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they echoed into eternity. As the final note swelled, a gasp broke from her, setting the tears in her eyes spilling down her face. She didn’t care who saw.
    Then, silence.
    The silence was the worst thing she’d ever heard. The silence brought back everything around her. Applause erupted, and she was on her feet, crying still as she clapped until her hands ached.
    â€œCelaena, I didn’t know you had a shred of human emotion in you,” Lysandra leaned in to whisper. “And I didn’t think the performance was
that
good.”
    Sam gripped the back of Lysandra’s chair. “Shut up, Lysandra.”
    Arobynn clicked his tongue in warning, but Celaena remained clapping, even as Sam’s defense sent a faint trickle of pleasure through her. The ovation continued for a while, with the dancers emerging from the curtain again and again to bow and be showered with flowers. Celaena clapped through it all, even as her tears dried, even as the crowd began shuffling out.
    When she remembered to glance at Doneval, his box was empty.
    Arobynn, Sam, and Lysandra left their box, too, long before she was ready to end her applause. But after she finished clapping, Celaena remained, staring toward the curtained stage, watching the orchestra begin to pack up their instruments.
    She was the last person to leave the theater.
    There was another party at the Keep that night—a party for Lysandra and her madam and whatever artists and philosophers and writers Arobynn favored at that moment. Mercifully, it was confined to one of the drawing rooms, but laughter and music still filled the entirety of the second floor. On the carriage ride home, Arobynn had asked Celaena to join them, but the last thing she wanted to see was Lysandra being fawned over by Arobynn, Sam, and everyone else. So she told him that she was tired and needed to sleep.
    She wasn’t tired in the least, though. Emotionally drained, perhaps, but it was only ten thirty, and the thought of taking off her gown and climbing into bed made her feel rather pathetic. She was Adarlan’s Assassin; she’d freed slaves and stolen Asterion horses and won the respect of the Mute Master. Surely she could do something better than go to bed early.
    So she slipped into one of the music rooms, where it was quiet enough that she could only hear a burst of laughter every now and then. The other assassins were either at the party or off on some mission or other. Her rustling dress was the only sound as she folded back the cover of the pianoforte. She’d learned to play when she was ten—under Arobynn’s orders that she find at least
one
refined skill other than ending lives—and had fallen in love immediately. Though she no longer took lessons, she played whenever she could spare a few minutes.
    The music from the theater still echoed in her mind. Again and again, the same cluster of notes and harmonies. She could feel them humming under the surface of her skin, beating in time with her heart. What she wouldn’t give to hear the music once more!
    She played a few notes with one hand, frowned, adjusted her fingers, and tried again, clinging to the music in her mind. Slowly, the familiar melody began to sound right.
    But it was only a few notes, and it was the pianoforte, not an orchestra; she pounded the keys harder, working out the riffs. It was
almost
there, but not quite right. She couldn’t remember the notes as perfectly as they sounded in her head. She didn’t feel them the way she’d felt them only an hour ago.
    She tried again for a few minutes, but eventually slammed the lid shut and stalked from the room. She found Sam lounging against a wall in the hallway. Had he been listening to her fumble with the pianoforte this whole time?
    â€œClose, but not quite the same, is it?” he said. She gave him a withering look and started toward her bedroom, even though she had no desire to spend the rest of the night sitting in