Chaol gives Calaena a tour through the stone part of the castle.

The castle was old, and most of its halls and stairwells went nowhere; escaping would require some thought. But with the competition beginning tomorrow, what else did she have to do? And what better way to prepare for a potential disaster?

Seriously, what are you up to, Cally?  Is escape your A plan or your B plan?  Because you keep talking about escaping, but you keep acting like you’re going to stay.  If you’re planning to stay until/unless otherwise forced, then I’d think getting the scoop on your other competitors would be ‘something else to do.’

I’m just going to call her Cally from now on.  I have to check the spelling ‘Calaena’ almost every time I type it, and fuck that.

“I don’t understand why you refuse to enter the glass addition,” he went on. “There’s no difference between the interiors—you wouldn’t even know that you were inside it unless someone told you or you looked out the window.”

…What?  Then what’s the point of building it out of glass?  Is the glass clouded/colored to look like stone?  Is it lined in stone?  Are there just tapestries and rugs covering up everything?

For all we get people talking about the glass castle, it’s extremely ambiguous in description.  We know very little about the way it looks or the construction of it.  They just keep repeating that it’s made of glass, and then delivering lines like this, which makes trying to work out what’s going very hard.

They pass a set of closed doors and Chaol tells her that’s where the queen holds court.

Didn’t he have any idea what information he was giving away? Perhaps he honestly thought she wasn’t a threat. She hid her scowl.

…Well, does it?  It’s hard to tell, because I have no idea what this information means or how sensitive it really is.  What, is the queen’s court a secret?  People have to go there to see the queen/attend court, so it can’t be a secret.  So is this a society where courts are kept secret, or is Cally overblowing things again?

We find out that Dorian has a younger brother named Hollin.  He’s spoiled rotten.

Hollin Havilliard, upon finding his porridge burnt, had beaten one of his servants so badly that there was no possibility of it being concealed. The woman’s family had been paid off, and the young prince shipped to school in the mountains.

Sigh.  Still with not giving me any context for stuff like this.  Are servants generally treated better than this?  In feudal society, serfs are basically considered property, so paying off the family wouldn’t really be a thing.  What’s the status of the servants here?  How are they usually treated?  How did a 9 year-old (at the time) beat a grown woman that hard? 

Also, he’s 9, and instead of saying “shut up, servant,” his family took action based on his behavior.  Unless this ‘school in the mountains’ is just a puffed up spa, then it seems like a proper reaction.  He threw a tantrum, he’s been punished, there’s no evidence that he won’t grow up as he…you know, grows up.

This is as bad as the Beauty and the Beast fairy cursing Beast for not letting her in when he was 10 years old.

There’s an ugly clocktower in the courtyard that gets so much description, I’m sure it’ll become important later.  It’s ugly and war-like and out of place and has weird markings that Cally notices.

Then they got to a library.

“I’ve never seen—how many volumes are there?”

Chaol shrugged. “The last time anyone bothered to count, it was a million. But that was two hundred years ago.

…did you just pull that number out because it sounded cool?  Because it honestly sounds ridiculous.  We don’t even know if this world has printing presses. 

I wonder how many of those million books are really just piles of faded vellum scraps instead of anything actually readable.  200 years before this world we see here had to have some pretty crappy excuses for paper.

To compare: the library in Alexandria was rumored to have 400,000 texts.  The Université de Paris was considered a huge medieval library, and it had barely over 1,000 texts.  When the Harvard library opened in the 1600s, it had a mere 400 books.

And let’s not even get started on the space that 1,000,000 books would take up.  We’re talking an entirely separate castle here, guys.

“You said you were from Terrasen; did you ever visit the Great Library of Orynth? They say it’s twice the size of this—and that it used to hold all the knowledge of the world.”

You just really hate numbers, don’t you, book?

“Why are none of your folk here?”

“Guards are of no use in a library.” Oh, how wrong he was! Libraries were full of ideas—perhaps the most dangerous and powerful of all weapons.

…and also books are expensive.  Seriously, BOOKS ARE EXPENSIVE, ESPECIALLY IN YE OLDE TYMES, HOW DO YOU NOT KNOW THIS?  Even if they do have printing presses, Cally just got done thinking about how that Great Library was full of ‘priceless’ ancient books.

Plus, you know, if you really want to impress people with your library, you stuff it full of fancy chairs and objects d’art.

“Read? These belong to the king.”

“It’s a library, isn’t it?”

“It’s the king’s property, and you aren’t of noble blood. You need permission from either him or the prince.”

So the books all belong to the king and plebes aren’t allowed to read them, but there’s no guards to make sure that rules enforced, because guards are no use in a library.  Yeah, sure.  Okay.

After being told that she can’t read books, Cally goes back to her room and wonders what else she can make weapons out of.  Also, her room has a piano and pens.

A PIANO AND PENS.

ALSO KNOWN AS GARROTE STRINGS AND STABBY THINGS.

She sends a formal note to Dorian asking to use the library.  He writes back saying okay, and also sends her a stack of books he likes.

The next day, Cally sleeps in to noon, because that’s just how she rolls.  It’s the day of the competition, but no one seems to be coming to her room to bother her about getting ready.

Three girls walk below her balcony, talking about how the Main Mean Girl of the trio wants to get Dorian’s attention. 

The guards watched the three girls, rapt for another reason entirely.

You are really shitty guards.

Then Main Mean Girl starts talking about Cally (the mystery girl) and presumes that she’s a ‘harlot’ that caught Dorian’s eye, then says she won’t be any ‘competition.’

So Cally throws a potted plant at her. 

Cally’s not going to last five minutes in a real court if she can’t keep her temper in check at such a comment.

Also, these guards really suck at removing all weapons if they forgot the potted plants that can be thrown at people.

Cally gets all fancied up in time for Phillipa to come back into the room and talk about how pretty she is.  Cally mentions the women who called her a harlot, and Phillipa rightly points out that it’s court gossip and for the love of pete, you’ve got to ignore it, it’s everywhere and ever changing.  You should know this, Cally, especially if you’re as good an assassin as you claim you are.  After all, no one’s paying the big bucks to kill the local butcher, they’re paying to kill nobles, so you should know how they work.

She made to sit down upon the mauve ottoman.

“Ah!” Philippa said, and Celaena froze, standing upright. “You’ll wrinkle the fabric.”

“But my feet hurt in these shoes.” She frowned pitifully. “You can’t intend for me to stand all day? Even through my meals?”

Ladies and gentlemen: the toughest assassin in all the lands. 

Chaol shows up and drags her out because they’re late.

Does Chaol not have an actual job to be seeing to?  You know, Captain of the Guards?  Why’s he spending all his time with Cally here?

They’re running off to see the king, because apparently that’s the ceremony that’s going to kick off the competition.

They reached the top of the staircase and rushed down a long hallway. She couldn’t breathe.

Nauseated, she looked out the windows that lined the passage. The earth was far below—far, far below. They were in the glass addition.

And that’s all the description we get.  Apparently really it is just like the rest of the palace, which begs the question of why they fuck they built this thing.

Cally starts to freak out because the last time she saw the king she was on trial and it was all a hazy bad time, and Chaol calms her down before they enter the throne room.

Drinking Game Count:  Epithets – 8, Bragging – 1, Exclamation Marks – 9

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