A merchant, Vstim, and his apprentice, Rysin, a young woman, arrive in Shinovar to trade. The Shin delegation arrives and the trading begins. Vstim and his counterpart, Thresh, begin bargaining, but in an unusual way. Shin culture values humility highly, so each trader must undersell their wares. After a bargain is struck, the two men engage in conversation from which it becomes clear that Thresh is the one who gave Szeth’s Oathstone to Vstim seven years earlier. Vstim, in his turn, traded the Truthless to someone else.

Axies the Collector wakes up naked and with a terrible hangover in a back alley. He is Aimian, meaning he is able to change his body at will, so his first task is to reshape his nose to avoid unpleasant smells. He then banishes his hangover, which helps him recall that he is currently in Kasitor, an Iriali port city. Axies’s goal in getting inebriated was to observe the appearance of a rare spren that exists only in Iriali. His life’s work is to study and catalogue all the various types of spren on Roshar. Another reason for his visit to Kasitor is a huge water spren that jumps into the air once every day at the same time.