Crown of Midnight (Throne of Glass #2) by Sarah J. Maas

Baba Yellowlegs licked her razor-sharp teeth. “Come and get it,” she purred.

Challenge flashed in Chaol’s eyes, but Celaena was still so pale that Dorian took her by the arm, leading her away. “Let’s go,” he said, and the old woman shifted her eyes to him. If she could indeed tell things about them, then the last place he wanted to be was here. “Chaol, let’s go.”

The witch was grinning at him as she used a long, metallic nail to pick out something from her teeth. “Hide from fate all you like,” Baba Yellowlegs said as they turned away. “But it shall soon find you!”



“You’re shaking.”

“No, I’m not,” Celaena hissed, batting Chaol’s hand from her arm. It was bad enough that Dorian was there, but for Chaol to witness her coming face-to-face with Baba Yellowlegs …

She knew the stories—legends that had given her brutal nightmares as a child, a firsthand account that a former friend had once told her. Given how that friend had foully betrayed and nearly killed her, Celaena had hoped that the horrific stories about the Ironteeth witches were just more lies. But seeing that woman …

Celaena swallowed hard. Seeing that woman, feeling the sense of otherness that radiated from her, Celaena had no trouble believing that these witches were capable of consuming a human child until nothing but clean-picked bones remained.

Frozen down to her core now, she followed Dorian as he strode away from the carnival. While she’d been standing in front of that wagon, all she’d wanted, for some reason, was to get inside it. Like there was something waiting for her within. And that crown of stars the witch had been wearing … And then her amulet had started feeling heavy and warm, the way it had the night she’d seen that person in the hall.

If she ever came back to the carnival, she would bring Nehemia with her, just to see if Yellowlegs was indeed what she claimed to be. She didn’t give a damn about what was in the cages. Not anymore, not with Yellowlegs to hold her interest. She followed Dorian and Chaol without hearing a single word they said until they had somehow arrived at the royal stables, and Dorian was leading them inside.

“I was going to give it to you on your birthday,” he said to Chaol, “but why wait another two days?”

Dorian stopped before a stall. Chaol exclaimed, “Are you out of your mind?”

Dorian grinned—an expression she hadn’t seen in so long that it made her remember late nights spent tangled up with him, the warmth of his breath on her skin. “What? You deserve it.”

A night-black Asterion stallion stood within the pen, staring at them with ancient, dark eyes.

Chaol was backing away, hands raised. “This is a gift for a prince, not—”

Dorian clicked his tongue. “Nonsense. I’ll be offended if you don’t accept.”

“I can’t.” Chaol shifted pleading eyes to Celaena, but she shrugged.

“I had an Asterion mare once,” she admitted, and both of them blinked. Celaena went up to the stall and held out her fingers, letting the stallion sniff her. “Her name was Kasida.” She smiled at the memory, stroking the stallion’s velvet-soft nose. “It meant ‘Drinker of the Wind’ in the dialect of the Red Desert. She looked like a storm-tossed sea.”

“How did you get an Asterion mare? They’re worth even more than the stallions,” Dorian said. It was the first normal-sounding question he’d asked her in weeks.

She looked over her shoulder at them and flashed a fiendish grin. “I stole her from the Lord of Xandria.” Chaol’s eyes grew wide, and Dorian cocked his head. It was so comical that she started laughing. “I swear on the Wyrd it’s the truth. I’ll tell you the story some other time.” She backed away, nudging Chaol toward the pen. The horse huffed at his fingers, and beast and man looked at each other.

Dorian was still watching her with narrowed brows, but when she caught him staring, he turned to Chaol. “Is it too early to ask what you’ll be doing for your birthday?”

Celaena crossed her arms. “We have plans,” she said before Chaol could reply. She didn’t mean to sound so sharp, but—well, she’d been planning the night for a few weeks now.

Chaol looked at her over a shoulder. “We do?”

Celaena gave him a venomously sweet smile. “Oh, yes. It might not be an Asterion stallion, but …”

Dorian’s eyes flashed. “Well, I hope you have fun,” he interrupted.

Chaol quickly looked back at the horse as Celaena and Dorian faced each other. Whatever familiar expressions he’d once worn were now gone. And part of her—the part that had spent so many nights looking forward to seeing that handsome face—truly mourned it. Looking at him became difficult.

She left them in the stables with a brief good night, congratulating Chaol on his new gift. She didn’t dare turn in the direction of the carnival, where the sound of the crowd suggested that Hollin had made his appearance and unveiled the cages. Instead, she sprinted up the stairs to the warmth of her rooms, trying to shut out the image of the witch’s iron teeth, and the way she’d called after them with those words about fate, so similar to what Mort had said on the night of the eclipse …

Perhaps it was intuition, or perhaps it was because she was a miserable person who couldn’t even trust the advice of a friend, but she wanted to go back to the tomb. Alone. Maybe Nehemia was wrong about the amulet being irrelevant. And she was tired of waiting for her friend to find the time to research the eye riddle.