“Maybe a tad more than that.” He stretched out his legs. “Ah, if only you could come to the Yulemas ball with me. Be grateful you can’t attend.”

“Why can’t I attend? And what’s the Yulemas ball?”

He groaned. “Nothing all that special. Just a masked ball that happens to be on Yulemas. And I think you know exactly why you can’t come.”

“You and Chaol really delight in ruining any fun I might have, don’t you? I like attending parties.”

“When you’re my father’s Champion, you can attend all the balls you want.”

She made a face. He wanted to tell her then that if he could, he would have asked her to go with him; that he wanted to spend time with her, that he thought of her even when they were apart; but he knew she would have laughed.

The clock chimed midnight. “I should probably go,” he said, stretching his arms. “I have a day of council meetings to look forward to tomorrow, and I don’t think Duke Perrington will be pleased if I’m half-asleep for all of them.”

Celaena smirked. “Be sure to give the duke my warmest regards.” There was no way she’d forgotten how the duke had treated her that first day in Endovier. Dorian hadn’t forgotten it, either. And the thought of the duke treating her like that again made him burn with cold rage.

Without thinking, he leaned down and kissed her cheek. She stiffened as his mouth touched her skin, and though the kiss was brief, he breathed in the scent of her. Pulling away was surprisingly hard. “Rest well, Celaena,” he said.

“Good night, Dorian.” As he left, he wondered why she suddenly looked so sad, and why she’d pronounced his name not with tenderness, but with resignation.

•

Celaena stared at the moonlight as it streamed across the ceiling. A masked ball on Yulemas! Even if it was the most corrupt and ostentatious court in Erilea, it sounded dreadfully romantic. And of course, she wasn’t allowed to go. She let out a long sigh through her nose and tucked her hands beneath her head. Was that what Chaol had wanted to ask her before she vomited—a true invitation to the ball?

She shook her head. No. The last thing he’d ever do would be to invite her to a royal ball. Besides, both of them had more important things to worry about. Like whoever was killing the Champions. Perhaps she should have sent word to him about Cain’s strange behavior earlier that afternoon.

Celaena closed her eyes and smiled. She could think of no nicer Yulemas gift than for Cain to be found dead the next morning. Still, as the clock marked the passing hours, Celaena kept her vigil—waiting, wondering what truly lurked in the castle, and unable to stop thinking of those five hundred dead Eyllwe rebels, buried in some unmarked grave.

Chapter 35

The next evening, Chaol Westfall stood on the second floor of the castle, looking over the courtyard. Below him, two figures slowly wove through the hedges. Celaena’s white cloak made her easy to spot, and Dorian could always be noticed by the empty circle of space around him.

He should be down there, a foot behind, watching them, making sure she didn’t seize Dorian and use him to escape. Logic and years of experience screamed at him to be with them, even though six guards trailed them. She was deceitful, cunning, vicious.

But he couldn’t make his feet move.

With each day, he felt the barriers melting. He let them melt. Because of her genuine laugh, because he caught her one afternoon sleeping with her face in the middle of a book, because he knew that she would win.

She was a criminal—a prodigy at killing, a Queen of the Underworld—and yet . . . yet she was just a girl, sent at seventeen to Endovier.

It made him sick every time he thought about it. He’d been training with the guards at seventeen, but he’d still lived here, still had a roof over his head and good food and friends.

Dorian had been in the middle of courting Rosamund when he was that age, not caring about anything.

But she—at seventeen—had gone to a death camp. And survived.

He wasn’t sure if he could survive Endovier, let alone during the winter months. He’d never been whipped, never seen anyone die. He’d never been cold and starving.

Celaena laughed at something Dorian said. She’d survived Endovier, and yet could still laugh.

While it terrified him to see her down there, a hand’s breadth from Dorian’s unprotected throat, what terrified him even more was that he trusted her. And he didn’t know what that meant about himself.

•

Celaena walked between the hedges, and couldn’t help the smile that spread across her face. They walked closely, but not close enough to touch. Dorian had found her just moments after dinner and invited her for a walk. In fact, he’d showed up so quickly after the servants cleared away her food that she might have thought he’d been waiting outside.

Of course, it was due entirely to the cold that she longed to link arms with him and absorb his warmth. The white, fur-lined cloak did little to keep the frigid air from freezing all of her. She could only imagine how Nehemia would react to such temperatures. But after learning about the fate of those rebels, the princess was spending most of her time in her rooms, and had declined Celaena’s repeated offers to go for walks.

It had been over three weeks since her last encounter with Elena, and she hadn’t seen or heard her at all, despite the three Tests she’d had, the most exciting of which being an obstacle course, which she passed with only a few minor scratches and bruises. Unfortunately, Pelor hadn’t done so well, and had been sent home at long last. But he’d been lucky: three other competitors had died. All found in forgotten hallways; all mutilated beyond recognition. Even Celaena had taken to jumping at every strange sound.

There were only six of them left now: Cain, Grave, Nox, a soldier, and Renault, a vicious mercenary who’d stepped up to replace Verin as Cain’s right-hand man. Not surprisingly, Renault’s favorite new activity was taunting Celaena.

She shoved thoughts of the murders aside as they strode past a fountain and she caught Dorian giving her an admiring glance from the corner of his eye. Of course, she hadn’t been thinking of Dorian when she chose such a fine lavender gown to wear tonight, or when she made sure her hair was so carefully arranged, or that her white gloves were spotless.

“What to do now?” Dorian said. “We’ve walked twice around the garden.”

“Don’t you have princely duties to attend to?” Celaena winced as a gust of icy wind blew back her hood and froze her ears. When she recovered the hood, she found Dorian staring at her throat. “What?” she asked, pulling her cloak tightly around her.

“You always wear that necklace,” he said. “Is it another gift?” Though she wore gloves, he glanced at her hand—where the amethyst ring always sat—and the spark died from his eyes.

“No.” She covered the amulet with her hand. “I found it in my jewelry box and liked the look of it, you insufferably territorial man.”

“It’s very old looking. Been robbing the royal coffer, have you?” He winked, but she didn’t feel any warmth behind it.

“No,” she repeated sharply. Even though a necklace wouldn’t protect her from the murderer, and even though Elena had some agenda she was being cagey about, Celaena wouldn’t take it off. Its presence somehow comforted her in the long hours she sat up, watching her door.