At the end of the street, Celaena and Sam watched him as they pretended to be washing dung off their boots at a public spigot.
“It seems fitting that Jayne owns the Vaults,” Sam said quietly over the gushing water.
Celaena gave him a glare—or she would have, if the hood hadn’t been in the way. “Why do you think I got so mad about you fighting there? If you ever got into any trouble with the people at the Vaults, ever pissed them off, you’re significant enough that Farran himself would come to punish you.”
Sam snorted. “I can handle Farran.”
She rolled her eyes. “I didn’t expect him actually to make a visit, though. Seems too dirty here, even for him.”
“Should we take a look?” The street was quiet. The Vaults came alive at night, but during the day, there wasn’t anyone in the alley except for a few stumbling drunks and the half-dozen guards always posted outside.
It was a risk, she supposed—going into the Vaults after Farran—but … If Farran truly rivaled her for notoriety, it would be interesting to get a sense of what he was really like before Sam ended his life tomorrow night. “Let’s go,” she said.
They flashed silver at the guards outside, then tossed it to the guards inside, and they were in. The thugs asked no questions, and didn’t demand they remove their weapons or their hoods. Their usual clientele wanted discretion while partaking in the twisted delights of the Vaults.
From the top of the stairs just inside the front door, Celaena instantly spotted Farran sitting at one of the scarred and burned wooden tables in the center of the room, talking to a man she recognized as Helmson, the master of ceremonies during the fights. A small lunchtime crowd had gathered at the other tables, though they’d all cleared a ring around Farran. At the back of the chamber, the pits were dark and quiet, slaves working to scrape off the blood and gore before the night’s revelries.
Celaena tried not to look too long at the shackles and broken posture of the slaves. It was impossible to tell where they’d come from—if they’d begun as prisoners of war or had just been stolen from their kingdoms. She wondered if it was better to wind up as a slave here, or a prisoner in a brutal labor camp like Endovier. Both seemed like similar versions of a living hell.
Compared to the teeming crowds the other night, the Vaults were practically deserted today. Even the prostitutes in the exposed chambers flanking the sides of the cavernous space were resting while they could. Many of the girls slept in tangled heaps on the narrow cots, barely hidden from view by the shabby curtains designed to give the illusion of privacy.
She wanted to burn this place into nothing but ashes. And then let everyone know that this wasn’t the sort of thing Adarlan’s Assassin stood for. Perhaps after they’d taken out Farran and Jayne, she’d do just that. One final bit of glory and retribution from Celaena Sardothien—one last chance to make them remember her forever before she left.
Sam kept close to her as they reached the bottom of the stairs and strode to the bar tucked into the shadows beneath. A wisp of a man stood behind it, pretending to wipe down the wooden surface while his watery blue eyes stayed fixed on Farran.
“Two ales,” Sam growled. Celaena thumped a silver coin down on the bar, and the barkeep’s attention snapped to them. She was grossly overpaying, but the barkeep’s slender, scabbed hands vanished the silver in the blink of an eye.
There were enough people still inside the Vaults that Celaena and Sam could blend in— mostly drunks who never left the premises and people who seemed to enjoy this sort of wretched environment while eating their lunch. Celaena and Sam pretended to drink their ales—sloshing the alcohol on the ground when no one was looking—and watched Farran.
There was a locked wooden chest resting on the table beside Farran and the squat master of ceremonies—a chest that Celaena had no doubt was full of the Vaults’ earnings from the night before. Farran’s attention was fixed with feline intensity on Helmson, the chest seemingly forgotten. It was practically an invitation.
“How mad do you think he’d be if I stole that chest?” Celaena pondered.
“Don’t even entertain the idea.”
She clicked her tongue. “Spoilsport.”
Whatever Farran and Helmson were discussing, it was over quickly. But instead of going back up the stairs, Farran walked over to the warren of girls. He walked past every little alcove and stone chamber, and the girls all straightened. Sleeping ones were hastily awakened, any sign of sleep vanished by the time Farran stalked past. He looked them over, inspecting, making comments to the man who hovered behind him. Helmson nodded and bowed and snapped orders at the girls.
Even from across the room, the terror on the girls’ faces was evident.
Both Celaena and Sam struggled to keep from going rigid. Farran crossed the large chamber and inspected the dens on the other side. By that time, the girls there were waiting. When Farran had finished, he looked over his shoulder and nodded to Helmson.
Helmson sagged with what could only be relief, but then paled and quickly found somewhere else to be as Farran snapped his fingers at one of the sentries near a small door. Immediately, the door opened and a shackled, dirty, muscular man was dragged out by another sentry. The prisoner looked half dead already, but the moment he saw Farran, he started begging, thrashing against the sentry’s grip.
It was hard to hear, but Celaena discerned enough from the man’s frantic pleading to get the gist of it: he was a fighter in the Vaults, owed Jayne more money than he could ever repay, and had tried to cheat his way out of it.
Although the prisoner promised to repay Jayne with interest, Farran just smiled, letting the man babble until at last he paused for a shuddering breath. Then Farran jerked his chin toward a door half-hidden behind a ragged curtain, and his smile grew as the sentry dragged the still-pleading man toward it. As the door opened, Celaena caught a glimpse of a stairwell that swept downward.
Without so much as a look in the direction of the patrons discreetly watching from their tables, Farran led the sentry and his prisoner inside and shut the door. Whatever was about to happen was Jayne’s version of justice.
Sure enough, five minutes later, a scream pierced through the Vaults.
It was more animal than human. She’d heard screams like that before—had seen enough torture at the Keep to know that when people screamed like that, it meant that the pain was just beginning. By the end, when that sort of pain happened, the victims had usually blown out their vocal cords and could only emit hoarse, shattered shrieks.
Celaena gritted her teeth so hard her jaw hurt. The barkeep gave a sharp wave to the minstrels in the corner, and they immediately started up a song to cover the noise. But screams still echoed up from beneath the stone floor. She knew enough about Farran to know he wouldn’t kill the man right away. No, his pleasure came from the pain itself.
“It’s time to leave,” Celaena said, noting how tightly Sam gripped his mug.
“We can’t just—”
“We can,” she said sharply. “Believe me, I’d like to burst in there, too. But this place is designed like a death trap, and I’ve no desire to make my final stand here, or right now.” Sam was still staring at the stairwell door. “When the time comes,” she added, putting a hand on his arm, “you’ll make sure he pays his debt.”
Sam turned to her, his face concealed within the shadows of the hood, but she could read the aggression in his body well enough. “He’ll pay his debt for all of this,” Sam snarled. And that’s when Celaena noticed that some of the girls were weeping, some shook, some just stared at nothing. Yes, Farran had visited before, had used that room to do Jayne’s dirty work—while reminding everyone else not to cross the Crime Lord. How many horrors had these girls witnessed—or at least heard?
The screams were still rising up from below when they left the Vaults.
She had intended to lead them home, but Sam insisted on going to the public park built along a well-off neighborhood beside the Avery River. After meandering along the neat gravel walkways, he slumped onto a bench facing the water. He pulled off his hood and rubbed his face with his broad hands.
“We’re not like that,” he whispered through his fingers.
Celaena stared down at him, then sank onto the wooden bench. She knew exactly what he meant. The same thought had been echoing through her head as they walked here. They had been taught how to kill and maim and torture—she knew how to skin a man and keep him alive while doing it. She knew how to keep someone awake and coherent during long hours of torment—knew where to inflict the most pain without having someone bleed out.
Arobynn had been so, so clever about it, too. He’d brought in the most despicable people—rapists, murderers, rogue assassins who had butchered innocents—and he’d made her read all of the information he’d gathered on them. Made her read about all of the awful things they’d done until she was so enraged she couldn’t think straight, until she was aching to make them suffer. He’d honed her anger into a lethal blade. And she’d let him.
Before Skull’s Bay, she’d done it all and had rarely questioned it. She’d pretended that she had some moral code, lied to herself and said that since she didn’t enjoy it, it meant that she had some excuse, but … she had still stood in that chamber beneath the Assassin’s Keep and seen the blood flow toward the drain in the sloped floor.
“We can’t be like that,” Sam said.
She took his hands, easing them away from his face. “We’re not like Farran. We know how to do it, but we don’t enjoy it. That’s the difference.”
His brown eyes were distant as he watched the gentle current of the Avery making its way toward the nearby sea. “When Arobynn ordered us to do things like that, we never said no.”
“We had no choice. But we do now.” Once they left Rifthold, they’d never have to make a choice like that again—they could create their own codes.
Sam looked at her, his expression so haunted and bleak it made her sick. “But there was always that part. That part that did enjoy it when it was someone who truly deserved it.”
“Yes,” she breathed. “Yes, there was always that part. But we still had a line, Sam—we still stayed on the other side of it. Lines don’t exist for someone like Farran.”
They weren’t like Farran—Sam wasn’t like Farran. She knew that in her bones. Sam would never be like Farran. He’d never be like her, either. She sometimes wondered if he knew just how dark she could turn.
Sam leaned against her, resting his head on her shoulder. “When we die, do you think we’ll be punished for the things we’ve done?”
She looked at the far bank of the river, where a row of ramshackle houses and docks had been built. “When we die,” she said, “I don’t think the gods will even know what to do with us.”
Sam glanced at her, a hint of amusement shining in his eyes.
Celaena smiled at him, and the world, for one flickering heartbeat, felt right.