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

She shook her head, wondering where they would even eat their food. The desk wasn’t an option, and the table before the fireplace was a miniature library on its own. As if in answer, Dorian began clearing the table. “Sorry,” he said sheepishly. “I meant to clear a space to eat before you got here, but I got wrapped up in reading.”

She nodded, and silence fell between them, interrupted only by the thud and hiss of him moving books.

“So,” Dorian said quietly, “can I ask why you decided to join me for dinner? You’ve made it pretty clear that you didn’t want to spend any time with me—and I thought you had work to do tonight.”

Actually, she’d been downright awful to him. But he kept his back to her, as though the question didn’t matter.

And she didn’t quite know why the words came out, but she spoke the truth anyway. “Because I have nowhere else to go.”

Sitting in her rooms in silence made the pain worse, going to the tomb only frustrated her, and the thought of Chaol still hurt so badly she couldn’t breathe. Every morning, she walked Fleetfoot by herself, then ran alone in the game park. Even the girls who had once lined the garden pathways, waiting for Chaol, had stopped showing up.

Dorian nodded, looking at her with kindness she couldn’t stand. “Then you will always have a place here.”



While their dinner was quiet, it wasn’t lachrymose. But Dorian could still see the change in her—the hesitation and consideration behind her words, the moments when she thought he wasn’t looking and an endless sorrow filled her eyes. She kept talking to him, though, and answered all his questions.

Because I have nowhere else to go.

It wasn’t an insult, not the way she’d said it. And now that she was dozing on his couch, the clock having recently chimed two, he wondered what was keeping her from going back to her own rooms. Clearly, she didn’t want to be alone—and maybe she needed to be in a place that didn’t remind her of Nehemia.

Her body was a patchwork of scars; he’d seen it with his own eyes. But these new scars might go deeper: the pain of losing Nehemia, and the different, but perhaps just as agonizing, loss of Chaol.

An awful part of him was glad she’d cut out Chaol. He hated himself for it.



“There has to be something more here,” Celaena said to Mort as she combed through the tomb the following afternoon.

Yesterday, she’d read the riddle until her eyes ached. Still it offered no hint about what the objects might be, where precisely they were concealed, or why the riddle had been hidden so elaborately in the tomb. “Some sort of clue. Something that connects the riddle to the rebel movement and Nehemia and Elena and all the rest.” She paused between the two sarcophagi. Sunlight spilled in, setting the dust motes shimmering. “It’s staring me in the face, I know it.”

“I’m afraid I can’t be of service,” Mort sniffed. “If you want an instant answer, you should find yourself a seer or an oracle.”

Celaena slowed her pacing. “You think if I read this to someone with the gift of clairvoyance, they might be able to … see some different meaning that I’m missing?”

“Perhaps. Though as far as I know, when magic vanished, those with the gift of Sight lost it, too.”

“Yes, but you’re still here.”

“So?”

Celaena looked at the stone ceiling as if she could see through it, all the way to the ground above. “So perhaps other ancient beings might retain some of their gifts, too.”

“Whatever it is you’re thinking, I guarantee it’s a bad idea.”

Celaena gave him a grim smile. “I’m pretty sure you’re right.”





Chapter 40


Celaena stood before the caravans, watching as the tents were taken apart. Fortunate timing.

She ran a hand through her unbound hair and straightened her brown tunic. Finery would have attracted too much attention. And even if it was just for an hour, she couldn’t help but savor the feeling of anonymity, of blending in with the carnival workers, these people who had the dust of a hundred kingdoms on their clothes. To have that sort of freedom, to see the world bit by bit, to travel each and every road … Her chest tightened.

People streamed by, hardly glancing at her as she made her way to the black wagon. This could easily be folly, but what harm was there in asking? If Yellowlegs truly was a witch, then perhaps she had the gift of Sight. Perhaps she could make sense of the riddle in the tomb.

When Celaena reached the wagon, it was mercifully devoid of patrons. Baba Yellowlegs sat on the top stair, smoking a long bone pipe whose bowl was shaped like a screaming mouth. Pleasant.

“Come to look into the mirrors?” she said, smoke spilling from her withered lips. “Done running from fate at last?”

“I have some questions for you.”

The witch sniffed her, and Celaena fought the urge to step back. “You do indeed stink of questions—and the Staghorn Mountains. From Terrasen, are you? What’s your name?”

Celaena stuck her hands deep in her pockets. “Lillian Gordaina.”

The witch spat on the ground. “What’s your real name, Lillian?” Celaena stiffened. Yellowlegs crowed with laughter. “Come,” she cawed, “want to have your fortune told? I can tell you who you’ll marry, how many children you’ll have, when you’ll die …”