Content Warning: This guide includes references to violence, torture, murder, and enslavement. 

Sixteen-year-old assassin Celaena Sardothien sits in her dressing gown in the council room of the Assassin’s Keep, the home of the Assassin’s Guild led by Arobynn Hamel. The other assassins, all male, are already present, including Sam Cortland, a young man Celaena’s age. Arobynn tells the group that Gregori, one of the other assassins, has been captured while on a mission that turned out to be a trap. He is now imprisoned in the royal dungeons in the palace of the King of Adarlan. Celaena says they should kill him to prevent him from giving up information. Arobynn then says that Ben, his second-in-command and Celaena’s mentor, was killed. Sam was sent to search for Ben’s body, which upsets Celaena who feels she should have been chosen for that task. The other assassins disagree, as royal guards are on patrol near where his body was dumped. Celaena snaps at Sam and leaves alone to retrieve Ben.

Two months and three days later, Sam and Celaena wait for Captain Rolfe, Lord of the Pirates, in his office in Skull’s Bay, a coastal city in the Dead Islands.