Queen of Shadows (Throne of Glass #4)(119)

“Start talking now,” she hissed.

Tern braced his feet apart. “Not unless you do the same.”

Aedion let out a low growl as the three assassins looked over her companions. “Never mind the guard dogs,” she snapped, drawing their attention back to her. “Explain yourselves.”

There was a muffled sob from the sitting room behind the men, and she flicked her eyes over Mullin’s towering shoulder. “Why are those two pieces of whoring trash in this house?”

Tern glowered. “Because Lysandra was the one who woke up screaming next to his body.”

Her fingers curled into claws. “Was she, now?” she murmured, such wrath in her eyes that even Tern stepped aside as she stalked into the sitting room.

Lysandra was slumped in an armchair, a handkerchief pressed to her face. Clarisse, her madam, stood behind the chair, her face pale and tight.

Blood stained Lysandra’s skin and matted her hair, and patches had soaked through the thin silk robe that did little to hide her nakedness.

Lysandra jerked upright, her eyes red and face splotchy. “I didn’t—I swear I didn’t—”

A spectacular performance. “Why the hell should I believe you?” Aelin drawled. “You’re the only one with access to his room.”

Clarisse, golden-haired and aging gracefully for a woman in her forties, clicked her tongue. “Lysandra would never harm Arobynn. Why would she, when he was doing so much to pay off her debts?”

Aelin cocked her head at the madam. “Did I ask for your gods-damned opinion, Clarisse?”

Poised for violence, Rowan and Aedion kept silent, though she could have sworn a hint of shock flashed in their shadowed eyes. Good. Aelin flicked her attention to the assassins. “Show me where you found him. Now.”

Tern gave her a long look, considering her every word. A valiant effort, she thought, to try to catch me in knowing more than I should. The assassin pointed to the sweeping stairs visible through the open sitting room doors. “In his room. We moved his body downstairs.”

“You moved it before I could study the scene myself?”

It was tall, quiet Harding who said, “You were told only as a courtesy.”

And to see if I’d done it.

She stalked from the sitting room, pointing a finger behind her at Lysandra and Clarisse. “If either of them tries to run,” she said to Aedion, “gut them.”

Aedion’s grin shone from beneath his hood, his hands hovering within casual reach of his fighting knives.

Arobynn’s bedroom was a bloodbath. And there was nothing feigned as she paused on the threshold, blinking at the blood-drenched bed and the blood pooled on the floor.

What the hell had Lysandra done to him?

She clenched her hands against their trembling, aware that the three assassins at her back could see it. They were monitoring her every breath and blink and swallow. “How?”

Mullin grunted. “Someone sliced his throat open and let him choke to death on his own blood.”

Her stomach turned—honestly turned. Lysandra, it seemed, hadn’t been content to let him go quickly. “There,” she said, and her throat closed. She tried again. “There’s a footprint in the blood.”

“Boots,” Tern said at her side. “Big—probably male.” He gave Aelin’s slender feet a pointed look. Then he studied Rowan’s feet where the prince loomed behind her, even though he’d probably already examined them. The little shit. Of course, the footprints Chaol had deliberately left were made with boots different from what any of them wore.

“The lock shows no sign of tampering,” she said, touching the door. “Does the window?”

“Go check,” Tern said.

She would have to walk through Arobynn’s blood to reach it. “Just tell me,” she said quietly. Wearily.

“Lock’s broken from the outside,” Harding said, and Tern shot him a glare.

She stepped back into the cool darkness of the hall. Rowan silently kept his distance, his Fae heritage still undetected beneath that hood—and it would remain that way so long as he didn’t open his mouth to reveal his elongated canines. Aelin said, “No one reported signs of anything being amiss?”

Tern shrugged. “There was a storm. The murderer probably waited until then to kill him.” He gave her another long look, wicked violence dancing in his dark eyes.

“Why don’t you just say it, Tern? Why don’t you ask me where I was last night?”

“We know where you were,” Harding said, coming to tower over Tern. There was nothing kind on his long, bland face. “Our eyes saw you at home all night. You were on the roof of your house, and then you went to bed.”

Exactly as she’d planned.

“Are you telling me that detail because you’d like me to hunt down your little eyes and blind them?” Aelin replied sweetly. “Because after I sort out this mess, that’s exactly what I plan to do.”

Mullin sighed sharply through his nose and glared at Harding, but said nothing. He was always a man of few words—perfect for dirty work.

“You don’t touch our men, and we won’t touch yours,” Tern said.

“I don’t make bargains with piece-of-shit, second-rate assassins,” she chirped, and gave him a nasty smile as she swept down the hall, past her old room, and down the stairs, Rowan a step behind.