Crown of Midnight

He couldn’t begin to imagine how she’d look at him if she found out he might—might, he kept telling himself—have some trace of magic within him.

Nearby, the beautiful blond woman perched on a stool and began playing the lute. He knew that the men—and guards—starting to flock to her weren’t just there for the lovely music.

Chaol shifted on his feet, and Dorian realized that they’d been standing there silently, not saying anything. Celaena crossed her arms. “Did you find Nehemia last night?”

He had a feeling she already knew the answer, but he said, “No. I went back to my room after I saw you.”

Chaol looked at Celaena, who merely shrugged. What did that mean?

“So,” Celaena said, surveying the carnival, “do we really have to wait for your brother before we can see what’s inside all these cages? Looks like the performers are already starting.”

And they were. All sorts of jugglers and sword-swallowers and fire-breathers milled about, while tumblers balanced on impossible things: chair backs, poles, a bed of nails.

“I think this is just practice,” Dorian said, and he hoped he was right, because if Hollin learned that anyone had started without his approval … Dorian would make sure he was far away from the castle when that tantrum occurred.

“Hmm,” Celaena said, and walked deeper into the teeming carnival.

Chaol was watching the prince warily. There were questions in Chaol’s eyes—questions that Dorian had no intention of answering—so he strode after Celaena, because leaving the carnival would feel too much like drawing a line. They made their way to the last and largest wagon in the rough semicircle of tents and cages.

“Welcome! Welcome!” shouted an old woman, bent and gnarled with age, from a podium at the foot of its stairs. A crown of stars adorned her silver hair, and though her tanned face was saggy and speckled, there was a spark in her brown eyes.

“Look into my mirrors and see the future! Let me examine your palm so I might tell you myself!” The old woman pointed with a knotted cane at Celaena. “Care to have your fortune told, girl?” Dorian blinked—then blinked again at the sight of the woman’s teeth. They were razor-sharp, like a fish’s, and made of metal. Of—of iron.

Celaena pulled her green cloak tightly around her, but remained staring at the crone.

Dorian had heard the legends of the fallen Witch Kingdom, where bloodthirsty witches had overthrown the peaceful Crochan Dynasty and then ripped apart the kingdom stone by stone. Five hundred years later, songs were still sung of the deadly wars that had left the Iron-teeth Clans the only ones standing on a killing field, dead Crochan queens all around them. But the last Crochan queen had cast a spell to ensure that as long as Ironteeth banners flew, no bit of soil would yield life to them.

“Come into my wagon, dear heart,” the old woman crooned at Celaena, “and let old Baba Yellowlegs take a look into your future.” Sure enough, peeking out from beneath her brown robe were saffron-colored ankles.

Celaena’s face had drained of color, and Chaol went to her side and took her elbow. Despite the way the protective gesture made Dorian’s gut twist, he was glad Chaol had done it. But this was all just a sham—that woman had probably put on a fake set of iron teeth and sheer yellow stockings, and called herself Baba Yellowlegs to make carnival patrons hand over good coin.

“You’re a witch,” Celaena said, her voice strangled. She didn’t think it was a sham, apparently. No, her face was still white as death. Gods—was she actually scared?

Baba Yellowlegs laughed, a crow’s cackle, and bowed. “The lastborn witch in the Witch Kingdom.” To Dorian’s shock, Celaena took a step back, closer to Chaol now, a hand going to the necklace she always wore. “Care to have your fortune read now?”

“No,” Celaena said, almost leaning into Chaol.

“Then get out of my way and let me go about my business! I’ve never seen such a cheap crowd!” Baba Yellowlegs snarled, and lifted her head to look over them. “Fortunes! Fortunes!”

Chaol took a step toward her, a hand on his sword. “Don’t be so rude to your customers.”

The crone smiled, her teeth glinting in the afternoon light as she sniffed at him. “And what would a man who smells of the Silver Lake do to an innocent old witch like me?”

A chill went down Dorian’s spine, and it was Celaena’s turn to grab on to Chaol’s arm as she tried to pull him away. But Chaol refused to move. “I don’t know what sort of sham you’re running, old woman, but you’d best mind your tongue before you lose it.”

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.

She’d go back just once, and never tell Nehemia. Because the hole in the wall was shaped like an eye, its iris removed to form a space that would perfectly fit the amulet she wore around her neck.

Chapter 20

“Mort,” Celaena said, and the skull knocker opened an eye.

“It’s terribly rude to wake someone when they’re sleeping,” he said drowsily.

“Would you have preferred it if I had knocked on your face?” He glared at her. “I need to know something.” She held out the amulet. “This necklace—does it truly have power?”

“Of course it does.”

“But it’s thousands of years old.”

“So?” Mort yawned. “It’s magic. Magical things rarely age as normal objects do.”

“But what does it do?”

“It protects you, as Elena said. It guards you from harm, though you certainly seem to do your best to get into trouble.”