Archer was waiting inside an exclusive dining room, frequented by the elite of Rifthold. Most of the tables were already occupied, the patrons’ fine clothes and jewels glimmering in the dim light.
As the servant at the front helped her out of her cloak, she made sure that she was angled away from Archer—so he could get an eyeful of the exquisite black lace that covered the open back (and mostly concealed her scars from Endovier). She felt the eyes of the servant on her, too, but pretended not to notice.
Archer let out a breath, and she turned to find him grinning, slowly shaking his head.
“I think ‘stunning,’ ‘beautiful,’ and ‘dazzling’ are the words you’re looking for,” she said. She took his arm as they were escorted to a table tucked into an alcove of the ornate room.
Archer ran a finger along the red velvet sleeve of her gown. “I’m glad to see your taste matured along with the rest of you. And with your arrogance, it seems.”
She would have smiled anyway, she told herself.
Once they were seated, had the menu recited to them, and ordered the wine, Celaena found herself staring into that exquisite face. “So,” she said, leaning back in her seat, “how many ladies want to kill me tonight for monopolizing your time?”
He gave a laugh like a tickle of breath. “If I told you, you’d be bolting back to the castle.”
“You’re still that popular?”
Archer waved a hand, taking a sip from his wine. “I still have my debts to Clarisse,” he said, naming the most influential and prosperous madam in the capital. “But … yes.” A twinkle gleamed in his eye. “And what of your surly friend? Should I watch my back tonight, too?”
This was all a dance, a prelude to what would come later. She winked at him. “He knows better than to try to keep me locked up.”
“Wyrd help the man who does. I still remember what a hellion you were.”
“And here I was thinking you found me charming.”
“In the way a mountain cat’s cub is charming, I suppose.”
She laughed and drank a small sip of her wine. She had to keep her head as clear as possible. When she set her glass on the table, she found Archer giving her that contemplative, sad look he’d given her yesterday. “Can I ask how you came to work for him?” She knew he meant the king—and also knew he was aware they weren’t the only people in the dining room. He would have made a good assassin.
Perhaps the king’s suspicions weren’t so far-fetched.
But she’d prepared for this question and countless others, so she gave him a wicked smile and said, “Turns out my skills are better suited to aiding the empire than they are to mining. Working for him and working for Arobynn are nearly the same.” That wasn’t a lie, actually.
Archer gave a slow, considering nod. “Our professions have always been similar, yours and mine. I can’t tell which is worse: training us for the bedroom, or the battlefield.”
If she recalled correctly, he’d been twelve when Clarisse had discovered him as an orphan running wild in the capital’s streets and invited him to train with her.
And when he turned seventeen and had the Bidding Party for his virginity, there had been rumors of actual brawls breaking out among would-be patronesses.
“I can’t tell, either. They’re equally horrible, I suppose.” She lifted her wine glass in a toast. “To our esteemed owners.”
His eyes lingered on her for a moment before he lifted his glass and murmured, “To us.” The sound of his voice was enough to make her skin heat, but the look in his eyes as he said it, the curve of that divine mouth … He was a weapon, too. A beautiful, deadly weapon.
He leaned over the edge of the table, pinning her to the spot with his stare. A challenge—and an intimate invitation.
Gods above and Wyrd save me.
She actually needed to take a long sip from her wine this time. “It’s going to take more than a few sultry glances to make me your willing slave, Archer. You should know better than to try the tricks of your trade on me.”
He let out a low, rumbling laugh that she felt in her core. “And I think you know well enough to realize when I’m not actually using them. If I were, then we would have left the restaurant already.”
“That’s a bold, bold claim. I don’t think you’d want to go head-to-head with me when it comes to tricks of the trade.”
“Oh, I want to do a lot of things with you.”
She’d never been so grateful to see a servant in her life, and never realized that a bowl of soup could be so immensely interesting.
Since she’d dismissed her carriage just to spite Chaol and back up her insinuation, Celaena wound up in Archer’s carriage after dinner. The meal itself had been pleasant enough—talk of old acquaintances, the theater, books, the miserable weather. All comfortable, safe topics, though he’d kept looking at her like she was his prey and this was one long hunt.
They sat beside each other on the bench of the carriage, close enough that she could smell whatever fine cologne he wore—an elegant, tantalizing blend that made her think of silk sheets and candlelight. So she turned her mind to what she was about to do.
The carriage rolled to a stop, and Celaena glanced out the small window to see a familiar, beautiful townhouse. Archer looked at her and gently twined her fingers with his before raising her hand to his lips. It was a soft, slow kiss that burned through her. He murmured onto her skin. “Do you want to come inside?”
She swallowed hard. “Don’t you want a night off?” This was not what she’d expected. And … and this was not what she wanted, flirting aside.
He lifted his head but still held her hand, his thumb caressing small circles into her flame-hot skin. “It’s immensely different when it’s my choice, you know.”
Someone else might have missed it, but she’d also grown up without choices, and recognized the glimmer of bitterness. She eased her hand out of his. “Do you hate your life?” Her words were barely more than a whisper.
He looked at her—truly looked at her, as though he somehow hadn’t seen her until just now. “Sometimes,” he said, and then his eyes shifted to the window behind her and the townhouse beyond it. “But someday,” he went on, “someday, I’ll have enough money to pay off Clarisse forever—to really be free—and live on my own.”
“You’d leave behind being a courtesan?”
He gave her a half smile that was more real than any expression she’d seen him give tonight. “By that point, I’ll either be rich enough that I won’t ever have to work, or old enough that no one will want to hire me.”
She had a flicker of memory from a time when, just for a moment, she’d been free; when the world had been wide open and she’d been about to enter it with Sam at her side. It was a freedom that she was still working for, because even though she’d tasted it only for a heartbeat, it had been the most exquisite heartbeat she’d ever experienced.
She took a steadying breath and looked him in the eye. It was time.
“The king sent me to kill you.”