“Nonsense,” Nehemia said. “You’ll teach me. After . . . whatever it is you do with this one. For an hour every day before supper.”

Nehemia raised her chin in a way that suggested saying no wasn’t an option. Celaena swallowed, and did her best to look pleasant as she turned to Chaol, who observed them with raised brows. “She wishes me to tutor her every day before supper.”

“I’m afraid that’s not possible,” he said. She translated.

Nehemia gave him the withering glare that usually made people start sweating. “Why not?” She fell into Eyllwe. “She’s smarter than most of the people in this castle.”

Chaol, thankfully, caught the general gist of it. “I don’t think that—”

“Am I not Princess of Eyllwe?” Nehemia interrupted in the common tongue.

“Your Highness,” Chaol began, but Celaena silenced him with a wave of her hand. They were approaching the clock tower—black and menacing, as always. But kneeling before it was Cain. His head bent, he focused on something on the ground.

At the sound of their footsteps, Cain’s head shot up. He grinned broadly and stood. His hands were covered in dirt, but before Celaena could better observe him, or his strange behavior, he nodded to Chaol and stalked away behind the tower.

“Nasty brute,” Celaena breathed, still staring in the direction in which he’d disappeared.

“Who is he?” Nehemia asked in Eyllwe.

“A soldier in the king’s army,” Celaena said, “though he now serves Duke Perrington.”

Nehemia looked after Cain, and her dark eyes narrowed. “Something about him makes me want to beat in his face.”

Celaena laughed. “I’m glad I’m not the only one.”

Chaol said nothing as he began walking again. She and Nehemia took up behind him, and as they crossed the small patio in which the clock tower stood, Celaena looked at the spot where Cain had just been kneeling. He’d dug out the dirt packed into the hollows of the strange mark in the flagstone, making the mark clearer. “What do you think this is?” she asked the princess, pointing at the mark etched into the tile. And why had Cain been cleaning it?

“A Wyrdmark,” the princess replied, giving it a name in Celaena’s own language.

Celaena’s brows rose. It was just a triangle inside of a circle. “Can you read these marks?” she asked. A Wyrdmark . . . how strange!

“No,” Nehemia said quickly. “They’re a part of an ancient religion that died long ago.”

“What religion?” Celaena asked. “Look, there’s another.” She pointed at another mark a few feet away. It was a vertical line with an inverted peak stretching upward from its middle.

“You should leave it alone,” Nehemia said sharply, and Celaena blinked. “Such things were forgotten for a reason.”

“What are you talking about?” asked Chaol, and she explained the gist of their conversation. When she finished, he curled his lip, but said nothing.

They continued on, and Celaena saw another mark. It was a strange shape: a small diamond with two inverted points protruding from either side. The top and bottom peaks of the diamond were elongated into a straight line, and it seemed to be symmetrically perfect. Had the king had them carved when he built the clock tower, or did they predate it?

Nehemia was staring at her forehead, and Celaena asked, “Is there dirt on my face?”

“No,” Nehemia said a bit distantly, her brows knotting as she studied Celaena’s brow. The princess suddenly stared into Celaena’s eyes with a ferocity that made the assassin recoil slightly. “You know nothing about the Wyrdmarks?”

The clock tower chimed. “No,” Celaena said. “I don’t know anything about them.”

“You’re hiding something,” the princess said softly in Eyllwe, though it was not accusatory. “You are much more than you seem, Lillian.”

“I—well, I should hope I’m more than just some simpering courtier,” she said with as much bravado as she could muster. She grinned broadly, hoping Nehemia would stop looking so strange, and stop staring at her brow. “Can you teach me how to speak Eyllwe properly?”

“If you can teach me more of your ridiculous language,” said the princess, though some caution still lingered in her eyes. What had Nehemia seen that caused her to act that way?

“It’s a deal,” Celaena said with a weak smile. “Just don’t tell him. Captain Westfall leaves me alone in the midafternoon. The hour before supper is perfect.”

“Then I shall come tomorrow at five,” Nehemia said. The princess smiled and began to walk once more, a spark appearing in her black eyes. Celaena could only follow after her.

Chapter 24

Celaena lay on the bed, staring at a pool of moonlight on the floor. It filled in the dusty gaps between the stone tiles, and turned everything a bluish silver that made her feel as if she were frozen in an everlasting moment.

She didn’t fear the night, though she found little comfort in its dark hours. It was just the time when she slept, the time when she stalked and killed, the time when the stars emerged with glittering beauty and made her feel wonderfully small and insignificant.

Celaena frowned. It was only midnight, and even though they had another Test tomorrow, she couldn’t sleep. Her eyes were too heavy to read, she wouldn’t play the pianoforte for fear of another embarrassing encounter, and she most certainly wouldn’t amuse herself with fantasies of what the feast was like. She was still wearing her emerald-blue gown, too lazy to change.

She traced the moonlight to where it lapped upon the tapestry-covered wall. The tapestry was odd, old, and not very carefully preserved. Images of forest animals amongst drooping trees dotted the large expanse. A woman—the only human in the tapestry—stood near the floor.

She was life-size and remarkably beautiful. Though she had silver hair, her face was young, and her flowing white gown seemed to move in the moonlight; it—

Celaena sat up in bed. Did the tapestry sway slightly? She glanced at the window. It was firmly shut. The tapestry was barely blowing outward, not to the side.

Could it be?

Her skin tingled, and she lit a candle before approaching the wall. The tapestry stopped moving. She reached to the end of the fabric and pulled it up. There was only stone. But . . .

Celaena pushed back the heavy folds of the work and tucked it behind a chest to keep it aloft. A vertical groove ran down the face of the wall, different from the rest. And then another one, not three feet from it. They emerged from the floor, and just above Celaena’s head they met in a—

It is a door!

Celaena leaned her shoulder into the slab of stone. It gave a little, and her heart jumped. She pushed again, the candle flickering in her hand. The door groaned as it moved slightly. Grunting, she shoved, and finally it swung open.

A dark passage loomed before her.

A breeze blew into the black depths, pulling the strands of her hair past her face. A shiver ran down her spine. Why was the wind going inward? Especially when it had blown the tapestry out?

She looked back at the bed, which was littered with books she wasn’t going to read tonight. She took a step into the passage.

The light of the candle revealed that it was made of stone and thickly coated in dust. She stepped back into her room. If she were to go exploring, she’d need proper provisions. It was a pity she didn’t have a sword or a dagger. Celaena put her candle down. She also needed a torch—or at least some extra candlesticks. While she might be used to darkness, she wasn’t foolish enough to trust it.

Moving through her room, trembling with excitement, Celaena gathered two balls of yarn from Philippa’s sewing basket, along with three sticks of chalk and one of her makeshift knives. She tucked three extra candlesticks into the pockets of her cape, which she wrapped tightly around herself.

Again, she stood before the dark passage. It was terribly dark, and seemed to be beckoning to her. The breeze blew into the passage again.

Celaena pushed a chair into the doorway—it wouldn’t do to have it slam shut on her and leave her trapped forever. She tied a string to the back of the chair, knotting it five times, and held the ball in her spare hand. If she got lost, this would lead her back. She carefully folded the tapestry over the door, just in case someone came in.