The Assassin and the Underworld

  The wooden doors were all shut. No guards, no servants, no members of Doneval’s household. She eased a foot onto the wooden floorboards. Where the hell were the guards?

  Swift and quiet as a cat, she was at the door to Doneval’s study. No light shone from beneath the door. She saw no shadows of feet, and heard no sound.

  The door was locked. A minor inconvenience. She sheathed her dagger and pulled out two narrow bits of metal, wedging and jamming them into the lock until—click.

  Then she was inside, door locked again, and she stared into the inky black of the interior. She lit a match. No one. Frowning, Celaena fished the pocket watch out of her suit.

  She still had enough time to look around.

  Celaena flicked out the match and rushed to the curtains, shutting them tight against the night outside. Rain still plinked faintly against the covered windows. She moved to the massive oak desk in the center of the room and lit the oil lamp atop it, dimming it until only a faint blue flame gave off a flicker of light. She shuffled through the papers on the desk. Newspapers, casual letters, receipts, the household expenses …

  She opened every drawer in the desk. More of the same. Where were those documents?

  Swallowing her violent curse, Celaena put a fist to her mouth. She turned in place. An armchair, an armoire, a hutch … She searched the hutch and armoire, but they had nothing. Just empty papers and ink. Her ears strained for any sound of approaching guards.

  She scanned the books on the bookcase, tapping her fingers across the spines, trying to hear if any were hollowed out, trying to hear if—

  A floorboard creaked beneath her feet. She was down on her knees in an instant, rapping on the dark, polished wood. She knocked all around the area, until she found a hollow sound.

  Carefully, heart hammering, she dug her dagger between the floorboards and wedged it upward. Papers stared back at her.

  She pulled them out, replaced the floorboard, and was back at the desk a moment later, spreading the papers before her. She’d only glance at them, just to be sure she had the right documents …

  Her hands trembled as she flipped through the papers, one after another. Maps with red marks in random places, charts with numbers, and names—list after list of names and locations. Cities, towns, forests, mountains, all in Melisande.

  These weren’t just Melisanders opposed to slavery—these were locations for planned safe houses to smuggle slaves to freedom. This was enough information to get all these people executed or enslaved themselves.

  And Doneval, that wretched bastard, was going to use this information to force those people to support the slave trade—or be turned over to the king.

  Celaena gathered up the documents. She’d never let Doneval get away with this. Never.

  She took a step toward the trick floorboard. Then she heard the voices.

  Chapter Eleven

  She had the lamp off and the curtains opened in a heartbeat, swearing silently as she tucked the documents into her suit and hid in the armoire. It would only take a few moments before Doneval and his partner found that the documents were missing. But that was all she needed—she just had to get them in here, away from the guards, long enough to take them both down. The fire would start in the cellar any minute now, hopefully distracting many of the other guards, and hopefully happening before Doneval noticed the papers were gone. She left the armoire door open a crack, peering out.

  The study door unlocked and then swung open.

  “Brandy?” Doneval was saying to the cloaked and hooded man who trailed in behind him.

  “No,” the man said, removing his hood. He was of average height and plain, his only notable features his sun-kissed face and high cheekbones. Who was he?

  “Eager to get it over with?” Doneval chuckled, but there was a hitch to his voice.

  “You could say that,” the man replied coolly. He looked about the room, and Celaena didn’t dare move—or breathe—as his blue eyes passed over the armoire. “My partners know to start looking for me in thirty minutes.”

  “I’ll have you out in ten. I have to be at the theater tonight, anyway. There’s a young lady I’m particularly keen to see,” Doneval said with a businessman’s charm. “I take it that your associates are prepared to act quickly and give me a response by dawn?”

  “They are. But show me your documents first. I need to see what you’re offering.”

  “Of course, of course,” Doneval said, drinking from the glass of brandy that he’d poured for himself. Celaena’s hands became slick and her face turned sweaty under the mask. “Do you live here, or are you visiting?” When the man didn’t respond, Doneval said with a grin, “Either way, I hope you’ve stopped by Madam Clarisse’s establishment. I’ve never seen such fine girls in all my life.”

  The man gave Doneval a distinctly displeased stare. Had Celaena not been here to kill them, she might have liked the stranger.

  “Not one for chitchat?” Doneval teased, setting down the brandy and walking toward the floorboard. From the slight tremble in Doneval’s hands, she could tell that his talking was all nervous babble. How had such a man come into contact with such incredibly delicate and important information?

  Doneval knelt before the loose floorboard and pulled it up. He swore.

  Celaena flicked the sword out of the hidden compartment in her suit and moved.

  She was out of the closet before they even looked at her, and Doneval died a heartbeat after that. His blood sprayed from the spine-severing wound she gave him through the back of his neck, and the other man let out a shout. She whirled toward him, the sword flicking blood.

  An explosion rocked the house, so strong that she lost her footing.

  What in hell had Sam detonated down there?

  That was all the man needed—he was out the study door. His speed was admirable; he moved like someone used to a lifetime of running.

  She was through the threshold almost instantly. Smoke was already rising from the stairs. She turned left after the man, only to run into Philip, the bodyguard.

  She rebounded away as he swiped with a sword for her face. Behind him, the man was still running, and he glanced over his shoulder once before he sprinted down the stairs.

  “What have you done?” Philip spat, noticing the blood on her blade. He didn’t need to see whose face was under the mask to identify her—he must be as good at marking people as she was, or at least he recognized the suit.

  She deployed the sword in her other arm, too. “Get the hell out of my way.” The mask made her words low and gravely—the voice of a demon, not a young woman. She slashed the swords in front of her, a deadly whine coming off of them.

  “I’m going to rip you limb from limb,” Philip growled.

  “Just try it.”

  Philip’s face twisted in rage as he launched himself at her.

  She took the first blow on her left blade, her arm aching at the impact, and Philip barely moved away fast enough to avoid her punching the right blade straight through his gut. He struck again, a clever thrust toward her ribs, but she blocked him.

  He pressed both her blades. Up close, she could see his weapon was of fine make.

  “I wanted to make this last,” Celaena hissed. “But I think it’s going to be quick. Far cleaner than the death you tried to give me.”

  Philip shoved her back with a roar. “You have no idea what you’ve just done!”

  She swung her swords in front of her again. “I know exactly what I’ve just done. And I know exactly what I’m about to do.”

  Philip charged, but the hallway was too narrow and his blow too undisciplined. She got past his guard instantly. His blood soaked her gloved hand.

  Her sword whined against bone as she whipped it out again.

  Philip’s eyes went wide and he staggered back, clutching the slender wound that went up through his ribs and into his heart. “Fool,” he whispered, slumping to the ground. “Did Leighfer hire you?”

  She didn’t say a
nything as he struggled for breath, blood bubbling from his lips.

  “Doneval … ,” Philip rasped, “… loved his country …” He took a wet breath, hate and grief mingling in his eyes. “You don’t know anything.” And just like that, he was dead.

  “Maybe,” she said as she looked down at his body. “But I knew enough just then.”

  It had taken just less than two minutes—that was it. She knocked out two guards as she catapulted down the stairs of the burning house and out the front door, disarming another three when she vaulted over the iron fence and into the streets of the capital.

  Where in hell had the man gone?

  There were no alleys from the house to the river, so he hadn’t gone left. Which meant he had gone either straight through the alley ahead of her or to the right. He wouldn’t have gone to the right—that was the main avenue of the city, where the wealthy lived. She took the alley straight ahead.

  She sprinted so fast she could hardly breathe, snapping her swords back into their hidden compartment.

  No one noticed her; most people were too busy rushing toward the flames now licking the sky above Doneval’s house. What had happened to Sam?

  She spotted the man then, sprinting down an alley that led toward the Avery. She almost missed him, because he was around the corner and gone the next instant. He’d mentioned his partners—was he was headed to them now? Would he be that foolish?

  She splashed through puddles and leaped over trash and grabbed the wall of a building as she hauled herself around the corner. Right into a dead end.

  The man was trying to scale the large brick wall at the other end. The buildings surrounding them had no doors—and no windows low enough for him to reach.

  Celaena popped out both of her swords as she slowed to a stalking gait.

  The man made one last leap for the top of the wall, but couldn’t reach. He fell hard against the cobblestone streets. Sprawled on the ground, he twisted toward her. His eyes were bright as he pulled out a pile of papers from his worn jacket. What sort of documents had he been bringing to Doneval? Their official business contract?

  “Go to hell,” he spat, and a match flared. The papers were instantly alight, and he threw them to the ground. So fast she could hardly see it, he grabbed a vial from his pocket and swallowed the contents.

  She lunged toward him, but she was too late.

  By the time she grabbed him, he was dead. Even with his eyes closed, the rage remained on his face. He was gone. Irrevocably gone. But for what—some business deal gone sour?

  Easing him to the ground, she jumped swiftly to her feet. She stomped on the papers, extinguishing the flame in seconds. But half of them had already burned, leaving only scraps.

  In the moonlight, she knelt on the damp cobblestones and picked up the remnants of the documents he’d been so willing to die to keep from her.

  It wasn’t merely a trade agreement. Like the papers she had in her pocket, these contained names and numbers and locations of safe houses. But these were in Adarlan—even stretching as far north as the border with Terrasen.

  She whipped her head to the body. It didn’t make any sense; why kill himself to keep this information secret, when he’d planned to share it with Doneval and use it for his own profit? Heaviness rushed through her veins. You know nothing, Philip had said.

  Somehow, it suddenly felt very true. How much had Arobynn known? Philip’s words sounded in her ears again and again. It didn’t add up. Something was wrong—something was off.

  No one had told her these documents would be this extensive, this damning to the people they listed. Her hands shaking, she shifted his body into a sitting position so he wouldn’t be face-first on the filthy ground. Why had he sacrificed himself to keep this information safe? Noble or not, foolish or not, she couldn’t let it go. She straightened his coat.

  Then she picked up his half-destroyed documents, lit a match, and let them burn until they were nothing but ashes. It was the only thing she had to offer.

  She found Sam slumped against the wall of another alley. She rushed to him where he knelt with a hand over his chest, panting heavily.

  “Are you hurt?” she demanded, scanning the alley for any sign of guards. An orange glow spread behind them. She hoped the servants had gotten out of Doneval’s house in time.

  “I’m fine,” Sam rasped. But in the moonlight, she could see the gash on his arm. “The guards spotted me in the cellar and shot at me.” He grabbed at the breast of his suit. “One of them hit me right in the heart. I thought I was dead, but the arrow clattered right out. It didn’t even touch my skin.”

  He peeled open the gash in the front of his suit, and a glimmer of iridescence sparkled. “Spidersilk,” he murmured, his eyes wide.

  Celaena smiled grimly and pulled off the mask from her face.

  “No wonder this damned suit was so expensive,” Sam said, letting out a breathy laugh. She didn’t feel the need to tell him the truth. He searched her face. “It’s done, then?”

  She leaned down to kiss him, a swift brush of her mouth against his.

  “It’s done,” she said onto his lips.

  Chapter Twelve

  The rain clouds had vanished and the sun was just rising when Celaena strode into Arobynn’s study and stopped in front of his desk. Wesley, Arobynn’s manservant, didn’t even try to stop her. He just shut the study doors behind her before resuming his sentry position in the hall outside.

  “Doneval’s partner burned his own documents before I could see them,” she said to Arobynn by way of greeting. “And then poisoned himself.” She’d slipped Doneval’s documents under his bedroom door last night, but had decided to wait to explain everything to him until that morning.

  Arobynn looked up from his ledger. His face was blank. “Was that before or after you torched Doneval’s house?”

  She crossed her arms. “Does it make a difference?”

  Arobynn looked at the window and the clear sky beyond. “I sent the documents to Leighfer this morning. Did you look through them before you slid them under my door?”

  She snorted. “Of course I did. Right in between killing Doneval and fighting my way out of his house, I found the time to sit down for a cup of tea and read them.”

  Arobynn still wasn’t smiling.

  “I’ve never seen you leave such a mess in your wake.”

  “At least people will think Doneval died in the fire.”

  Arobynn slammed his hands onto his desk. “Without an identifiable body, how can anyone be sure he’s dead?”

  She refused to flinch, refused to back down. “He’s dead.”

  Arobynn’s silver eyes hardened. “You won’t be paid for this. I know for certain Leighfer won’t pay you. She wanted a body and both documents. You only gave me one of the three.”

  She felt her nostrils flare. “That’s fine. Bardingale’s allies are safe now, anyway. And the trade agreement isn’t happening.” She couldn’t mention that she hadn’t even seen a trade agreement document among the papers—not without revealing that she’d read the documents.

  Arobynn let out a low laugh. “You haven’t figured it out yet, have you?”

  Celaena’s throat tightened.

  Arobynn leaned back in his chair. “Honestly, I expected more from you. All the years I spent training you, and you couldn’t piece together what was happening right before your eyes.”

  “Just spit it out,” she growled.

  “There was no trade agreement,” Arobynn said, triumph lighting his silver eyes. “At least, not between Doneval and his source in Rifthold. The real meetings about the slave-trade negotiations have been going on in the glass castle—between the king and Leighfer. It was a key point of persuasion in convincing him to let them build their road.”

  She kept her face blank, kept herself from flinching. The man who poisoned himself—he hadn’t been there to trade documents to sell out those opposed to slavery. He and Doneval had been working to—

  Doneval l
oves his country, Philip had said.

  Doneval had been working to set up a system of safe houses and form an alliance of people against slavery across the empire. Doneval, bad habits or not, had been working to help the slaves.

  And she’d killed him.

  Worse than that, she’d given the documents over to Bardingale—who didn’t want to stop slavery at all. No, she wanted to profit from it and use her new road to do it. And she and Arobynn had concocted the perfect lie to get Celaena to cooperate.

  Arobynn was still smiling. “Leighfer has already seen to it that Doneval’s documents are secured. If it’ll ease your conscience, she said she won’t give them to the king—not yet. Not until she’s had a chance to speak to the people on this list and … persuade them to support her business endeavors. But if they don’t, perhaps those documents will find their way into the glass castle after all.”

  Celaena fought to keep from trembling. “Is this punishment for Skull’s Bay?”

  Arobynn studied her. “While I might regret beating you, Celaena, you did ruin a deal that would have been extremely profitable for us.” “Us,” like she was a part of this disgusting mess. “You might be free of me, but you shouldn’t forget who I am. What I’m capable of.”

  “As long as I live,” she said, “I’ll never forget that.” She turned on her heel, striding for the door, but stopped.

  “Yesterday,” she said, “I sold Kasida to Leighfer Bardingale.” She’d visited Bardingale’s estate in the morning of the day she was set to infiltrate Doneval’s house. The woman had been more than happy to purchase the Asterion horse. She hadn’t once mentioned her former husband’s impending death.

  And last night, after Celaena had killed Doneval, she’d spent a while staring at the signature at the end of the transfer of ownership receipt, so stupidly relieved that Kasida was going to a good woman like Bardingale.

  “And?” Arobynn asked. “Why should I care about your horse?”

  Celaena looked at him long and hard. Always power games, always deceit and pain. “The money is on its way to your vault at the bank.”