Brandon Sanderson - Edgedancer 

Read those crowds … Lift thought. The people. Where are the people being strange?

She scrambled through the crossroads, intuiting the way. Something about how people stood, where they looked. There was a ripple here. The waves of a passing fish, silent but not still.

She turned a corner, and caught a brief glimpse of Darkness striding up a set of stairs beside a row of small trees. He stepped into a building, then shut the door.

Lift crept up beside the building Darkness had entered, her face brushing the leaves of the trees, causing them to pull in. They were lazy, but not so stupid that they wouldn’t move if touched.

“What are these ‘eyes’ you say he has?” she asked as Wyndle wound up beside her. “The ones I can’t see.”

“He will have a spren,” Wyndle said. “Like me. It’s likely invisible to you and anyone else but him. Most are, on this side, I think. I don’t remember all the rules.”

“You sure are dumb some of the time, Voidbringer.”

He sighed.

“Don’t worry,” Lift said. “I’m dumb most of the time.” She scratched her head. The steps ended at a door. Did she dare open it and slip in? If she was going to learn anything about Darkness and what he was doing in the city, she’d have to do more than find out where he lived.

“Mistress,” Wyndle said, “I might be stupid, but I can say with certainty that you’re not a match for that creature. There are many Words you haven’t spoken.”

“Course I haven’t said those kinds of words,” Lift said. “Don’t you ever listen to me? I’m a sweet, innocent little girl. I ain’t going to talk about bollocks and jiggers and stuff. I’m not crass. ”

Wyndle sighed. “Not those kinds of words. Mistress, I—”

“Oh, hush,” Lift said, squatting beside the trees lining the front of the building. “We have to get in there and see what he’s up to.”

“Mistress, please don’t get yourself killed. It would be traumatic. Why, I think it would take me months and months to get over it!”

“That’s faster than I’d get over it.” She scratched at her head. She couldn’t hang on the side of the building and listen at Darkness, like she had at the guard captain’s place. Not in a fancy part of town, and not in the middle of the day.

Besides, she had loftier goals today than just eavesdropping. She had to actually break into this place to do what she needed to do here. But how? It wasn’t like these buildings had back doors. They were cut directly into the rock. She could maybe get in one of the front windows, but that sure would be suspicious.

She glanced at the passing crowds. People in cities, they’d notice something like an urchin breaking in through a window. Something that looked like trouble. But other times they’d ignore the most obvious things in front of their own noses.

Maybe … She did have awesomeness left from that fruit she’d eaten. She eyed a shuttered window about five or six feet up. That would be on the first story of the building, but it was up somewhat high, because everything was built up a ways in this city.

Lift hunkered down and let some of her awesomeness out. The little tree beside her stretched and popped softly. Leaves budded, unfurled, and gave a good morning yawn. Branches reached toward the sky. Lift took her time, filling in the tree’s canopy, letting it get large enough to obscure the window. Around her feet, seeds from storm-blown rockbuds puffed up like little hot buns. Vines wrapped around her ankles.

Nobody passing on the street noticed. They’d cuff an urchin for scratching her butt in a suspicious manner, but couldn’t be bothered with a miracle. Lift sighed, smiling. The tree would cover her as she broke in through that window, if she moved carefully. She let her awesomeness continue to trickle out, comforting the tree, making it even more lazy. Lifespren popped up, little glowing green motes that bobbed around her.

She waited for a lull in the passing crowds, then hopped up and grabbed a branch, hauling herself into the tree. The tree, drinking of her awesomeness, didn’t pull its leaves back in. She felt safe here surrounded by the branches, which smelled rich and heady, like the spices used for broth. Vines wrapped around the tree branches, sprouting leaves, much as Wyndle did.

Unfortunately, her power was almost out. A couple pieces of fruit didn’t provide much. She pressed her ear against the window’s thick stormshutters, and didn’t hear anything from the room beyond. Safe in the tree, she softly rattled the stormshutters with her palms, using the sound to pick out where the latch was.

See. I can listen.

But of course, this wasn’t the right kind of listening.

The window was latched with some kind of long bar on the other side, probably fitted into slots across the back of the shutters. Fortunately, these stormshutters weren’t as tight as those in other towns; they probably didn’t need to be, down here safe in the trenches. She let the vines wind around the branches, drinking of her Stormlight, then twist around her arms and squeeze through cracks in the shutters. The vines stretched up the inside of the shutters, pressing up the bar that held the shutters closed, and …

And she was in. She used the last of her awesomeness to coat the hinges of the shutters, so they slid against one another without a hint of a sound. She slipped into a boxlike stone room, lifespren pouring in behind her, dancing in the air like glowing whispermill seeds.

“Mistress!” Wyndle said, growing in onto the wall. “Oh, mistress. That was delightful ! Why don’t we forget this entire mess with the Skybreakers, and go … why … why, go run a farm ! Yes, a farm. A lovely farm. You could sculpt plants every day, and eat until you were ready to burst! And … Mistress?”

Lift padded through the room, noting a rack of swords by the wall, sheathed and deadly. Sparring leathers on the floor near the corner. The smell of oil and sweat. There was no door in the doorway, and she peeked out into a dark hallway, listening.

There was a three-way intersection here. Hallways lined with rooms led to her left and right, and then a longer hallway led straight forward, into darkness. Voices echoed from that direction.

That hallway in front of her cut deeper into the stone, away from windows—and from exits. She glanced right instead, toward the building’s entrance. An old man sat in a chair there, near the door, wearing a white and black uniform of the type she’d only seen on Darkness and his men. He was mostly bald, except for a few wisps of hair, and had beady eyes and a pinched face—like a shriveled-up fruit that was trying to pass for human.

He stood up and checked a little window in the door, watching the crowd outside with suspicion. Lift took the opportunity to scuttle into the hallway to her left, where she ducked into the next room over.

This looked more promising. Though it was dim with the stormshutters closed, it seemed like some kind of workroom or den. Lift eased open the shutters for a little light, then did a quick search. Nothing obvious on the shelves full of maps. Nothing on the writing table but some books and a rack of spanreeds. There was a trunk by the wall, but it was locked. She was beginning to despair when she smelled something.

She peeked out of the doorway. That guard had wandered off; she could hear him whistling somewhere, alongside the sound of a stream of liquid in a chamber pot.

Lift slipped farther down the corridor to her left, away from the guard. The next room in line was a bedroom with a door that was cracked open. She slipped in and found a stiff coat hanging on a peg right inside—one with a circular fruit stain on the front. Darkness’s jacket for sure.