Vin recovers for two weeks at Clubs’s shop from the effects of burning pewter for an extended period when running to Holstep. The crew meets to discuss the plan, with Kelsier the only one who is intent on continuing. Breeze accuses him of being too egotistical to realize the plan has already failed. Spook interrupts the meeting with news that the Lord Ruler is holding a large public execution of skaa in Luthadel’s city square as punishment for the rebel’s attack on Holstep.

The crew finds a deserted rooftop that borders the square. The entire city assembles for the executions, including the nobility, who sit in a partitioned area near the executioner’s stage. Vin points out her father among the gathered obligators; Kelsier recognizes him as Tevidian, the lord prelan and leader of the Steel Ministry. The Lord Ruler arrives in a concealed black carriage and, despite Clubs’s Allomancy to protect the crew from the Lord Ruler’s emotional Allomancy, Vin still detects the depression that the Lord Ruler sends out to the crowd.

The prisoners are random skaa collected to send a message to the rebels. Kelsier makes a speech to his crew, emphasizing the brutality of the Lord Ruler as something they cannot give up on defeating.