Crown of Midnight Read Online Free PDF Page B

missing him. Not the kissing and flirting, but just
him
.
    “What do you want, Dorian?”
    A glimmer of ire flashed across his face, and he stood. She had to tip her head back to look at him. “You said you still wanted to be friends with me.” His voice was low.
    She closed her eyes for a moment. “I meant it.”
    “So be my friend,” he said, his tone lifting. “Dine with me, play billiards with me. Tell me what books you’re reading—or buying,” he added with a wink in the direction of her parcels.
    “Oh?” she asked, forcing herself to give him a half smile. “And you have so much time on your hands these days that you can spend hours with me again?”
    “Well, I have my usual flock of ladies to attend to, but I can
always
make time for you.”
    She batted her eyelashes at him. “I’m truly honored.” Actually, the thought of Dorian with other women made her want to shatter a window, but it wouldn’t be fair to let him know that. She glanced at the clock on the small table beside a wall. “I actually need to go back into Rifthold right now,” she said. It wasn’t a lie. She still had a few hours of daylight left—enough time to survey Archer’s elegant townhouse and start trailing him to get a sense of his usual whereabouts.
    Dorian nodded, his smile fading.
    Silence fell, interrupted only by the ticking of the clock on the table. She crossed her arms, remembering how he’d smelled, how his lips had tasted. But this distance between them, this horrible gap that spread every day … it was for the best.
    Dorian took a step closer, exposing his palms to her. “Do you want me to fight for you? Is that it?”
    “No,” she said quietly. “I just want you to leave me alone.”
    His eyes flickered with the words left unsaid. Celaena stared at him, unmoving, until he silently left.
    Alone in the foyer, Celaena clenched and unclenched her fists, suddenly disgusted with all of the pretty packages on the table.

Chapter 5
    On a rooftop in a very fashionable and respectable part of Rifthold, Celaena crouched in the shadow of a chimney and frowned into the chill wind gusting off the Avery. She checked her pocket watch for the third time. Archer Finn’s previous two appointments had only been an hour each. He’d been in the house across the street for almost two.
    There was nothing interesting about the elegant, green-roofed townhouse, and she hadn’t learned anything about who lived there, other than the client’s name—some Lady Balanchine. She had used the same trick she’d employed at the other two houses to gain that bit of information: she pretended to be a courier with a package for Lord So-and-So. And when the butler or housekeeper said that this was
not
Lord So-and-So’s house, she’d feigned embarrassment, asked whose house it was, chatted up the servant a bit, and then went on her way.
    Celaena adjusted the position of her legs and rolled her neck. The sun had nearly set, the temperature dropping with each passing minute.Unless she could get into the houses themselves, she wasn’t going to learn much else. And given the likelihood that Archer might actually be doing what he was paid to do, she was in no rush to go inside. Better to learn where he went, who he saw, and then take the next step.
    It had been so long since she’d done something like this in Rifthold—since she’d crouched on the emerald rooftops and learned what she could about her prey. It was different than when the king had sent her off to Bellhaven or to some lord’s estate. Here, now, in Rifthold, it felt like …
    It felt like she’d never left. As if she might look over her shoulder and find Sam Cortland crouching behind her. As if she might return at the end of the night not to the glass castle, but to the Assassins’ Keep on the other side of the city.
    Celaena sighed, tucking her hands under her arms to keep her fingers warm and agile.
    It had been over a year and a half since the night she’d lost her