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Aelin braced her forear one ankle over the other “Hello, Tern” Arobynn’s second in co little prick who had always been ured it was only a s sniffed me out”

Tern leaned against the bar, flashing her a too-bright smile “If memory serves, you were always his favorite bitch”

She chuckled, facing hiht— and with his sli into even theTern, kept well away

Tern inclined his head over a shoulder, gesturing to the shadowy back of the cavernous space “Last banquette against the wall He’s finishing up with a client”

She flicked her gaze in the direction Tern indicated Both sides of the Vaults were lined with alcoves tee hores, barely curtained off froaunt-faced, hollow-eyed wo shit-hole, over the people who uards and voyeurs and fleshers But there, tucked into the wall adjacent to the alcoves, were several wooden booths

Exactly the ones she’d been discreetlysince her arrival

And in the one farthest froleam of polished leather boots stretched out beneath the table A second pair of boots, worn and muddy, were braced on the floor across from the first, as if the client were ready to bolt Or, if he were truly stupid, to fight

He was certainly stupid enough to have let his personal guard stay visible, a beacon alerting anyone who cared to notice that so in that last booth

The client’s guard—a slender, hooded young woainst a wooden pillar nearby, her silky, shoulder-length dark hair shining in the light as she carefully monitored the pleasure hall Too stiff to be a casual patron No uniforiven the client’s need for secrecy

The client probably thought it was safer to s were usually held at the Assassins’ Keep or one of the shadowy inns owned by Arobynn himself He had no idea that Arobynn was also a major investor in the Vaults, and it would take only a nod from Aelin’s former uard to never walk out again

It still left the question of why Arobynn had agreed to meet here

And still left Aelin looking across the hall toward the man who had shattered her life in so many ways

Her stohtened, but she smiled at Tern “I knew the leash wouldn’t stretch far”

Aelin pushed off the bar, slipping through the crowd before the assassin could say anything else She could feel Tern’s stare fixed right between her shoulder blades, and kneas aching to plunge his cutlass there

Without bothering to glance back, she gave hiesture over her shoulder

His barked string of curses was far better than the bawdyplayed across the room

She noted each face she passed, each table of revelers and criuard noatched her, a gloved hand slipping to the ordinary sword at her side

Not your concern, but nice try

Aelin was half teht have done so, actually, if she wasn’t focused on the King of the Assassins On aited for her in that booth

But she was ready—or as ready as she could ever be She’d spent long enough planning

Aelin had given herself a day at sea to rest and toher to the Fae Prince—and him to her—his absence was like a phantom limb She still felt that way, even when she had soher carranam was useless and he’d no doubt kick her ass for it

The second day they’d been apart, she’d offered the ship’s captain a silver coin for a pen and a stack of paper And after locking herself in her cra

There were twoher life and the people she’d loved She would not leave Rifthold until she’d buried them both

So she’d written page after page of notes and ideas, until she had a list of naets She’d memorized every step and calculation, and then she?

?d burned the pages with the power s sure every last scrap was nothingout the portholeand across the vast, night-darkened ocean

Though she had braced herself, it had still been a shock weeks later when the ship had passed soic vanished All that fire she’d spent so one as if it had never existed, not even an e in her veins A new sort of emptiness—different from the hole Rowan’s absence left in her

Stranded in her human skin, she’d curled up on her cot and recalled how to breathe, how to think, how to race she’d becoifts becoain ripped from her Rowan definitely would have kicked her ass for that—once he’d recovered hilad she’d asked him to stay behind

So she had breathed in the brine and the wood, and reminded herself that she’d been trained to kill with her bare hands long before she’d ever learned to th, speed, and agility of her Fae for down her enemies

The —the man who had been savior and tormentor, but never declared himself father or brother or lover—was now steps away, still speaking with his oh-so-important client

Aelin pushed against the tension threatening to lock up her limbs and kept her movements feline-smooth as she closed the final twenty feet between them

Until Arobynn’s client rose to his feet, snapping souard

Even with the hood, she knew the way hefrom the shadows of the cowl, the way his left hand tended to brush against his scabbard

But the sith the eagle-shaped po at his side

And there was no black uniform—only brown, nondescript clothes, spotted with dirt and blood

She grabbed an empty chair and pulled it up to a table of card players before the client had taken two steps She slid into the seat and focused on breathing, on listening, even as the three people at the table frowned at her