Tower of Dawn (Throne of Glass #6) by Sarah J. Maas

Chaol was waiting atop the stairs when Yrene climbed back up. “No luck?”

Yrene tapped her foot on the ground. Perhaps she was paranoid, but …

“Let’s check the mess hall,” was all she said.

She caught the gleam in Chaol’s eyes. The worry—and warning.

They went down two levels until Yrene halted on her own landing.

Her door was shut—but there was something wedged beneath it. As if a passing foot had kicked it under. “What is that?”

Chaol drew his sword so fast she didn’t even see him move, every movement of his body, his blade, a dance. She bent and pulled the object out. Metal scraped on stone.

And there, dangling from its chain … Hafiza’s iron key.

Chaol studied the door, the stairs, as Yrene pulled the necklace over her head with shaking fingers. “She didn’t slide it there by accident,” he said.

And if she had thought to hide the key here … “She knew something was coming for her.”

“There was no sign of forced entry or attack upstairs,” he countered.

“She could have just been spooked, but … Hafiza does nothing without thought.”

Chaol put a hand on the small of her back, ushering her toward the stairs. “We need to notify the guard—start a search party.”

She was going to be ill. She was going to vomit right down the steps.

If she had brought this upon Hafiza—

Panic helped no one. Nothing.

She forced herself to take a breath. Another one. “We need to be quick. Can your back—”

“I can manage. It feels fine.”

Yrene assessed his stance, his balance. “Then hurry.”



Around and around, they flew down the steps of the Torre. Asking anyone who passed if they’d seen Hafiza. In her workroom, they all said.

As if she had simply vanished into nothing. Into shadow.

Chaol had seen enough, endured enough, to listen to his gut.

And his gut told him that something either had happened or was unfurling.

Yrene’s face was bone white with dread, that iron key bouncing against her chest with each of their steps. They reached the bottom of the Torre, and Yrene had the guard on alert in a matter of words, calmly explaining that the Healer on High was missing.

But search parties took too long to organize. Anything could happen in the span of minutes. Seconds.

In the busy hallway of the Torre’s main level, Yrene called out to a few healers about Hafiza’s location. No, she was not in the mess hall. No, she was not in the herb gardens. They had just been that way and had not seen her.

It was an enormous complex. “We’d cover more ground if we split up,” Yrene panted, scanning the hall.

“No. They might be expecting that. We stick together.”

Yrene scrubbed her hands over her face. “Widespread hysteria might make the—person act quicker. Rasher. We keep it quiet.” She lowered her hands. “Where do we start? She could be in the city, she could be d—”

“How many exits lead from the Torre into the streets?”

“Just the main gate, and a small side one for the deliveries. Both heavily guarded.”

They visited both within a span of minutes. Nothing. The guards were well trained and had kept a record of everyone who went in and out. Hafiza had not been seen. And no wagons had come in or left since early morning. Before Eretia had last seen her.

“She has to be somewhere on the premises,” Chaol said, surveying the tower looming above, the physicians’ complex. “Unless you can think of another way in or out. Perhaps something that might have been forgotten.”

Yrene went wholly still, her eyes bright as flame in the sinking twilight.

“The library,” she breathed, and launched into a sprint.

Swift—she was swift, and it was all he could do to keep up with her. To run. Holy gods, he was running, and—

“There are rumors of tunnels in the library,” Yrene panted, leading him down a familiar hallway. “Deep below. That connect outside. To where, we don’t know. Rumor claims they were sealed up, but—”

His heart thundered. “It would explain how they were able to come and go unnoticed.”

And if the old woman had been brought down there …

“How did they even get her to go? Without anyone noticing?”

He didn’t want to answer. The Valg could summon shadows if they wished. And hide within them. And those shadows could turn deadly in an instant.

Yrene slid to a stop in front of the main library desk, Nousha’s head snapping up. The marble was so smooth Yrene had to grapple at the edges of the desk to keep from falling.

“Have you seen Hafiza?” she blurted.

Nousha looked between them. Noted the sword he still had out.

“What is wrong.”

“Where are the tunnels?” Yrene demanded. “The ones they boarded up—where are they?”

Behind her, a storm-gray Baast Cat leaped up from its vigil by the hearth and sprinted into the library proper.

Nousha gazed at an ancient bell the size of a melon atop the desk. A hammer lay beside it.

Yrene slapped her hand on the hammer. “Don’t. It will alert them that—that we know.”

The woman’s brown skin seemed to go wan. “Head down to the bottom level. Walk straight to the wall. Cut left. Take that to the farthest wall—the very end. Where the stone is rough and unpolished. Cut right. You’ll see them.”