Three days after the clock tower is destroyed and the King of Adarlan is killed, Rowan embraces Aelin in a passionate kiss, using his magic to slam the door on Aedion, who had been just outside. Later, Manon’s grandmother tells her that she wants Manon to become Wingleader, leader of all the clans. She is moved to his room, a much more comfortable one, permanently, and ends up sharing a bed with Rowan from then on, even though he claims he was intending to get her a cot. They soon start building a relationship as friends and Aelin/Celaena even remarks that she 'had loathed him', because she felt that she was looking at a 'mirror image' of herself.

Aelin asks him how he recovered from the loss, and he says he hasn't and may never will, but that maybe they could recover together. These two, along with grandfather/grandson Murtaugh Allsbrook and Ren Allsbrook begin working together. Meanwhile, Chaol is struggling with where his loyalties lie and the fact that he doesn’t accept magic to be a thing.Floating in and out of consciousness and close to death, Manon is in Oakwald Forest with Abraxos anxiously watching over her. That was the other task lingering in the back of her mind: to find a way to keep the king from executing Chaol or Nehemia’s family. Celaena wanders the forest and admits to herself that she has been lost for ten years and I am fucking weeping. When Aelin faces the King of Adarlan, Aedion and Rowan battle the Wyrdhounds in the catacombs of the city and Aedion risks his life to protect an injured Rowan. Rowan and Fenrys may have a confusing or unclear relationship, but Rowan may show a little affection.

Sorscha expressed concern that she was unfit to be queen and might have to leave Dorian one day, but he loved her with all his heart.Or what­ever she’d thought sounded official and useful before she’d realized that she’d rather sprawl in the shadows. Maeve had then had Lyria and her unborn baby killed while he was away in an effort to 'break' him and mold him into a member of her cadre. Asterin wants to let the Yellowlegs and Bluebloods know about the danger, but Manon tells her they can only “tug so much at the leash.

Aelin wants more, and ends up using a ring, a ring that once belonged to Athril, a man who Maeve was once in love with, to get more of what she wants. He extended it to her, it's long blade gleaming as if he'd been secretly polishing and caring for it these months. Murtaugh arrives in Adarlan with the news that Aelin is alive and showed her true self in the battle in Wendlyn. Manon sees Dorian shapeshift into a raven and discovers that he is planning on going to Morath to retrieve the third Wyrdkey. Chaol and Aedion start to exchange information, about Aelin and about the king’s magic, and they find out that he froze a triangle of land using three clocktowers.She accidentally burns his wrists with her magic when fighting, and later, she goes to bring him salve. To defeat them, Celaena will need the strength not only to fight the evil that is about to be unleashed but also to harness her inner demons. When she thanks him for saving her life, he replies that he only did it because he was bound to a blood oath by Maeve to keep her alive.