Aelin tugged at the emerald silk ribbon around the cream-colored box until it dropped away. Setting aside the lid, she stared at the folded cloth within for a long moment. The note placed atop it read, I took the liberty of having some improvements made since the last time. Go play.
Her throat tightened, but she pulled out the full-body suit of black cloth—tight, thick, and flexible like leather, but without the sheen and suffocation. Beneath the folded suit lay a pair of boots. They’d been cleaned since the last time she’d worn them years ago, the black leather still supple and pliable, the special grooves and hidden blades as precise as ever.
She lifted the heavy sleeve of the suit to reveal the built-in gauntlets that concealed thin, vicious swords as long as her forearm.
She hadn’t seen this suit, hadn’t worn it, since … She glanced at the empty spot on the mantel. Another test—a quiet one, to see just how much she would forgive and forget, how much she would stomach to work with him.
Arobynn had paid for the suit years ago, an exorbitant fee demanded by a master tinkerer from Melisande who had crafted it by hand, built exactly to her measurements. He’d insisted his two best assassins be outfitted in the stealthy, lethal suits, so hers had been a gift, one of many he’d heaped on her as reparation for beating her to hell and then packing her off to the Red Desert to train. She and Sam had both taken brutal beatings for their disobedience—and yet Arobynn had made Sam pay for his suit. And then given him second-rate jobs to keep him from swiftly paying off the debt.
She set the suit back in the box and began undressing, breathing in the scent of rain on stone that wafted in through the open windows.
Oh, she could play the devoted protégée again. She could go along with the plan she’d let him create—the plan she’d modify slightly, just enough. She’d kill whoever was needed, whore herself, wreck herself, if it meant getting Aedion to safety.
Two days—just two days—until she could see him again, until she could see with her own eyes that he’d made it, that he’d survived all these years they’d been apart. And even if Aedion hated her, spat on her as Chaol had practically done … it would be worth it.
Naked, she stepped into the suit, the smooth, slick material whispering against her skin. Typical of Arobynn not to mention what modifications he’d made—to make it a lethal puzzle for her to sort out, if she was clever enough to survive.
She shimmied into it, careful to avoid triggering the mechanism that brought forth those hidden blades, feeling for any other concealed weapons or tricks. It was the work of another moment before the suit enveloped her completely, and she buckled her feet into the boots.
As she headed for the bedroom, she could already sense the reinforcement added to every weak spot she possessed. The specifications must have been sent months before the suit arrived, by the man who did indeed know about the knee that sometimes twanged, the body parts she favored in combat, the speed with which she moved. All of Arobynn’s knowledge of her, wrapped around her in cloth and steel and darkness. She paused before the standing mirror against the far wall of the bedroom.
A second skin. Perhaps made less scandalous by the exquisite detailing, the extra padding, the pockets, the bits of armored decoration—but there was not one inch left to the imagination. She let out a low whistle. Very well, then.
She could be Celaena Sardothien again—for a little longer, until this game was finished.
She might have brooded over it more had splashing hooves and wheels halting outside the warehouse not echoed through the open windows.
She doubted Arobynn would show up so soon to gloat—no, he’d wait until he learned whether she actually went to play with the suit.
That left one other person who’d bother to come by, though she doubted Chaol would waste money on a carriage, even in the rain. Keeping away from sight, she peered out the window through the downpour, taking in the details of the nondescript carriage. No one on the rainy street to observe it—and no sign of who might be within.
Heading for the door, Aelin flicked her wrist, releasing the blade on her left arm. It made no sound as it shot free from the hidden slot in the gauntlet, the metal gleaming in the rain-dim light.
Gods, the suit was as wondrous as it’d been that first day she tried it on; the blade cutting as smoothly through the air as it had when she’d plunged it into her targets.
Her footsteps and the drumming of the rain on the warehouse roof were the only sounds as she descended the stairs, then padded between the crates piled high on the main floor.
Left arm angled to hide the blade within the folds of her cloak, she hauled open the giant rolling warehouse door to reveal the veils of rain billowing past.
A cloaked woman waited under the narrow awning, an unmarked hansom cab for hire loitering behind her on the curb. The driver was watching carefully, rain dripping off the broad rim of his hat. Not a trained eye—just looking out for the woman who’d hired him. Even in the rain, her cloak was a deep, rich gray, the fabric clean and heavy enough to suggest lots of money, despite the carriage.
The heavy hood concealed the stranger’s face in shadow, but Aelin glimpsed ivory skin, dark hair, and fine velvet gloves reaching into her cloak—for a weapon?
“Start explaining,” Aelin said, leaning against the door frame, “or you’re rat meat.”
The woman stepped back into the rain—not back, exactly, but toward the carriage, where Aelin noted the small form of a child waiting inside. Cowering.
The woman said, “I came to warn you,” and pulled back her hood just enough to reveal her face.
Large, slightly uptilted green eyes, sensuous lips, sharp cheekbones, and a pert nose combined to create a rare, staggering beauty that caused men to lose all common sense.
Aelin stepped under the narrow awning and drawled, “As far as memory serves me, Lysandra, I warned you that if I ever saw you again, I’d kill you.”
“Please,” Lysandra begged.
That word—and the desperation behind it—made Aelin slide her blade back into its sheath.
In the nine years that she’d known the courtesan, never once had she heard Lysandra say please—or sound desperate for anything at all. Phrases like “thank you,” “may I,” or even “lovely to see you” had never been uttered by Lysandra within Aelin’s hearing.
They could have been friends as easily as enemies—both of them orphaned, both found by Arobynn as children. But Arobynn had handed Lysandra over to Clarisse, his good friend and a successful brothel madam. And though Aelin had been trained for killing fields and Lysandra for bedrooms, they’d somehow grown up rivals, clawing for Arobynn’s favor.
When Lysandra turned seventeen and had her Bidding, it was Arobynn who had won, using the money Aelin had given him to pay off her own debts. The courtesan had then thrown what Arobynn had done with Aelin’s blood money in her face.
So Aelin had thrown something back at her: a dagger. They hadn’t seen each other since.
Aelin figured she was perfectly justified in tugging back her hood to reveal her own face and saying, “It would take me less than a minute to kill you and your driver, and to make sure your little protégée in the carriage doesn’t say a peep about it. She’d probably be happy to see you dead.”
Lysandra stiffened. “She is not my protégée, and she is not in training.”
“So she’s to be used as a shield against me?” Aelin’s smile was razor-sharp.
“Please—please,” Lysandra said over the rain, “I need to talk to you, just for a few minutes, where it’s safe.”
Aelin took in the fine clothes, the hired cab, the rain splashing on the cobblestones. So typical of Arobynn to throw this at her. But she’d let him play this hand; see where it got her.
Aelin squeezed the bridge of her nose with two fingers, then lifted her head. “You know I have to kill your driver.”
“No, you don’t!” the man cried, scrambling to grab the reins. “I swear—swear I won’t breathe a word a
bout this place.”
Aelin stalked to the hansom cab, the rain instantly soaking her cloak. The driver could report the location of the warehouse, could endanger everything, but—
Aelin peered at the rain-flecked cab permit framed by the door, illuminated by the little lantern hanging above. “Well, Kellan Oppel of sixty-three Baker Street, apartment two, I suppose you won’t tell anyone.”
White as death, the driver nodded.
Aelin yanked open the carriage door, saying to the child within, “Get out. Both of you inside, now.”
“Evangeline can wait here,” Lysandra whispered.
Aelin looked over her shoulder, rain splattering her face as her lips pulled back from her teeth. “If you think for one moment that I’m leaving a child alone in a hired carriage in the slums, you can go right back to the cesspit you came from.” She peered into the carriage again and said to the cowering girl, “Come on, you. I won’t bite.”
That seemed to be enough assurance for Evangeline, who scooted closer, the lantern light gilding her tiny porcelain hand before she gripped Aelin’s arm to hop from the cab. No more than eleven, she was delicately built, her red-gold hair braided back to reveal citrine eyes that gobbled up the drenched street and women before her. As stunning as her mistress—or would have been, were it not for the deep, jagged scars on both cheeks. Scars that explained the hideous, branded-out tattoo on the inside of the girl’s wrist. She’d been one of Clarisse’s acolytes—until she’d been marred and lost all value.
Aelin winked at Evangeline and said with a conspirator’s grin as she led her through the rain, “You look like my sort of person.”
Aelin propped open the rest of the windows to let the rain-cooled river breeze into the stuffy apartment. Thankfully, no one had been on the street in the minutes they’d been outside, but if Lysandra was here, she had no doubt it would get back to Arobynn.
Aelin patted the armchair before the window, smiling at the brutally scarred little girl. “This is my favorite place to sit in the whole apartment when there’s a nice breeze coming through. If you want, I have a book or two that I think you’d like. Or”—she gestured to the kitchen to her right—“you might be able to find something delicious on the kitchen table— blueberry tart, I think.” Lysandra was stiff, but Aelin didn’t particularly give a damn as she added to Evangeline, “Your choice.”
As a child in a high-end brothel, Evangeline had probably had too few choices in her short life. Lysandra’s green eyes seemed to soften a bit, and Evangeline said, her voice barely audible above the patter of the rain on the roof and windows, “I would like a tart, please.” A moment later, she was gone. Smart girl—to know to stay out of her mistress’s way.