Celaena delivers fabricated evidence of Lord Nirall's death to the king, who assigns her to find and kill Archer Finn.

Celaena enters Elena's tomb during a lunar eclipse and meets Mort, a magical door knocker who warns her of a deadlier hidden power.

Celaena stages a chance encounter with Archer Finn at a Rifthold tea court and invites him to dinner the following night.

Archer sneaks Celaena into a ball where she searches the host's office and finds a book filled with Wyrdmarks and an encoded riddle.

The host Davis attacks Celaena with a poisoned dagger during her search; she kills him and barely makes it back to Chaol's room.

The king publicly executes singer Rena Goldsmith for defiantly performing a song about magic in the glass castle's Great Hall.

Celaena confesses to Nehemia that she has been faking her assassination targets' deaths, and the two begin studying Wyrdmarks together.

Celaena recreates a rooftop garden for Chaol's birthday dinner and confesses she has been disobeying the king's assassination orders.

Chaol disappears from the castle grounds, and Celaena finds a ransom note in his room directing her to an address by dawn.

Celaena fights through a warehouse full of rebels and rescues Chaol, learning that Archer led the rebel group alongside Nehemia.

Celaena races back to the castle and discovers Nehemia's brutally murdered body in her room.

Overcome with grief and rage, Celaena attacks Chaol in Nehemia's room before being knocked unconscious and placed in the castle dungeon.

Celaena hunts Nehemia's killer Grave across Rifthold, tortures him until he names his employer, kills him, and delivers his head to the king.

Celaena visits the carnival witch Baba Yellowlegs, learns about the Wyrdkeys and Wyrdgate, and kills her to protect Dorian's secrets.

The king agrees to send Celaena to Wendlyn; at the docks she reveals the Wyrdkey secrets to Chaol before sailing away.

Bound to serve as the King of Adarlan's assassin, Celaena secretly defies her orders by faking her targets' deaths while gathering intelligence about the king's true plans. Her investigation of Archer Finn draws her into a rebel movement and exposes dangerous Wyrdmark magic hidden within the castle. While her romance with Chaol briefly flourishes, the murder of her closest friend Nehemia sends Celaena into a spiral of grief and violence, driving her to hunt the killer across Rifthold and deliver his head to the king. Her discovery of the Wyrdkeys—powerful magical artifacts the king already possesses—raises the stakes of her defiance to world-threatening levels. A desperate plan sends her sailing to Wendlyn, where she leaves Chaol with just enough truth to begin understanding who she truly is.

Celaena's core mission as the king's assassin and the events that define her fate.

Celaena enters Lord Nirall's bedroom, chooses to fake his death rather than kill him, and takes a token to use as evidence.

Celaena and Chaol go on a morning run through the game park, and she thanks him for killing Cain to save her life.

Approaching the castle library at midnight, Celaena encounters a mysterious hooded figure that sniffs the air toward her before her amulet glows.

Celaena stands guard during a royal state dinner and afterward argues with Dorian in the hallway about their changed relationship.

Celaena visits the imprisoned Kaltain Rompier in the dungeon and asks about Lord Roland's trustworthiness, gaining few clear answers.

Celaena tells Archer the king sent her to kill him; he attacks with a dagger but she talks him down and offers a deal.

Dorian wakes from a nightmare to discover a perfect ring of frost on the couch where he had been sleeping.

Celaena and Chaol share an unplanned waltz alone in the castle garden during Prince Hollin's homecoming ball.

Dorian's fury over the proposed Calaculla labor camp expansion causes a nearby window to shatter, revealing the magic building inside him.

Nehemia confronts Celaena about refusing to help free Eyllwe's enslaved people and calls her a coward for prioritizing her own freedom.

Celaena stands at Nehemia's temporary grave and sings a mourning song in the Fae language while Chaol watches silently from a distance.

Chaol asks the head librarian about the foreign mourning song and learns only someone of Terrasen's royal bloodline would know it.

Celaena descends deep into the castle catacombs and discovers a chamber with obsidian walls matching the material of the king's black rings.

Celaena and Dorian trap the catacombs creature behind an iron door, and Celaena decapitates it before sealing the door with Wyrdmarks.

Celaena corners Archer in the castle sewer and kills him after he begs for mercy, telling him Nehemia was the truly good one.

While the main plot unfolds through Celaena's missions and losses, a parallel story plays out in quieter but equally significant moments. Celaena's relationships with Chaol, Dorian, and Nehemia deepen through shared dances, difficult arguments, and unspoken confessions, even as signs of forbidden magic resurface in unexpected places—frost rings, shattered windows, and glowing amulets warning of power the king has tried to eradicate. Visits to the imprisoned Kaltain and a librarian's offhand remark about Fae mourning songs each plant seeds of a revelation still to come. These secondary threads converge in the novel's final act, as Celaena and Dorian battle a creature in the castle catacombs and Celaena kills Archer in the sewer, resolving one betrayal before she sails toward an uncertain destiny.

The hidden moments and confrontations that shaped Celaena's world from the shadows.

Celaena pulls aside a library tapestry and discovers a secret door concealing a hidden stairwell descending deep beneath the castle.

Celaena reaches a locked iron door deep in the catacombs and glimpses a pair of glowing green eyes watching from the other side.

Celaena and Nehemia follow a constellation pattern on Elena's tomb floor to a carved face on the wall with a mysterious hollow eye.

After Celaena's birthday dinner confession, Chaol kisses her and they return to the castle together, beginning a carefully kept secret romance.

Dorian pays Baba Yellowlegs to answer whether a single person could somehow possess magic when magic has otherwise vanished from the world.

Celaena wakes in the dungeon cell next to Kaltain after attacking Chaol; Chaol comes to release her four days later.

Searching Nehemia's room after her death, Celaena finds a book containing the same riddle and realizes Nehemia knew Davis all along.

Back in Elena's tomb, Celaena discovers Damaris's eye-shaped pommel solves the first riddle, revealing a second riddle about the Wyrdkeys' locations.

Elena appears to Celaena on the stairwell after the tomb visit; for the first time since Nehemia's death, Celaena breaks down and weeps.

Celaena discovers the hidden Wyrdkey compartment in Elena's crown is empty, and Mort confirms the king took it when he was young.

Using Wyrdmarks written in her own blood, Celaena opens a portal to the Otherworld and speaks briefly with Nehemia's spirit.

In the Otherworld, Celaena shifts into her Fae form and drives the creature away from Chaol and Fleetfoot with bursts of blue fire.

Celaena reveals her Fae ancestry and the truth about the Wyrdmarks, Elena's tomb, and Archer's betrayal to Chaol and Dorian.

Celaena cuts her palm at Nehemia's grave and vows to stop the king, free Eyllwe, and restore Nehemia's father to his throne.

Chaol returns to Celaena's empty room, follows the clues she left behind, and realizes she is Aelin Galathynius, the Lost Queen of Terrasen.

Beneath the surface of Celaena's missions lies a chain of discoveries that rewrite everything she thinks she knows about magic, the king, and herself. Hidden staircases lead to locked doors with inhuman eyes behind them, constellation patterns in a tomb point toward world-altering power, and a witch's knowledge confirms the king wields artifacts capable of reshaping reality. A new romance with Chaol gives Celaena something to lose, while Nehemia's death and a conversation with her spirit in the Otherworld force Celaena to finally stop running from her destiny. Her transformation into Fae form marks the turning point where her true power is witnessed by others for the first time. By the time she sails from Rifthold, she has made a solemn vow to fight for others—and left behind just enough clues for Chaol to discover the identity she never said aloud.

The discoveries and decisions that forced Celaena to confront the truth of who she is.