Queen Of Glass

Book 2 Chapter 6

The next two days went by without any serious incidents—Celaena dutifully washed the piles of dishes that came in and out of the kitchen, making sure to avoid being caught alone in the room after the sun had set. She didn't know who had cleaned those dishes that night, and the prospect of some animal or supernatural being having the ability to do so put her at such a level of unease that the assassin was ashamed of herself.
The little noises and mysterious happenings that occurred in the kitchen didn't help either. One afternoon, she had set down her steaming bowl of paestia (which she had made herself) to go get some water from the pump, and when she had come back to the table all that remained of her meal was an empty dish. At first, she had thought she was going insane—perhaps she had eaten the food without realizing that she had finished?
Since no one was around, she knew who had taken her food—the same things that had cleaned the dishes the night before. In rage and fear, she had picked up the bowl, strode towards the wretched door, attempted to pry the bottom half open, failed, and chucked the ceramic bowl through the top half towards the fields in hopes of scaring away the creatures that were beginning to make her life a bit too nerve-racking. All that she had succeeded in achieving was a hysterical Luca, who burst into the kitchen minutes later, claiming that she had tried to take off his head.
Her first night in Cindrillion's room had also made her a little more on-edge than she would have liked. The dead, clothed animals that lay rotting in their cages made Celaena sleep terribly. All night she had terrible dreams of the animals rising from the dead and assaulting her. Each time the room creaked or made any other sort of noise, her

eyes flew open and she stared at the moonlit graveyard that was only a few feet away, making sure that nothing had moved out of its resting place. Cindrillion slumbered peacefully in the bed beside her, oblivious to the insomnia of her roommate. By the time exhaustion of her body had caught up to her mind, the sky was already turning gray. When the sun had risen, there was chattering and singing and the sounds of movement in the room, which the assassin slept soundly through. She awoke to a sparkling-clean empty room, and, to her horror, saw that the dead mice and birds had moved from the places that they had held during the night.
The second night wasn't much better. At one point, Celaena was so frustrated with herself that she considered tossing the cages out the window, but respect for Cindrillion's twisted love of the creatures kept her in her bed.
Celaena and Cindrillion, because of their differing hours of awakening and working, often had little time to talk. Stephaenya told her that the stepsisters and Baroness du Tremaine loaded her up with so many chores every day that Cindrillion didn't have much time to converse with them. She'd pop into the kitchen during lunchtime to eat, then would disappear out the door to spend an hour to "visit." Celaena suspected that Cindrillion was probably in the woods, but she didn't bother to ask. During the hour when Cindrillion was off on her own, Stephaenya would cover for her, waiting upon the selfish and spoiled whims of the three ruling women.
The other stepsister—the taller one—was named Joline, and she was just as nasty and rotten as her sister. Joline and Marghenna spent the majority of their days lying on the sofas in the drawing room, picking at the food brought to them, barking orders to Cindrillion, and gossiping idiotically about the nobles of Wendlyn. Their favorite topic of conversation was, naturally, the Crown Prince, who seemed to be but a few years older than them, very handsome, and still unmarried. They would burst into a fit of giggles every time his name was mentioned (though Joline sounded like a donkey braying), and reflexively powder their faces.
The Great Celebration, which turned out to be a massive ball in honor of the Crown Prince's twenty-first birthday and the country's one-thousandth year in existence, was a source of endless excitement and controversy for them. To Celaena's great amusement, she discovered that each sister suspected that she would win the prince's heart at the ball, and wind up married by the next morning. When they became too jealous and frightened of the other's chances at becoming princess, the assassin delighted in hearing their screams and shrieks as they attacked each other, clawing and tearing and pinching. The only way, Celaena learned, of stopping them was either the harsh command of their mother or the call of a meal bell.
Two days after her arrival, a fight unlike any other broke out over the gilded lunch table of the stepsisters. Joline had snidely remarked to Marghenna that if she continued to stuff food into her mouth like a pig, she'd become even fatter, which would not please the Crown Prince. Marghenna had replied by saying that once the Crown Prince caught sight of Joline's enormous front teeth, he'd surely turn her down. Joline's retort had been that the Crown Prince wouldn't want to marry a fat cow anyway, and Marghenna then told Joline she resembled a man. In a split second, there came two ear-shattering battle cries from the dining room, and Celaena—and those in the kitchen—had rushed to the dining room to see what the fuss was all about. When they found them, Celaena had almost burst out laughing. The two sisters were rolling on the large table, crashing through plates and chairs and goblets, shrieking curses and foul things at each other while locked in deadly hand-to-hand combat. Marghenna had a good hold on Joline's brown hair, and was trying to twist her arm around her back while Joline was pinching Marghenna's overly present cleavage and attempting to free the arm that was being twisted behind her.
Grinning wickedly, Celaena and Luca exchanged bets on who would win this fight—the assassin put her money on Joline, but Luca placed his on Marghenna, whispering that if Marghenna was able to get into a good position for a second, she could sit on Joline and break her sister in two.
Since the Baroness was out for the afternoon, and because they were already eating a meal, there seemed to be nothing to do but wait until one of them collapsed or gave in. Leighanna tried unsuccessfully to get them to stop, by which point Celaena and Luca were on the verge of tears from suppressed laughter. Stephaenya was standing in a horrified state of shock, but she was probably more concerned with the ruined food than the sisters' well being.
Eventually, Joline seized an open opportunity and smacked Marghenna hard across the face, making her sister burst into a fit of tears. Marghenna screamed that she hated Joline, savagely ripped out a chunk of Joline's hair, and fled from the room, sobbing. Joline, her hand reaching up to her head, began to cry too, sounding once again like a donkey, and ran out of the chamber as well, leaving a trail of food and a ruined lunch.
It took a while for Celaena and Luca to stop laughing—the sisters were probably the most ridiculous people on earth, and it was hard to imagine that two nobles could act in such a manner. Luca did a perfect impersonation of Joline's braying sobs, which caused Celaena to laugh even harder.