My hands hurt a lot and I'm still bringing you these updates. Because I'm a dummy.
Chapter 22
Prince Fizzbitch is in the library, looking through his genealogy to see if anyone else had magic. He's worried that his brother, Joffrey-lite, might have magic too. Fizzbitch is afraid Evil King Papa will kill them both if he discovers the magic.
He thinks about the Fae that had left the continent when EKP went on his reign of terror. Apparently the human citizens were so afraid of them and magically inclined mortals that they were a large part of how EKP managed to purge the continent of magic.
He also looks at his mother's line, and apparently they intermarried with the royal line a lot (GROSS! INBREEDING! But entirely unsurprising, considering how much that happened in the real world). He can't find anyone that wielded magic for centuries.
Fizzbitch, this might come as a shock to you, but your father purged the entire continent of magic. It's not unlikely that he changed the genealogical records. There's nothing stating that the books he's reading are old and weathered or anything.
Either that or he's just a super crazy rare throwback, considering he's descended from Gavin, Elena's hubby. We get some info dumping on Gavin and Elena and it's boring. Essentially, Elena's half-fae blood is the only fae blood that entered the Havilliard family supposedly.
He then picks up a book that's based on the Galathynius line (aka Aelin Galathynius' line, aka Cel's super secret identity) and it's super magical.
I just wrote five paragraphs and a sentence about this BS
Anyway, everyone was afraid of Terrasen maybe trying to overthrow everyone with their mad powers, but they didn't because they're so perfect and special and peacemaking.
Apparently Prince Fizzbitch met Aelin Galathynius. And she was "precocious and wild". Her cousin, Aedion, ended up working for Evil King Papa and he hates Fizzbitch.
It's Nacho's birthday, and Fizzbitch knows that Cel is taking him off to do something and Prince Fizzbitch isn't invited. Awww.
As he's being all jealous, the library turns freezing.
OH MY GOD YOU GUYS. I CAN'T BELIEVE THIS
He could let go. He had let go. He'd let go. Let go. Let-
HE'S SAYING "LET GO" AS HE'S MAKING THE LIBRARY FREEZING COLD.
I JUST.
I CAN'T EVEN FREAKING TELL YOU HOW AMUSED I AM BY THIS.
I think Fizzbitch would look lovely in Elsa's Ice Dress!
THIS IS THE GREATEST THING TO HAPPEN TO THIS NOVEL! I'm not even mad! (Crown of Midnight was written and released before Frozen opened in theaters).
Anyway, Fizzbitch's magic makes the books fly off the shelves. They start pelting him and I'm giggling at the image of Prince Fizzbitch in the ice dress dodging books. Fizzbitch frantically tries to put the books back.
Fizzbitch runs out of the library in a major league freak out. He decides to visit Baba Blacksheep because she didn't recognize him as the prince (and he decides that no one will ever clue her in?!) so he goes to visit her.
But before that, we switch to Cel. She's worrying about dinner with Nacho.
A dinner she'd spent weeks arranging whenever she had a spare moment while spying on those men in Rifthold. A dinner at which she'd be alone. With Chaol.
First of all, how does it take weeks to plan a dinner if you're not Ted Mosby? Second of all, I want to know about her spying, not her dumb relationship drama. Third of all, I peeked ahead and they're not alone, they have servants waiting on them. LIAR.
She meets Nacho and they head out to a carriage.
She'd threatened to flay the driver and footmen alive if they were late.
Holy shitsnacks. You're the known Champion of Adarlan. That is the most dickish thing you could say to someone unless it's obviously a joke and they know it. It's a goddamn birthday dinner, not a secret meeting that holds the fate of the world in it's success and timeliness.
They end up at an old apothecary, and they go in and up the stairs. The roof of the building is actually a working greenhouse. She'd transformed it to look like the garden from the song the woman who was executed sang.
We get absolutely no description. God, she can describe her clothes in detail but we can't get this? BTW I skip almost all of the clothes descriptions because I don't care. Servants pull out chairs for them as they sit at the table. Though their sudden appearance spooks Nacho.
She'd managed to hire the cook from the Willows for the night--for a fee that had made her consider punching the woman's throat.
It's bitches like Cel that make my job in the Food Service Industry THE WORST (that's a lie, I really do love my job). But like, OMG ENTITLED DICKS LIKE CEL MAKE MY JOB SO MUCH HARDER I CAN'T BELIEVE THIS BULLSHIT.
She LITERALLY states that the servants spent all day preparing the food, and implying that the cook was too. DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH AN EXTREMELY RENOWNED CHEF COSTS PER HOUR? A whole hell of a lot. The Willows is ridiculously exclusive, remember. So the chef would take a day off of their job, presumably, where she makes a shit ton of money to do this private event for some dick like Cel. She's going to ask for more than she makes at the Willows for her time and effort.
I can't believe this book managed to piss me off about cooking. God.
ANYWAY.
Nacho thanks her for everything and thinks it's the greatest gift he's had in a while. I mean, the super expensive fancy horse isn't even close to a rooftop dinner I guess, but Nacho doesn't want to sleep with the horse.
I'm just getting weird now. I apologize.
After they have some banter and eat, they're hanging out on the balcony. There's literally a mention of a "blanket of snow" yet Nacho says spring is in the air.
Actual footage of Cel and Nacho
Cel thinks about poor little Nacho and how everyone treated him just so badly.
I'm still confused as to why his parents (who weren't like, super high nobility) were so upset that he's Captain of the Guard. That's a very prestigious position. Maybe because they knew he would be shit at it?
Anyway, Cel thinks about how awesomely noble and freaking awesome Nacho is and it's very overwrought. I don't know, he's been a dick this entire book so I'm not feeling it.
Cel then confesses to Nacho that she hasn't been assassinating anybody. She admits to herself that she's putting him in extreme danger by telling him (and by doing it). Wow. Cel really can't keep a secret. How the hell does she not think about her royal lineage (and that is real, I wasn't joking earlier about her being Aelin Galathynius, but you can find that out by reading the summary of the latest released book in this series)?
Nacho turns pale and tells her she's mad.
She really needs to tell everyone this, doesn't she?
For being an assassin, it's really important to Cel to be totally morally upright. And then she wants to kill and hurt people for being late and cooking for her.
Chapter 23
Nacho is torn between thinking she's stupid and awesome for not killing people. He chastises her for it. They argue over it, and it's hard to pick a side. I wanna side with Nacho because she is being really dumb, as well as the fact that I signed up to read about an ASSASSIN not whatever Cel is. But I'm also wanting to side with Cel because this whole plotline could totally work with coherent writing.
They also argue over whether or not the targets were traitors or not.
Part of the reason Nacho is so freaked out is that he'd be the one to kill Cel. Or so he thinks (considering I"m pretty sure Evil King Papa would kill him first just to twist the knife).
Cel then argues, saying Archer has been giving her real information on the secret movement against EKP. She then reveals that she wants to use that information to renegotiate her contract with Evil King Papa because she is fucking stupid. No, seriously, why does she think this will work?! She thinks she'll be far away before he realizes what she's been doing.
If he doesn't KNOW ALREADY. I mean, he would if this book were at all realistic considering he should have a spy network.
They then talk about where Cel would go if she did get to be free and Nacho freaks out some more because she'd go faaaaar away and marry someone else.
He then offers to run away with her. Then he tells her he doesn't like his job anymore. They wax sentimental and dumb and I just hate these two so much that I don't care.
He finally kisses her.
The kiss obliterated her.
I'm not even sharing the rest of the emotions because they're so dumb.
And then there was the ride home, where he did things to her neck and ear that made her forget her own name.
The sex is fade to black, thank CHRIST.
Cel woke as dawn poured into her room.
Words mean things, and this gave me a really weird mental image, especially after she's had sex.
Nacho asks how she's feeling.
Like she was everywhere and nowhere all at once. Like she'd somehow been half-blind all her life and could now see everything clearly.
BTW, she was saying shit like this after Nacho kissed her. It's really fucking old.
Apparently he tenses when she says "tired". Dude, you guys just banged. Why are you so freaked out that she's tired? But he relaxes when she says she's also happy.
Also contraception tonics exist in this world and Hooo boy I'm grateful. I don't want to see Cel with a kid. She'd probably punt the poor thing during teething because of her anger issues.
They talk about what would happen if people found out they were knocking boots. They're not sure exactly what Evil King Papa would do, so they decide to keep things very quiet.
"Honestly, I'm surprised you're not strutting about, boasting to everyone. I certainly would be if I'd tumbled me."
They also decide not to say anything to Prince Fizzbitch, even though he'll probably figure things out soon enough. Cel reassures Nacho that she hasn't had feelings for him in a long time.
Nacho admits he wanted to sleep with her since Christmahannakwanzika (or maybe earlier). Cel refuses to tell him, though she thinks that it might have "always" been him even before they met.
I wonder what her dead boyfriend thinks about that.
The grin Chaol gave her was hungry and wicked enough that she shrieked when he yanked her under the blankets.
