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.”