Queen of Shadows (Throne of Glass #4)(43)

Florine sniffed, and her gaze lingered on the thin bands of scars across Aelin’s wrists that even the painted whorls couldn’t conceal. They’d raised the top of the dancers’ open-backed costumes, but even so, and even with the body paint, the upper ends of her tattoo-covered scars peeked through.

“If you think I had anything to do with the events that led up to that—”

Aelin’s words were barely louder than the crunch of silk shoes on gravel as she said, “You’d already be dead if you had.” It wasn’t a bluff. When she’d written her plans on that ship, Florine’s name had been one that she’d written down—and then crossed out, after careful consideration.

Aelin continued, “I trust you made the proper adjustments?” Not just the slight change in the costumes to accommodate the weapons and supplies Aelin would need to smuggle in—all paid for by Arobynn, of course. No, the big surprises would come later.

“A bit late to be asking that, isn’t it?” Madam Florine purred, the dark jewels at her neck and ears glimmering. “You must trust me a great deal to have even appeared.”

“I trust that you like getting paid more than you like the king.” Arobynn had given a massive sum to pay off Florine. She kept an eye on the guards as she said, “And since the Royal Theater was shut down by His Imperial Majesty, I trust we both agree that what was done to those musicians was a crime as unforgivable as the massacres of the slaves in Endovier and Calaculla.”

She knew she’d gambled correctly when she saw agony flicker in Florine’s eyes.

“Pytor was my friend,” Florine whispered, the color leeching from her tan cheeks. “There was no finer conductor, no greater ear. He made my career. He helped me establish all this.” She waved a hand to encompass the dancers, the castle, the prestige she’d acquired. “I miss him.”

There was nothing calculated, nothing cold, when Aelin put a hand over her own heart. “I will miss going to hear him conduct the Stygian Suite every autumn. I will spend the rest of my life knowing that I may never again hear finer music, never again experience a shred of what I felt sitting in that theater while he conducted.”

Madam Florine wrapped her arms around herself. Despite the guards ahead, despite the task that neared with every tick of the clock, it took Aelin a moment to be able to speak again.

But that hadn’t been what made Aelin agree to Arobynn’s plan—to trust Florine.

Two years ago, finally free of Arobynn’s leash but nearly beggared thanks to paying her debts, Aelin had continued to take lessons with Florine not only to keep current with the popular dances for her work but also to keep flexible and fit. Florine had refused to take her money.

Moreover, after each lesson Florine had allowed Aelin to sit at the pianoforte by the window and play until her fingers were sore, since she had been forced to leave her beloved instrument at the Assassins’ Keep. Florine had never mentioned it, never made her feel like it was charity. But it had been a kindness when Aelin had desperately needed one.

Aelin said under her breath, “You’ve memorized the preparations for you and your girls?”

“Those who wish to flee may come on the ship Arobynn hired. I have made space for all, just in case. If they’re stupid enough to stay in Rifthold, then they deserve their fate.”

Aelin hadn’t risked being seen meeting with Florine until now, and Florine hadn’t even dared to pack her belongings for fear of being discovered. She would take only what she could carry with her to the performance—money, jewels—and flee to the docks the moment chaos erupted. There was a good chance she wouldn’t make it out of the palace—and neither would her girls, despite the escape plans provided by Chaol and Brullo and the cooperation of the kinder guards.

Aelin found herself saying, “Thank you.”

Florine’s mouth quirked to the side. “Now there’s something you never learned from your master.”

The dancers at the front of the line reached the guards, and Florine sighed loudly and strutted toward them, bracing her hands on her narrow hips, power and grace lining every step closer to the black-uniformed guard studying a long list.

One by one, he looked over the dancers, comparing them with the list he bore. Checking rosters—detailed ones.

But thanks to Ress having broken into the barracks last night and adding a fake name along with her description, Aelin would be on the list.

They inched closer, Aelin keeping toward the back of the group to buy time to note details.

Gods, this castle—the same in every possible way, but different. Or maybe it was she who was different.

One by one the dancers were allowed between the blank-faced guards and hurried down the narrow castle hallway, giggling and whispering to one another.

Aelin rose up onto her toes to study the guards at the doors, no more than the novice scrunching her face in impatient curiosity.

Then she saw them.

Written across the threshold stones in dark paint were Wyrdmarks. They’d been beautifully rendered, as though merely decorative, but—

They must be at every door, every entrance.

Sure enough, even the windows a level up had small, dark symbols on them, no doubt keyed to Aelin Galathynius, to alert the king to her presence or to trap her in place long enough to be captured.

A dancer elbowed Aelin in the stomach to get her to stop leaning on her shoulder to peer over their heads. Aelin gaped at the girl—and then let out an oomph of pain.