With each beat of the drum, each trill of the flute and blare of the horn, she felt all of it along her skin, along her bones. The music broke her apart and put her back together, only to rend her asunder again and again.

And then the climax, the compilation of all the sounds she had loved best, amplified until 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.

“Celaena, 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?

“Close, 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 there by herself. “It must drive you mad, not being able to get it exactly the way you remember it.” He kept pace beside her. His midnight-blue tunic brought out the golden hues in his skin.

“I was just fooling around,” she said. “I can’t be the best at everything, you know. It wouldn’t be fair to the rest of you, would it?” Down the hall, someone had started a merry tune on the instruments in the gaming room.

Sam chewed on his lip. “Why didn’t you trail Doneval after the theater? Don’t you have only four days left?” She wasn’t surprised he knew; her missions weren’t usually that secret.

She paused, still itching to hear the music once more. “Some things are more important than death.”

Sam’s eyes flickered. “I know.”

She tried not to squirm as he refused to drop her stare. “Why are you helping Lysandra?” She didn’t know why she asked it.

Sam frowned. “She’s not all that bad, you know. When she’s away from other people, she’s … better. Don’t bite off my head for saying it, but even though you taunt her about it, she didn’t choose this path for herself—like us.” He shook his head. “She just wants your attention—and acknowledgment of her existence.”

She clenched her jaw. Of course he’d spent plenty of time alone with Lysandra. And of course he’d find her sympathetic. “I don’t particularly care what she wants. You still haven’t answered my question. Why are you helping her?”

He shrugged. “Because Arobynn told me to. And since I have no desire to have my face beaten to a pulp again, I’m not going to question him.”

“He—he hurt you that badly, too?”

Sam let out a low laugh, but didn’t reply until after a servant bustled past, carrying a tray full of wine bottles. They were probably better off talking in a room where they’d be less likely to be overheard, but the idea of being utterly alone with him made her pulse pound.

“I was unconscious for a day, and dozed on and off for three more after that,” Sam said.

Celaena hissed a violent curse.

“He sent you to the Red Desert,” Sam went on, his words soft and low. “But my punishment was having to watch him beat you that night.”

“Why?” Another question she didn’t mean to ask.

He closed the distance between them, standing near enough now that she could see the fine gold-thread detailing on his tunic. “After what we went through in Skull’s Bay, you should know the answer.”

She didn’t want to know the answer, now that she thought about it. “Are you going to make a Bid for Lysandra?”

Sam burst out laughing. “Bid? Celaena, I don’t have any money. And the money that I do have is going toward paying back Arobynn. Even if I wanted to—”

“Do you want to?”

He gave her a lazy grin. “Why do you want to know?”

“Because I’m curious whether Arobynn’s beating damaged your brain, that’s why.”

“Afraid she and I had a summer romance?” That insufferable grin was still there.

She could have raked her nails down his face. Instead, she picked another weapon. “I hope you did. I certainly enjoyed myself this summer.”