Celaena visits Archer at his townhouse, still distracted by her dance with Chaol and by her difficult first lesson in Wyrdmarks with Nehemia. After ensuring Archer’s butler is not eavesdropping, Celaena demands more than a list of rebel names: she needs to know what the rebels are planning and how much they know about the king.

Archer asks for five more weeks, claiming Davis’s death has made the rebels cautious and silent, but Celaena says the king gave her only a month to kill Archer and she cannot keep delaying. When Archer suggests Dorian or Chaol might have useful information, Celaena reacts defensively. Archer implies that Celaena may not trust either man enough to tell them she is keeping Archer alive, and Celaena angrily gives Archer six days to provide real information.

In the king’s council chamber, Dorian attends a meeting about expanding Calaculla. Roland presents a plan to exploit a new iron deposit and use even more slaves, while the king, Perrington, Mullison, and the other councilors treat the proposal as practical policy. Disturbed by the number of slaves and remembering Nehemia’s warning and Celaena’s scars from Endovier, Dorian challenges the plan and votes against it, defying his father in front of the council.

After leaving the meeting in rage, Dorian retreats into a forgotten hallway and punches a stone wall. The stone cracks outward, a window explodes, and the debris avoids him in a perfect circle. Dorian realizes the destruction cannot be natural and that it suggests magic, even though magic is supposed to be gone; horrified, he becomes sick.

Later, Celaena spends a quiet evening in Chaol’s rooms, where their teasing turns tender when Chaol fetches her chocolate cake. Watching Chaol sleep, Celaena thinks about Nehemia’s dream of a better court built on honor and realizes such a world could exist with men like Chaol, but only if the king were gone. Celaena also acknowledges that she wants a life with Chaol, however impossible it seems.

On the way back to her rooms with the remaining cake, Celaena finds Dorian waiting in the hallway. Dorian says he was looking for Nehemia but now claims nothing is wrong. Celaena senses something strange and powerful in Dorian’s eyes for a moment before Dorian leaves, hiding the truth of what happened.