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submerged.
    Celaena drank an entire bucket before she was even halfway back to the fortress, and by the time she reached the sandstone complex and its glorious shade, she’d consumed all of the second.
    At dinner, Ansel didn’t mention that it’d taken Celaena a long, long while to return. Celaena had had to wait in the shade of the palms until later in the afternoon to leave—and wound up walking the whole way back. She’d reached the fortress near dusk. A whole day spent “running.”
    â€œDon’t look so glum,” Ansel whispered, taking a forkful of those delightful spiced grains. She was wearing her armor again. “You know what happened my first day out there?”
    Some of the assassins seated at the long table gave knowing grins.
    Ansel swallowed and braced her arms on the table. Even the gauntlets of her armor were delicately engraved with a wolf motif. “My first run, I collapsed. Mile two. Completely unconscious. Ilias found me on his way back and carried me here. In his arms and everything.” Ilias’s eyes met with Celaena’s, and he smiled at her. “If I hadn’t been about to die, I would have been swooning,” Ansel finished and the others grinned, some of them laughing silently.
    Celaena blushed, suddenly too aware of Ilias’s attention, and took a sip from her cup of lemon water. As the meal wore on, her blush remained as Ilias continued flicking his eyes toward her.
    She tried not to preen too much. But then she remembered how miserably she’d performed today—how she hadn’t even gotten a chance to train—and the swagger died a bit.
    She kept an eye on the Master, who dined at the center of the room, safely ensconced within rows of his deadly assassins. He sat at a table of acolytes, whose eyes were so wide that Celaena could only assume his presence at their table was an unexpected surprise.
    She waited and waited for him to stand, and when he did, Celaena made her best attempt to look casual as she, too, stood and bid everyone goodnight. As she turned away, she noticed that Mikhail took Ansel’s hand and held it in the shadows beneath the table.
    The Master was just leaving the hall when she caught up to him. With everyone still eating, the torch-lit halls were empty. She took a loud step, unsure if he’d appreciate if she tried being mute, and how, exactly, to address him.
    The Master paused, his white clothes rustling around him. He offered her a little smile. Up close, she could certainly see his resemblance to his son. There was a pale line around one of his fingers—perhaps where a wedding ring had once been. Who was Ilias’s mother?
    Of course, it wasn’t at all the time for questions like that. Ansel had told her to try to impress him—to make him think she
wanted
to be here. Perhaps silence would work. But how to communicate what needed to be said? She gave him her best smile, even though her heart raced, and began making a series of motions, mostly just her best impression of running with the yoke, and a lot of shaking her head and frowning that she hoped he’d take to mean “I came here to train with
you
, not with the others.”
    The Master nodded, as if he already knew. Celaena swallowed, her mouth still tasting of those spices they used to season their meat. She gestured between the two of them several times, taking a step closer to indicate her wanting to work
only
with him. She might have been more aggressive with her motions, might have really let her temper and exhaustion get the better of her, but . . . that confounded letter!
    The Master shook his head.
    Celaena ground her teeth, and tried the gesturing between the two of them again.
    He shook his head once more, and bobbed his hands in the air, as if he were telling her to slow down—to wait. To wait for him to train her.
    She reflected the gesture, raising an eyebrow as if to say, “Wait for you?” He