Crown of Midnight (Throne of Glass #2)(77)

“So you thought kidnapping Chaol would make me trust you?”

“We kidnapped him because we thought he and the king were planning to hurt her. I needed you to come to that warehouse and hear from Westfall’s lips that he was aware there had been threats to her safety and he didn’t tell you; to realize that he is the enemy. If I’d known you would go so berserk, I never would have done it.”

She shook her head. “That list you sent me yesterday, of the men from the warehouse—they’re truly dead?”

“You killed them, yes.”

Guilt punched through her. “For my part, I am sorry.” And she was. She’d memorized their names, tried to recall their faces. She would carry the weight of their deaths forever. Even Grave’s death, what she’d done to him in that alley; she’d never forget that, either. “I gave their names to the king. It should keep him from looking in your direction for a little while longer—five days at most.”

Archer nodded, sinking back into the pillows.

“Nehemia really worked with you?”

“It was why she came to Rifthold—to see what could be done about organizing a force in the north. To give us information directly from the castle.” As Celaena had always suspected. “Her loss …” He closed his eyes. “We can’t replace her.”

Celaena swallowed.

“But you could,” Archer said, looking at her again. “I know you came from Terrasen. So part of you has to realize that Terrasen must be free.”

You are nothing more than a coward.

She kept her face blank.

“Be our eyes and ears in the castle,” Archer whispered. “Help us. Help us, and we can find a way to save everyone—to save you. We don’t know what the king plans to do, only that he somehow found a source of power outside magic, and that he’s probably using that power to create monstrosities of his own. But to what end, we don’t know. That’s what Nehemia was trying to discover—and it’s knowledge that could save us all.”

She would digest all that later—much later. For now, she stared at Archer, then looked down at her blood-stiffened clothing. “I found the man who killed Nehemia.”

Archer’s eyes widened. “And?”

She turned to walk out of the room. “And the debt has been paid. Minister Mullison hired him to get rid of a thorn in his side—because she put him down one too many times in council meetings. The minister is now in the dungeons, awaiting his trial.”

And she would be there for every minute of that trial, and the execution afterward.

Archer loosed a sigh as she put her hand on the doorknob.

She looked over her shoulder at him, at the fear and sadness on his face. “You took an arrow for me,” she said quietly, gazing at the bandages.

“It was the least I could do after I caused that whole mess.”

She chewed on her lip and opened the door. “We have five days until the king expects you to be dead. Prepare yourself and your allies.”

“But—”

“But nothing,” she interrupted. “Consider yourself fortunate that I’m not going to rip out your throat for the stunt you pulled. Arrow or no arrow, and regardless of my relationship with Chaol, you lied to me. And kidnapped my friend. If it hadn’t been for that—for you—I would have been at the castle that night.” She fixed him with a stare. “I’m done with you. I don’t want your information, I’m not going to give you information, and I don’t particularly care what happens to you once you leave this city, as long as I never see you again.”

She took a step into the hallway.

“Celaena?”

She looked over her shoulder.

“I am sorry. I know how much you meant to her—and she to you.”

The weight she’d been avoiding since she’d gone to hunt Grave suddenly fell on her, and her shoulders drooped. She was so tired. Now that Grave was dead, now that Minister Mullison was in the dungeon, now that she had no one left to maim and punish—she was so, so tired.

“Five days; I’ll be back in five days. If you aren’t prepared to leave Rifthold, then I won’t bother faking your death. I’ll kill you before you know I’m in the room.”

Chaol kept his face blank and his shoulders thrown back as his father surveyed him. The small breakfast room in his father’s suite was sunny and silent; pleasant, even, but Chaol remained in the doorway as he looked at his father for the first time in ten years.

The Lord of Anielle looked mostly the same, his hair a bit grayer, but his face still ruggedly handsome, far too similar to Chaol’s for his own liking.

“The breakfast is growing cold,” his father said, waving a broad hand to the table and the empty chair across from him. His first words.

Chaol clenched his jaw so hard it hurt as he walked across the bright room and slid into the chair. His father poured himself a glass of juice and said without looking at him, “At least you fill out your uniform. Thanks to your mother’s blood, your brother is all gangly limbs and awkward angles.”

Chaol bristled at the way his father spat “your mother’s blood,” but made himself pour a cup of tea, then butter a slice of bread.

“Are you just going to keep quiet, or are you going to say something?”