Crown of Midnight

Mort calls Celaena “Witch Slayer” when she returns to the tomb. He warns her that Baba Yellowlegs’s clans will come asking questions about her disappearance. Celaena takes the stairs to her room, but halfway up, she changes her mind and returns to the tomb to get Damaris.

Desperate to reconcile, Chaol goes looking for Celaena. She is not in her room, but when he’s there, he notices a book on her desk covered in strange markings. He pulls a piece of paper out of a stack of books. It’s Celaena’s will, written two days before Nehemia’s death, and she has left everything she owns to Chaol. Celaena tells him it’s too much trouble for her to change it, startling him with her sudden appearance. She stares at him briefly before telling him to get out. He leaves but stops in a hallway closet, unable to stop his sobs.

After Chaol leaves, Celaena stands over the pianoforte in the gaming room and thinks about how the rest of the world has moved on despite Nehemia’s death. She can’t stop thinking about Nehemia’s violent death and the last words she said to Celaena.

An hour later, Celaena stands in the library facing the stairwell to the castle’s catacombs. She uses a spell book she found previously to help her open the locked iron door. She writes several Wyrdmarks on the door in chalk while whispering the spell. The door unlocks, and she walks through with Damaris in hand. She descends a small staircase and sees a hall with 99 iron doors, which looks much like a dungeon. On the opposite side is another door, which she unlocks. She continues through six doors, each leading to a passage with a small set of stairs and fewer doors. All but the first passage cuts sharply to the right, creating a downward spiral.

Celaena passes through the sixth passage, and a voice in her head tells her to run. She ignores the voice, opens the seventh door, and sees a ruined hallway with only three doors. Something has smashed one cell door from the inside, but she sees nothing in it but bones, chains, and gouges in the walls and door. She moves into the eighth passage and sees an open door leading to a steep, rising set of spiral stairs. She climbs them and enters a high-ceilinged chamber. She realizes the king’s, Perrington’s, and Roland’s rings are the same material as the obsidian walls. A loud boom shakes the room, and she realizes she’s in the castle’s clock tower, where she defeated Cain in Throne of Glass.

Dorian sees Celaena enter the library, so he follows her and finds the hidden staircase. He waits 10 minutes and then heads into the catacombs. His magic urges him to run for help, but he moves forward, knowing he has to get Celaena out.

Celaena runs down the tower stairs, remembering Elena’s words in Throne of Glass to stay away from this place. At the bottom, she sees all the torches she lit are out, and she knows she’s not alone. The passageway is entirely dark except for the glow of the Eye of Elena. She hears breathing and then a hiss in her ear, so she turns, striking out with Damaris. She hits a creature across the chest; it screams and falls to the floor, hitting Celaena in the face as it does. Celaena recognizes the creature as the same cloaked figure she’s seen before. She sprints toward the library, her amulet lighting the way. The creature catches up and grabs her, but she manages to hit it with Damaris again. It looks at her with pure hatred, and she sees that it has human characteristics. She asks what it is, but it claws at itself and tears at its hair. Celaena realizes that it must know Wyrdmarks and that no mortal barrier can contain it.

Dorian hears an inhuman scream and runs while calling for Celaena. She tells him to run as she races toward him. She slams one of the iron doors shut, but as she continues running toward Dorian, the creature bursts through it. When Dorian and Celaena reach the final iron door that separates the catacombs from the library, they hold it shut as the creature tries to break through. Celaena knows she has to seal the door. She sees the edge of the door begin to grow red hot, and when she looks at Dorian, she realizes he has magic. He is growing weak and pale under the strain, still unable to control his power. The creature gains a grip on the door, so Dorian grabs Damaris and hits the creature on the wrist. The door slams shut, and Celaena says they need a way to seal the door that the creature can’t undo. She sends him up to the library to find the book of spells. After he brings it, Celaena finds a spell and makes the Wyrdmarks on the door with her blood. They let go of the door, and the creature forces it open. As it tries to pass the threshold, it freezes. Celaena decapitates it and then releases the spell, causing the body to fall. She hacks at it with Damaris before kicking it all inside the door and closing it.

Dorian takes Celaena to his room, where she recounts what happened beneath the library. She doesn’t tell him that she believes the king made the creature because it had a human heart; she also privately thinks the king made the clock tower and the black rings, using the Wyrdkey. Celaena asks Dorian about his magic, and he explains that it began a few weeks ago and has grown stronger. He needs to find a way to learn to control it and has yet to find a reason why he has it. He shows her one of his family’s genealogy books; she notices another clue about the king’s plans but says nothing.

After leaving Dorian’s tower, Celaena goes to the castle dungeon to speak with Kaltain. She remembers Kaltain saying the king tricked her and was using her. When Dorian showed her the genealogy book, Celaena noticed that the Rompier line had a lot of magic. She also noted that the line ended two generations ago, yet Kaltain proved the line was intact. Celaena finds Kaltain’s cell empty, and the guard says Perrington took her, along with Roland, to Morath to get married. She realizes that Kaltain and Roland have both been suffering from headaches. Celaena also remembers the creature’s eyes, which looked relieved when she killed it. She wonders who the creature was and what the king did to it.

The next night, Celaena checks the door in the library and finds it still sealed. She knows she must continue solving the riddle and find the Wyrdkeys.