Chapter 14
Cel goes to the library and whines about how scared she is because of the Ringwraith that was at the library last time she went. She even arms herself to go there, which I suppose is a fair reaction. She decides to do some research on the Wyrdmarks to see if they have anything to do with Evil King Papa's plans.
And since she'd only seen one hint of something being amiss in the castle. . .
Oh my god, you idiot. How plain does this mystery need to be for you to figure out that EKP is behind literally everything?
Also, apparently the library is the size of a castle itself. Because sizes are arbitrary, I guess. She looks around, trying to figure out why the Ringwraith was in the library, and she thinks about the architecture of the place. Also, it's almost empty because, if you recall, reading is out of fashion. Just a few librarians.
Nacho had mentioned at some point that there were rumors of a second library under the first one. Man, no one knows anything about this damn castle, do they? This kind of stuff would work if the castle's description had been better. If it was a sprawling, city-sized monstrosity, I could get behind forgotten places like that. But as it stands, all we know about the damn thing is that it has a glass shell. For all the purple prose description in these books, we still know very little about the structure and skeleton of any of this stuff. Just surface beauty.
....
That was unintentionally insightful in the quality of this book and it's plot.
Moving on, Cel starts investigating the library closely, going through the stacks and marking an X on one of the tables so she knows where she began.
Poor Giles
Also apparently this library is huge enough to be maze-like and to get lost in. That would have been nice to point out in THE LAST BOOK so this isn't completely out of left field.
She thinks about the day she found the Walking Dead.
Chaol had later revealed that he'd been dragging his dagger along the floor to spook her, but the initial vibration had been. . . different.Once again, that would have been nice to point out in THE LAST BOOK so this isn't completely out of left field. She tells herself she was just being silly, but still. If it's a retcon I'm going to lose my shit.
She reaches the part of the library where there is no more lighting and the book cases were older. She finds a torch by the last wall sconce.
It was small enough that it wouldn't burn the whole damn library down, but also too small to last long.Cel, you lack a fundamental understanding of how fire works.
Giles is going to be pissed.
We then briefly switch to Prince Fizzbitch, where he wakes up at the sound of a clock. His room is freezing, and apparently he finds it odd he fell asleep in the middle of the day (I guess he wasn't aiming to take a nap). The temperature starts warming up, and he remembers he had a nightmare. He thinks he sees frost on the couch where he was laying down.
Oh sweet Jesus if Fizzbitch has magic, I will lose my shit.
We switch back to Cel, who realizes she's been in the library for three hours. She's at the back wall of the library, and she sees a tapestry. It's the only decoration on the wall, so she immediately knows that it's something important. The thread is so red it's almost black, and I'm wondering how she can tell that in torch light.
She pulls the tapestry aside and finds another secret door.
Inside the door, the walls of a stairwell are carved and depict a battle. The walls are marble, and she finds a thin groove. She finds a lamp with oil in it, and she figures out that she's supposed to pour the oil into the groove (?! in the wall? how will it not splash down the sides?). She then lights the oil, and it illuminates the passageway.
I'm still trying to figure out how the oil isn't splashing down the wall and how there was enough in the lamp to go down the stairwell if it was small and how it doesn't burn down quickly. HOW DOES THIS EVEN WORK? MAGIC?
She gets to the bottom of the stairs and finds a dusty torch and knows no one's been there in sooooo long (or they just ignored the torch?) and I'm wondering how long oil lasts just chillin' in an ill-defined lamp. She then thinks maybe it was "that thing" and that it can see in the dark.
Silly Cel, Ringwraiths don't need light.
Anyway, she lights the torch and goes further. Guess what? She finds the hidden secret library. She realizes most of the stuff there is just castle records. She finds another staircase, and the walls are decorated with Fae. She wonders if Gavin, Elena's husband, picked this site to build the castle because of something that had been there already.
She randomly smells iron from the staircase, so she goes down it. The iron she smelled was a door.
Iron was the one element immune to magic; she remembered that much.
She then thinks more about the people with magic years earlier, and mentions that magic was believed to have been given to the people by the gods. There's different types of magic, healing, shape-shifting, elemental, precognition, that sort of thing.
[. . . ] but for some rare strong ones, when they held on to their power too long, the iron in their blood caused fainting spells. Or worse.
What does "held on to their power too long" mean? Does that mean using it too long like, say, someone running too long and fainting? Or someone holding up a heavy weight and then collapsing after awhile? Because that's a very weird way to word it but it's the ONLY way I can think where that sentence makes any sort of sense.
This is the only door in the castle that's made of iron, and she wonders if it's to keep someone out, or in.
Cel tries to open it, but it's locked. There is no keyhole. Her amulet starts to glow, so she goes to look through the gap between the door and the stone frame. Somehow she sees a shadow darker than the darkness.
She gets down on the floor with her dagger and slides the blade under the door to look at the reflect, a la Signs.
Did the aliens know that water hurt them? Because if they did, that was a dumbass decision on their part to invade a planet that's mostly water
She sees green-gold eyes (sorry, orbs) in the shadows and freaks out. She thinks they look like animal eyes. She tries to look again but sees nothing. She figures it was a rat and decides that's enough investigating for the day. Cel figures the door's seal has to do with Wyrdmarks, and that she'll save figuring out how to go in for another day.
Chapter 15
That night, Cel decides to go to the dinner for Hollin. Some performer is going to be there that she wanted to see. She sits at a table with lesser nobility. Nacho sits beside her. Ress, the dumbass, starts chatting and gossiping.
We also get told that Nacho's men respect him because he's SUCH A GOOD LEADER GUISE.
Nacho and Cel then banter. Thankfully they're interrupted by the performer named Rena walking onto a stage. The woman starts playing the harp, and is accompanied by a violinist. She sings as well. Everyone is completely spellbound. And because this woman is a total dumbass, she starts singing a song about a Fae woman using magic.
Though I guess the singing is magic because the king is like "WTF ever".
Perhaps her voice could conquer even a tyrant's heart. Perhaps there was an unstoppable magic inherent in music and art.I am a musician and singing is one of my favorite things to do. I can also play the piano and the ukulele, and I adore art. But what the fuck?
The song is so beautiful that Cel starts crying. Nacho grabs her hand so she smiles at him.
POV swich to Prince Fizzbitch. Hollin is bored, the singer is still singing, and Fizzbitch is watching Cel and Nacho stare at each other.
She had never lookeda t him like that. Not once. Not even for a heartbeat.
But she did make out with you a few times. There is that.
Prince Fizzbitch takes this like a motherfucking adult and is like "Okay, I guess I'll move on and let her be with who makes her happy and I deserve to be with someone who looks at me like that." Remember how Nacho was so angry that Archer existed that he wanted to slam his face into a wall?
When the hell did Fizzbitch turn out to be the staid, mature one and Nacho turn into the jealous dickhole? I AM IN BIZARRO WORLD.
POV switch to Evil King Papa. He's in the dungeon, and Rena is dragged forward to a bucher's block. They'd already chopped of the head of the violinist. I told you she was a total dumbass. Perrington and Rolaids are there too.
EKP is like "you are an idiot" and Rena replies that she worked her ass off to be a good enough performer to get an invitation into the castle. Just so she could sing the songs and tell EKP that the magic and Fae still exist, I guess.
I mean... that seems like a gigantic waste and a Batman Gambit, but far be it from me to judge someone who martyred herself uselessly instead of working in another capacity to simmer rebellion or anonymously remind the king that the existed or finding a way to be martyred in public.
Rena had a daughter that was burned by the King's orders, and several other family members. What a dumb revenge plot. Then she dies.
Could be worse I guess.
Chapter 16
Cel and Nehemiah are eating breakfast together. They immediately get into a tense discussion about Cel's assassinating.
Nehemiah is upset because she can't tell her parents that she's friends with the King's personal assassin, and she's pissed that Cel is in a position of power and is only obeying and not changing the status quo.
Like, I get where Nehemiah is coming from, and Cel isn't actually killing the King's enemies, but what did she expect from an assassin?
Cel is irritated that Nehemiah is calling her on not actively working against the king. Nehemiah threatens to end their friendship (which would be the wise choice anyway, considering Nehemiah's position), and Cel gets really upset. And because she can't keep a goddamn secret, she tells Nehemiah that she actually hasn't killed any of her targets.
The more people you tell that sort of secret, the more dangerous.
Cel then explains what she's been doing and her bargain with Archer. Then she randomly tells Nehemiah about Elena. She even takes her into the secret passageways and they meet Mort, the stupid talking door knocker.
Nehemiah can read the wyrdmarks in Elena's tomb. Cel just now realizes the stars set in the floor form consetellations. One of them was the symbol of Elena's home country, Terrasen. It points to an eye carved in the wall.
[the riddle about the eye] There was no way she was that lucky--it was surely no more than coincidence.
About as lucky a coincidence as the ones in Harry Potter. At least Harry Potter was a super engaging series with interesting characters.
She wonders how she had not noticed the hole in the eye before.
Of course, she can only see the eye from one specific spot in the tomb, otherwise it blends in to the wall. This is like Indiana Jones only shitty.
Cel peers into the hole in the eye but only sees a blank wall. Cel asks Mort, the door knocker, what the wall is and if makes any sense that it's there.
Mort plays a fucking stupid game of semantics about asking the right questions and I am completely done with this stupid freaking door knocker. THIS IS THE DUMBEST THING EVER ASDKFJA;SLKDJR;L
Please stop stealing from better source material
Cel asks Nehemiah to read the wyrdmarks instead of asking Mort. Nehemiah's all like "it's hard" and Cel is like "I don't care."
They leave. Cel assumes the eye isn't the solution to the riddle but I bet she's right the first time because this book couldn't keep a mystery interesting if the universe depended upon it. She tells Nehemiah about the riddle. Nehemiah brushes it off and says Archer might have had some wrong information about Davis.
Cel then wonders if it could be the amulet (The Eye of Elena or whatever it's called), and Nehemiah once again brushes it off as too easy a coincidence.
Philippa the servant interrupts the two of them and brings a letter from Archer to Cel. It's more information on people who worked with Davis. Nehemiah is suspicious of Archer but Cel brushes it off.
Oh god, Archer's going to be evil isn't he?
If Archer's evil I'm going to lose my shit.
None of these characters have any nuance or subtlety and I hate everything.
We end the chapter with a bit of sum up about her investigation into the names Archer gave her. It came to nothing. Nacho sent her a note that says she has to be on guard duty that night.
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