Shadows of Self (2015) is a fantasy novel by Brandon Sanderson. It takes place on the fictional world of Scadrial in Sanderson’s larger Cosmere universe. It is the second book in the Wax and Wayne Mistborn series, which is a follow-up series to the original Mistborn trilogy. It is set a few hundred years after the events of the original trilogy. The novel follows Waxillium Ladrian and his friends as they try to stop a rogue kandra’s plan to build unrest in the city to free the people from their God, using violence and social unrest to do so. Sanderson’s The Stormlight Archive is also set in the Cosmere universe. Beyond fantasy, Sanderson has written graphic novels and in the young adult genre and is one of the most successful contemporary fantasy writers.

This guide uses the 2015 Tor edition of the novel.

Content Warning: The novel engages in stereotypes and harmful depictions of underserved communities and neighborhoods, including the use of the word “slums,” which this guide refers to and quotes. The novel also engages, by way of an allegorical allusion, in stereotypes and problematic depictions of people of diverse racial backgrounds and marriages of diverse racial backgrounds. The novel portrays classism, misogyny, sexism, and death by suicide, which are all discussed in this guide.

Plot Summary

Waxillium Ladrian, a Roughs law enforcement officer who returned to the city of Elendel to care for his House, has been back in Elendel for about two years, working to restore his House while solving some mysteries for the city constabulary. His partner, Wayne, has remained in the city with him, and his betrothed’s half sister, Marasi, who helped him with a case in The Alloy of Law, is now a constable.

Wax has spent his years in the city not only rebuilding his House and its holdings, but also searching for clues about his Uncle Edwarn, or Suit, whom Wax discovered in The Alloy of Law is still alive and working with a group called the Set to consolidate power and make mysterious changes in Elendel. Wax searches for Suit so he can stop his plans and arrest him. Wax identified a criminal named Marks from a book he stole from Suit, and Wax, Wayne, and Steris search for Marks in the Breakouts, or the “slums,” when they hear of him fleeing a crime scene. In the process of taking Marks in, however, the man is killed by some of Suit’s men.

Bigger problems are brewing, however. Constable-General Aradel asks for Wax’s help with a particularly confusing and sensitive case, the murder of the governor’s brother, in a way that reveals his connections to corrupt individuals in the city. The murder is confusing to the detectives because of how fast the murderer must have moved, leading Wax to believe the person must have the Feruchemical power of speed. He finds the woman with information from his grandmother, a Terriswoman elder, but the presumed murderer is already dead. Wax realizes the manner of death was Hemalurgy; someone else killed the woman to take her Feruchemical power.

When Wax uses his metal earring to pray, Harmony, or God, speaks to him directly for the first time. Harmony cannot stop the murderer, because she is a kandra who has removed her second spike, which would allow Harmony to control her if needed. Harmony needs Wax’s help to stop the kandra, called Paalm or Bleeder. He sends a loyal kandra, MeLaan, to help. Wax at first believes Paalm means to kill the governor, particularly because of the people she sent to do so, but he quickly realizes she has a wider plan to sow unrest in the city.

Wax, Wayne, Marasi, and MeLaan work together to figure out how to stop the rogue kandra. Wayne, Marasi, and MeLaan protect the governor, while Wax follows leads to determine Paalm’s plan and find her. He finds the cab driver whom Paalm used to flee Wax when he discovered her at a party, and the man reveals he saw her mid-transformation, leaving him in shock and traumatized. Paalm left behind items, including some dust that MeLaan identifies as coming from the kandra Homeland; Wax later learns Paalm left the items behind on purpose, to lure Wax to the Homeland and keep him occupied while she accomplished the rest of her plan. Throughout the investigation, Wax realizes that for some reason, Paalm is obsessed with him. At times she talks to him, taunting him and pushing him to think about how Harmony “controlled” his own life. She is angry with Harmony, and she reveals she plans to free the entire city from Harmony’s control.

When Wax goes to the kandra Homeland to find Paalm, Paalm sends animalistic, once-dead humans that she revived using Hemalurgy, in a way that even Harmony does not understand, to attack Wax and TenSoon, a kandra who was sent to guide Wax in the Homeland. They defeat several of the creatures and realize they were only a distraction; they flee the remaining creatures through what used to be the Pits of Hathsin, where the lost metal, atium, was grown; and Wax rushes to the governor’s mansion.

The governor is seemingly fine when Wax arrives, but Wayne is nowhere to be found. As Wax considers the entire investigation, half-listening to the governor practice what sounds like an inflammatory speech for the public, Wax puts the pieces together. He realizes Paalm is disguised as the governor, Innate, and has been for some time, which is why she had the correct passphrase to give Wax. This means Innate is dead, and everything “Innate” did recently was actually Paalm. Wax chases Paalm from the mansion, leaving Marasi, Wax, and MeLaan to handle the increasing unrest among the crowd outside.

Marasi asks MeLaan to use Innate’s bones, which Paalm abandoned in her flight, to give a speech that Marasi will write to calm the people outside. As MeLaan gives the speech, Marasi realizes someone is using Allomancy to manipulate the emotions of the crowd. She recognizes that Suit and the Set were using Paalm’s plans to their advantage and working with her to some extent; they are prepared to soothe and flare the crowd’s emotions to create a mob that will burn the city down. They must be stopped before they recognize the speech is deviating from the plan, so Marasi and another constable take some of their people to fight those protecting the Allomancers manipulating the crowd. When they capture the Allomancers, Marasi offers the Soother immunity if she will Soothe the crowd as Aradel arrests “Innate” for corruption to alleviate the people’s anger.

Wax, meanwhile, chases Paalm to the edges of the city, with a special bullet he requested chambered in his gun. When he catches up to her, Paalm continues her rants against Harmony and takes on the body of Lessie, Wax’s wife and partner in the Roughs, who died two years ago when a man who took her hostage pulled her in front of the bullet Wax meant for him. Wax is confused by how real she seems, how much she sounds like the Lessie he knew, but he does not fully understand what it means. He shoots her with the prepared bullet; most bullets do not affect her, but she quickly realizes this one was made to act as a “spike” once embedded in her body. It acts as a second spike, allowing Harmony to take control of her and stop her from doing any more harm.

Paalm claims she would rather be dead than in Harmony’s control, so she uses the method the kandra devised to die by suicide. As she is dying, she speaks as if she is Lessie, claiming she loved Wax from the beginning. When TenSoon arrives, Wax demands the truth. TenSoon admits Harmony sent Paalm to Wax in the Roughs as a bodyguard. He did not know Paalm would believe herself in love with Wax and that she would essentially seduce Wax, but when Harmony needed Wax back in Elendel, he pushed Paalm to kill off “Lessie” so Wax would not stay in the Roughs. Wax grieves and says he killed Lessie again.

In the aftermath of Paalm’s thwarted plan, Aradel is elected interim governor. He and Marasi hope to use MeLaan, disguised as the dead governor Innate, as a witness for their case against Innate and his co-conspirators, but MeLaan reveals she and Harmony would never allow such an abuse of justice. She stages Innate’s death by suicide. She confronts MeLaan about the pain Wax is in because of Harmony, but MeLaan points out Harmony has difficult decisions to make. As both Ruin and Preservation, and in a world with free will for humans, he has to make decisions that will always hurt someone, so he chooses the people who can endure it. Wax, grieving even more than when he lost Lessie the first time, and having lost his faith, cries when Steris provides him with a quiet, caring presence.