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“It had been a while since she’d contemplated the gifts she’d lost, though the memory of her abilities haunted her dreams. Despite the carnage, perhaps it was good that magic had vanished. It was far too dangerous for any sane person to wield; her gifts might have destroyed her by this point.”

This quotation appears partway through Chapter 5, when Celaena is reflecting on the banishment, and subsequent disappearance of magic from the kingdom of Adarlan. Here she hints that she herself used to have magical powers of some sort, but these powers are never revealed to the reader. However, they come up again later in the story when Celaena’s apparent relationship to magic is mentioned by both Nehemia and Queen Elena. This passage sets up a mystique around who Celaena really is and where she comes from, one that persists throughout the rest of the story. It also exemplifies how people in Adarlan have come to understand what magic once was—a dangerous, unpredictable power that took specialized knowledge and abilities to perform. It’s hard to tell if this is the truth, as Celaena makes it clear that the king of Adarlan has been spreading anti-magic propaganda for years, possibly distorting the reality of what it is. However, Celaena’s encounters with Wyrdmarks and Wyrdgates later in the story support the idea that magic in this world is a dangerous power that can serve both good and evil.

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