Three hundred years after the events of the Mistborn trilogy, Scadrial is on the verge of modernity, with railroads, electric lighting, and the first steel-framed skyscrapers. Yet even as science and technology are reaching new heights, the old magics of Allomancy and Feruchemy continue to play a role in this reborn world. Waxillium Ladrian is a rare Twinborn who can use Allomancy and Feruchemy. After twenty years in the Roughs, Wax is forced by family tragedy to return to the metropolis of Elendel and assume the duties and dignity of the head of a noble house. Or so he thinks, until he learns the hard way that the mansions of the city can be even more dangerous than the dusty plains of the Roughs.