Crown of Midnight

The following night, Archer sneaks Celaena into the ball. Archer points out the ball’s host, Davis. Archer suspects Davis is a key leader in the rebel group because he overheard Davis and three of his friends talking. Archer takes Celaena to Davis’s office and returns to the ball. Celaena begins her search of the office and finds a book with a blood-red Wyrdmark on the spine. She opens the book and sees many more Wyrdmarks along with a riddle, which she commits to memory. Suddenly, she hears footsteps in the hall. She pretends to cry when Davis enters his office. As he approaches her to escort her out, he attacks her with a dagger. She pins him to the floor before Davis can do more than slice her forearm. He demands to know what she is looking for, but she begins to feel strange and realizes that he poisoned the blade. Seeing her weakness, Davis overtakes her and pins her to the ground. She manages to grab his dagger and slices him across the throat. She crawls out the window and sprints for the front gate, leaving Davis to die.

Celaena runs for the glass castle and takes a cloak from a sleeping drunk to hide her blood-soaked dress. She manages to run back to the castle and stumbles to a side entrance, which leads her into the castle barracks. She staggers through the hallways until she reaches Chaol’s room, where she collapses.

Seeing the blood covering Celaena’s dress, Chaol tears it away but finds that she has no significant injuries besides her cut arm. He carries her to her room. He heard Celaena say that the blade was poisoned, so he asks a castle healer to give her the antidote. He then holds her for hours as she vomits, and she eventually sleeps. Chaol learns of Davis’s death and pieces together what must have happened.

Celaena wakes up in her bed and sees Chaol sleeping in a chair. She wakes him, and he is angry at her for scaring him. He tells her that he and his men won’t tell the king what happened and that he burned her dress.

Celaena recovers from the poison and walks to the castle library. She wants to look for clues that might help her piece together what she saw in Davis’s office with the king’s plan and the creature she previously saw. Celaena begins by searching the perimeter of the library.

At the same time Celaena searches the library, Dorian wakes up from a nap, and his room is cold despite the closed windows. He was having a nightmare, likely due to Chaol telling him about Celaena’s fight with Davis. As he turns to change into a fresh tunic, Dorian sees a ring of frost where he had been lying on the couch, but when he looks again, it’s gone.

Celaena searches the library’s perimeter for three hours, finding nothing. Just as she is about to quit, she sees a tapestry. She pulls it aside to find a door, and when she opens it, she sees a spiral stairwell. The stairwell's walls are carved with battle scenes along with a groove used to light the area. She lights it and descends, eventually reaching a hallway lined with bookcases. She comes to another corridor and lights another torch, revealing a second stairwell. The carving here depicts a forest and Fae, which shows that the king doesn’t know this place exists, or he would have defaced the carvings years ago. She descends the second staircase and finds a solid iron door, making it immune to magic. She tries the handle, but it is locked. Her amulet warms and flickers. Celaena uses her dagger to look under the door and sees a pair of glowing green eyes. She stumbles backward, looks again, and sees nothing.

At dinner in the Great Hall, singer Rena Goldsmith will perform for Prince Hollis’s homecoming. Celaena sits next to Chaol and five of his men, and they chat as Rena takes the stage. The people in the hall are mesmerized as she sings and plays the harp. She dedicates one of her songs to the royal family; the song is about a Fae woman, and Celaena thinks this is a bold move on Rena’s part. However, the king doesn’t seem to notice. Celaena realizes that she is crying as she listens to the song. Chaol grabs her hand under the table, and their eyes meet.

Across the hall, Dorian sees Chaol and Celaena looking at each other and realizes that she never looked at him that way. He decides he must move on. He takes a breath and lets Celaena go.

Hours later, the king’s men drag Rena toward a blood-soaked block. The king tells her speaking of magic is a crime punishable by death. Rena tells the king she became famous so he would invite her to sing at the palace, so that she could show him that magic and people like her still exist. She lists the names of numerous people killed because of their magic as she dies.