Lillian could hear the shouting match from her bedroom when Philippa proposed the plan to Chaol, even if she didn't have her ear pressed to the door..
She had a blanket wrapped around her shoulders for added security. The old child's trick was surprisingly reassuring: surely nothing could hurt her while she was wrapped in a blanket. She did wonder if the party was worth it. Maybe she should go out and say never mind, she didn't even want to go, why should she go -
"She has to be seen sometime!" Philippa shouted.
"You want to put her in the same room as the queen?"Chaol demanded, for the third time. Each time he grew increasingly more shrill.
"Nesryn will be there, guards will be there-"
"The princess will be there!"
"Lillian won't hurt a little girl."
The silence was absolute for a long moment.
"Lillian," Chaol said.
Philippa remained silent.
"Her name is Celaena Sardothien," Chaol said, "Whatever we say outside this room, whatever her maids think, whatever we pretend - she is Celaena Sardothien, and she kills people for money, and you want to put her in a room with the queen and the princess, because you think Celaena Sardothien won't hurt a child."
"I probably wouldn't," a voice said from right behind Lillian, who was too surprised to scream. She turned to see Celaena Sardothien herself standing behind her, head cocked, unblinking eyes fixed just beyond Lillian's head.
I am in the blanket, Lillian thought, first and nonsensically, and then, she could kill me if I was in full armor, what is a blanket going to do?
"Not unless she got in the way," Celaena Sardothien continued. "Or I was hired to. Killing people is actually tiring - there's no point, if there's no point."
Lillian took a moment to sort out that statement.
"You don't have a moral objection to killing a little girl," she said slowly, "but you wouldn't do it if you weren't getting paid?"
Celaena shrugged one shoulder. "I'm an assassin," she said, as if it explained everything. Lillian supposed it did.
"They aren't letting me go anyway," Lillian said, unable to blame Chaol at all if he truly thought she was this woman, who wouldn't have any problem murdering a child.
"Lady Kaltain will keep trying," Celaena said. "They'll let you out eventually. They have to. How else will you get anything done?"
"I'm not going to get anything done anyway," Lillian retorted. "I'm not you."
Celaena stepped back and perched on the bed, watching her, and Lillian remembered that she was afraid of the woman she had just talked back to.
"Would you like to be?" Celaena asked.
Lillian bit back the instinctive not in a million years. "People like you get sent to Endovier," she said carefully.
"I think you'll find it's people like me who don't," Celaena replied, but then her attention snapped to the door. Lillian felt it open against her back and flung her arms out to catch herself.
"I was just," she began, trying to think of a way to explain Celaena, but Chaol looked down on her in weary resignation.
Philippa, behind him, pursed her lips.
"I suppose listening at doors is a habit of assassins," he said. "And we were discussing you."
Lillian was not sure if she should try to smile or not. She darted a quick look over her shoulder - Celaena was gone.
Chaol followed her glance and looked back at her, cocking an eyebrow.
Lillian shrugged.
"You're going," Philippa said. "After much debate, the benefits outweigh the possible murder."
Philippa had called her Lillian instead of Celaena, and though she was gruff now, Philippa had worried about her wellbeing in the beginning. It was probably from expedience - what benefit was a dead assassin? - but it had been genuine nonetheless.
Chaol grimaced. "Lady Kaltain isn't one of Dorian's adherents. They don't get along. But she doesn't support anyone else either - and the Princess Nehemia might be an asset worth cultivating."
"Don't underestimate either of them," Philippa warned. "Kaltain has survived as a minor noble without a patron for years, and she just gets richer. Somehow. And she's battened onto Nehemia, which means the princess is easy to manipulate or cannier than we thought."
Why didn't you think she was cany? Lillian wondered. She's born and raised to court intrigues, the same as any nobles here, and she's the heir.
"Queen Georgina is fond of Dorian," Chaol said, "and she doesn't have a son to replace him, and she spends very little time with Hollin. We can count her as an ally for now, and Princess Gwyneth is only two. She can't inherit anyway. Make friends, keep an ear out - you know how."
Lillian did know how, but not for the reasons Chaol thought. When you catered to the nobility, you learned to listen for the latest trends, the latest gossip, the latest power shifts, the latest anything. Being on the cutting edge of fashion was an important business and a cutthroat one: stealing designs or bribing shopgirls wasn't unheard of.
The whole thing sounded like Lillian's old every day, just with more money involved - and possibly murder. They hadn't asked her to murder anyone yet, though.
"Elaine will have your dress ready by morning," Philippa said. "Sara will help her."
"I can help too," Lillian offered automatically. "I have a good hand."
"Sleep," Philippa ordered, after sending a look at Chaol that Lillian couldn't quite read. "The fewer bags we have to hide, the better."
Lillian, thinking back to her look in the mirror this morning, said, "I don't think an extra hour of sleep will help."
Philippa shooed Chaol out and turned to watch Lillian sit on the bed, tucking her legs up in case Celaena was under it. Lillian felt a little foolish, like a child who thought a monster was hiding under the bed, but in this case a monster might be. She almost warned Philippa not to get too close.
Philippa sat on the bed with her. "You don't have anything to worry about," she said. "Kaltain is unpleasant, I've heard, but there will be other ladies there for you to talk to."
"Unpleasant?"
Philippa considered. "Maybe unpleasant is the wrong word," she said slowly. "None of her servants complain of mistreatment, but they don't talk about her warmly either. She likes her privacy, I suppose. None of her maids stay with her. But she has sent a number of noble ladies packing when they tried to be her friend."
So I won't try to be her friend, Lillian thought. I'll be Princess Nehemia's instead.
"The queen will like you if you're quiet," Philippa continued. "Gods know she gets little enough of quiet, but maybe that's her fault - she keeps all those twittering songbirds around her day and night, and around Gwyneth, too. Safety, she told Dorian."
No one could accuse her of treason if she was always watched, Lillian thought.
Philippa shrugged, reaching out to brush the short curls of Lillian's hair off her forehead. She would make them frizzy, but Lillian allowed it. It was nice, to have someone treat her with unthinking affection.
Lillian knew it was unthinking, because Philippa froze right after, just for a moment, and returned her hands to her lap.
"She'll probably like you anyway," Philippa said.
Lillian ducked her head.
"We'll wake you up extra early tomorrow," Philippa said briskly, standing and stepping away from the bed. "A little bit of powder and no one will see those circles, and Gytha is hounding the wigmaker as we speak. It won't be exactly the same color, but it will be close."
Lillian twisted one of the curls Philippa had disordered around her finger to put it back into shape and said mournfully, "I used to be very pretty, you know. I didn't need powder or wigs."
Philippa turned to look at her, studying her closely. "Do you know, Lillian," she said, "I don't think you need them now."
She raised her eyebrows when Lillian stared at her. "You'll wear them anyway, of course. Court fashion cannot be denied - not by you."
"You think I'm pretty?" Lillian asked, hating that it was suddenly important.
"I think anyone who survives two years of Endovier deserves more adjectives than pretty," Philippa said, and left.
Lillian considered that for a moment - it was a nice sentiment, but it still hadn't answered her question - before remembering Celaena.
She braced herself and leaned over the edge of the bed, raising the dust ruffle quickly to get it over with.
Blue-green eyes met hers.
"I can't believe you're actually under the bed," Lillian blurted.
"I didn't have time to go anywhere else," Celaena said. "Did you think I could disappear, like a fae with air affinity?"
"How did you get out last week? I didn't see you!"
Celaena rolled out from under the bed on the other side, brushing herself off. It was unnecessary - Lillian knew for a fact that Gytha had swept under there this morning.
"The balcony," Celaena said, as if it were obvious.
"We are four stories up," Lillian snapped. "Forgive me for not assuming that you just jumped over!"
Celaena shrugged. "I hung on to the rail. You'll learn."
Lillian opened her mouth to ask what exactly Celaena meant by that until she remembered. "You want to turn me into an assassin."
"It doesn't take much to be an assassin," Celaena said. "It takes more to be a good assassin. One who survives."
Lillian did want to survive.
"Fine," she said, as if she had a choice. "What do I do?"
"Be more aware," Celaena said promptly. "I shouldn't be able to sneak up on you like this. No one should. What did you do in the mines when some snuck up on you?"
"Cry," Lillian said without thinking much about how it would sound. "Or scream. If it wasn't a guard, we took care of each other. Or, well. We tried."
Celaena blinked. It was long, and slow, and looked more surprised than anything, which was when Lillian remembered that Celaena had not, in fact, blinked in the last few minutes - not that Lillian could remember.
Was that part of being a good assassin? She thought her eyes would dry out.
"Balconies aren't hard to climb onto and off of," Celaena said as if Lillian hadn't said anything. "Beds are usually easy to roll under. Curtains. Wardrobes. That screen over there. Doors. If it blocks a line of sight, you can duck behind it or under it, and so can somebody else."
Lillian wondered if she should take notes.
"Look at everything," Celaena continued. "You do that already, a little. I've noticed. You have to do it with your surroundings, not just with people."
"How have you noticed?" Lillian asked instead of admitting that she only really looked at people to judge their clothes. "You've only seen me twice at night, and I've only been with Philippa-"
"Assume that I'm always watching you," Celaena said, which wasn't terrifying at all.
"Actually working at your lessons with the captain might help," she added.
Lillian glared at her lap and asked, finally, the real question. "Did the king know I wasn't you?"
Silence greeted her. She looked up, half expecting to see that Celaena had disappeared again, but the assassin stood easily to one side of the door - the side it opened into, Lillian realized, so she wasn't immediately visible if someone walked in.
"He knew you weren't me," Celaena said. "He has a use for me."
Lillian nodded, and lay down without bothering to say anything else.
She woke up several times during the night. Each time Celaena was still there, watching. Lillian couldn't decide if it was a comfort or not.
