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crumbling around her. Celaena stared at the ceiling, suddenly homesick, strangely wishing Sam was with her. At least if she were to fail, she’d fail with him.
    â€œSo,” Celaena said suddenly, needing to get her mind off of everything—especially Sam. “You and Mikhail . . .”
    Ansel groaned. “It’s that obvious? Though I suppose we don’t really make that much of an effort to hide it. Well,
I
try, but he doesn’t. He
was
rather irritated when he found out I suddenly had a roommate.”
    â€œHow long have you been seeing him?”
    Ansel was silent for a long moment before answering. “Since I was fifteen.”
    Fifteen! Mikhail was in his mid-twenties, so even if this had started almost three years ago, he still would have been far older than Ansel. It made her a little queasy.
    â€œGirls in the Flatlands are married as early as fourteen,” Ansel said.
    Celaena choked. The idea of being anyone’s
wife
at fourteen, let alone a mother soon after . . . “Oh,” was all she managed to get out.
    When Celaena didn’t say anything else, Ansel drifted into sleep. With nothing else to distract her, Celaena eventually returned to thinking about Sam. Even weeks later, she had no idea how she’d somehow gotten attached to him, what he’d been shouting when Arobynn beat her, and why Arobynn had thought he’d need three seasoned assassins to restrain him that day.

Chapter Four
    Though Celaena didn’t want to admit it, Ansel was right. She did run farther the next day. And the day after that, and the one following that. But it still took her so long to get back that she didn’t have time to seek out the Master. Not that she could. He’d send for
her
. Like a lackey!
    She did manage to find
some
time late in the afternoon to attend drills with Ansel. The only guidance she received there was from a few older-looking assassins who positioned her hands and feet, tapped her stomach, and slapped her spine into the correct posture. Occasionally, Ilias would train alongside her, never
too
close, but close enough for her to know his presence was more than coincidental.
    Like the assassins in Adarlan, the Silent Assassins weren’t known for any skill in particular—save the uncannily quiet way they moved. Their weapons were mostly the same, though their bows and blades were slightly different in length and shape. But just watching them—it seemed that there was a good deal less . . .
viciousness
here.
    Arobynn encouraged cutthroat behavior. Even when they were children, he’d set her and Sam against each other, use their victories and failures against them. He’d made her see everyone but Arobynn and Ben as a potential enemy. As allies, yes, but also as foes to be closely watched. Weakness was never to be shown at any cost. Brutality was rewarded. And education and culture were equally important—words could be just as deadly as steel.
    But the Silent Assassins . . . Though they, too, might be killers, they looked to each other for learning. Embraced collective wisdom. Older warriors smiled as they taught the acolytes; seasoned assassins swapped techniques. And while they were all competitors, it appeared that an invisible link bound them together. Something had brought them to this place at the ends of the earth. More than a few, she discovered, were actually mute from birth. But all of them seemed full of secrets. As if the fortress and what it offered somehow held the answers they sought. As if they could find whatever they were looking for in the silence.
    Still, even as they corrected her posture and showed her new ways to control her breathing, she tried her best not to snarl at them. She knew plenty—she wasn’t Adarlan’s Assassin for nothing. But she needed that letter of good behavior as proof of her training. These people might all be called upon by the Mute Master to give an opinion of her. Perhaps if she