—this was our way of waging war. Our way of punishing them.”
Vin sat quietly. It was these kinds of stories, these memories of a haunted past, that had always made her just a little uncomfortable with Kelsier—and with the person he had been training her to become. It was this sentiment that gave her pause, even when her instincts whispered that she should go and exact retribution on Straff and Cett with knives in the night.
Dockson held some of that same hardness. Kell and Dox weren’t evil men, but there was an edge of vengefulness to them. Oppression had changed them in ways that no amount of peace, reformation, or recompense could redeem.
Dockson shook his head. “And we put one of them on the throne. I can’t help but think that Kell would be angry with me for letting Elend rule, no matter how good a man he is.”
“Kelsier changed at the end,” Vin said quietly. “You said it yourself, Dox. Did you know that he saved Elend’s life?”
Dockson turned, frowning. “When?”
“On that last day,” Vin said. “During the fight with the Inquisitor. Kell protected Elend, who came looking for me.”
“Must have thought he was one of the prisoners.”
Vin shook her head. “He knew who Elend was, and knew that I loved him. In the end, Kelsier was willing to admit that a good man was worth protecting, no matter who his parents were.”
“I find that hard to accept, Vin.”
“Why?”
Dockson met her eyes. “Because if I accept that Elend bears no guilt for what his people did to mine, then I must admit to being a monster for the things that I did to them.”