Perfect Saturday.
Chapter Four
We get a Nacho POV, and he and Cel are running through the game park. It's winter by the way, so a lot more time has passed than I thought. It was just after Christmahannakwanzika at the end of the last book, and now it's freezing and snowy again. Either that or this is the longest winter ever and the "months" that have passed by are fewer than I thought.
They banter. Big shock. Nacho thinks about how much he hates it when Cel goes off on missions. BTW he's still wangsty over killing Cain.
He asks Cel how often she thinks about her murders. She gets all super offended and defensive, but then realizes he's still wangsty about Cain. And she's all "aww poor bb".
He was Captain of the Guard--he was bound to have killed someone at some point. He'd already seen and done enough in the name of the king; he'd fought men, hurt them.It's awkward when the book critiques itself for me.
Cel says she thinks about all the people she killed and won't forget them. She then tries to tell him that killing Cain was more honorable than what she did. Which is true. BTW It's obvious that Nacho has the total hots for Cel because when she just looks at him his heart starts pounding.
Actual footage of Nacho
Nacho is worried because he's afraid that, given a choice between Evil King Papa and Celery Stick, he'd choose the vegetable. Also he knows that Fizzbitch still has the hots for her too. So he's like "screw this" and tries to not have the hots for Cel.
They go back towards the palace. It's super cold outside. We're back in Cel's POV. There are several ladies in the gardens and it's obvious they're all there to make googly eyes at Nacho after his run and to see his shirt clinging to his torso. Of course this pisses Cel off because how dare girls find men attractive, amirite? Either that or she's just jealous that they're looking at her man.
It takes almost a whole page for this to be explained and for Cel to bitch about it. Nacho is either oblivious or pretending to be.
Celaena decides to go into the city to spy on Archer.
Why couldn't I have watched Archer when I read the first book.
They bump into Prince Fizzbitch. He's walking with a blonde youth. For some reason Fizzbitch is "watching" her with a "half smile" and she feels like smacking him. Please do, I'd love to see that.
Apparently Cel is still going by her alias, Lillian, when they ran into other members of the court. So what was her strolling through the castle with a bag with a head in it wearing a cloak that covered part of her face? Were the other nobles like "Lol Lady Lillian's cosplaying again"?!
Roland asks what she does (Fizzbitch had mentioned she worked for his father), and Cel straight up tell shim that she "buries the king's opponents".
He realizes she's the King's Champion. So... is the fact that she's the King's Champion a secret or not? Or is it just her real identity as Adarlan's Assassin the secret? I have no idea what's going on.
Nacho asks Rolaids what he's doing at the castle. Apparently he's on the council. Wait, isn't he a "youth"? Why is some teenage kid on the council? I mean, Fizzbitch is what, 19 or 20? So how old is Rolaids that he's considered a "youth" (obviously younger). WHY.
Nacho is giving him a look, and Cel thinks she'd be running away if she ever saw that expression turned towards her (lol assassin).
Roland studied Celaena further, a tad too intently. "Perhaps you and I shall get to work with each other, Lillian. Your position intrigues me."
Did he just proposition her.
Cel thinks how her definition of working with him would be killing him. Ah. We're back to her randomly wanting to murder people for being weird again. She and Nacho finally go inside and she feels dirty after Rolaids eyed her up.
POV switch to Fizzbitch. Side note, these are already short chapters and they're further broke up in POV switches. It's really choppy.
Prince Fizzbitch is watching the two walk away, and Rolaids comments on how interesting of a choice Cel was to be murder happy times. He thinks about how Nacho despises Rolaids, and had once punched him in the face. Now, while that is hilarious, it's obviously really weird that a Captain of the Guard (was he captain then?) punched a member of the royal family so hard he loses consciousness.
Nacho further proves he's the worst at his job.
Apparently Rolaids had deserved it. Lol, okay, what did he do to deserve that in this absolute monarchy with a crazy king? Murder a bride on her wedding day? Of course we don't find out. Fizzbitch also wonders why Rolaids was appointed to the council since his home province is unimportant and Rolaids is more interestedin girls than politics.
Rolaids asks where "Lillian" came from, and Fizzbitch gives some answer about not telling. Rolaids then asks if other people can "use" her (I know he means to kill people but it sounds dirty). The answer is no.
POV switch back to Cel. She thinks about spending all of her money she gets from the King. Remember how pissy she was that Arobynn spent the money she paid back so quickly? While she isn't spending it all in two hours, she's spending every last cent.
As someone who has more than one savings account and who carefully keeps track of her checking account, this pisses me off to no end. I mean, it goes along with her utter stupidity. I can't really snark this from a "this is a sucky character writing decision" because it really goes along with everything we know about Cel so far. It's just like, you'd expect someone desperate for freedom to plan for that freedom and realize maybe she should save some of that money. Even if it is "blood money", it's still money. And a hardened assassin doesn't see things as "blood money" or "clean money", it's just money.
But Cel isn't a hardened assassin. So. Whatever. It's just frustrating and not how I would write it.
She gets back to her rooms, arms full of bags and packages, and Prince Fizzzbitch is waiting in her foyer. He's very surprised at the sheer amount of stuff she bought. I can kind of understand the desire to buy stuff, when she was forced to go without for so long. But damn girl. When a spoiled prince is shocked at your spending...
She asks why he's there and thinks to herself that she doesn't think she could be friends with him. Because she still has the hots for him.
They argue on being friends because that's what I want to read right now. Cel is super jealous. She then tell shim she's going back into Rifthold to go spy on Archer.
Why does it take a month to kill a gigolo
Cel asks Prince Fizzbitch to leave her alone, and he does.
Chapter Five
Cel is on a rooftop, spying on Archer. I guess he's going to some booty calls. She's getting the names of the people who live in the houses by pretending to be a courier at the wrong address. She thinks about how she isn't going to get much more information unless she enters the houses.
And given the likelihood that Archer might actually be doing what he was paid to do, she was in no rush to go inside.
I'm really worried about how well these are matching up to this novel
She reminisces about how she used to spy from rooftops to get information on her targets. She also reminisces about her dead boyfriend. Like. I understand she's having a moment, but is this really the time and place?
Archer leaves the hose and goes into a carriage. She goes down to the streets and trails the carriage. Damn, she's really fast on foot apparently.
And that's all for that scene. So pointless.
Cel is in Nacho's rooms, all sleepy like as she's trying to read. Nacho is there too, laying on the floor as he's doing paperwork.
OMG. NACHO IS ACTUALLY DOING HIS JOB.. PARTIALLY?
So Nacho is the Captain of the Guard, and he has one room compared to Cel's freakin' luxury suite when she was a prisoner forced to fight for her freedom. Okay.
Cel has been hanging out in his rooms for a few weeks now. Right now, she's sifting through information about Archer and his clients. Nacho asks the question we're all wondering, why she doesn't just shoot him since she knows his schedule and can follow him easily.
Cel's answer is that she needs to get as much info as possible before she eliminates a target. Which is all well and good, but that is not what the king asked her to do. The problem with this whole fake scenario is that Evil King Papa SHOULD have a spy network, especially since he's afraid of spies himself. He doesn't need an assassin to spy for him. That's not what he hired her for. He can get his information in better ways than a shitty excuse for a Champion.
Ugh even something that would be clever in another novel sucks in this one.
Nacho and Cel bicker a bit about her nodding off from the "boring" information and whether or not she was snoring. Cel brings up Rolaids out of the blue and asks why Nacho hates him.
Chaol sighed. "I think it's fairly easy for you to see why I hate him."
...No snark now, I literally have no idea why it should be easy for us to see that. Literally all Rolaids said was that he was intrigued by her job. THIS IS NEHEMIAH AND CEL HATING KALTAIN ALL OVER AGAIN.
She goes back to looking at her information on Archer. There's one house on her map that she thinks about, that she made great pains to avoid walking by both before she was sent to Endovier and when she was following Archer.
Cel asks Nacho if he's heard of a man named Rourke Farran, and the name brings back heavy emotions of grief and anger. He's apparently some crime lord who died, killed by a man named Wesley (who was Arobynn's personal guard).
Not that Wesley.
We get some back story about Wesley trying to "stop her" the night she was captured. This whole bit is confusing because I haven't read the prequels. Though it sounds like he was trying to protect her from going into a trap
Anyway, Wesley was killed by Arobynn the day after he killed Rourke. And it was probably Arobynn who betrayed her.
She decides to think about the implications of all that later. Nacho then asks why Wesley would kill Rourke, and Cel tells him it was an act of revenge, because Rourke killed her boyfriend Sam and Cel went to kill him but she got captured.
Actually this whole part is really confusing because I don't care so I'm going to skip trying to explain it and go to the part where Cel tells Nacho about Sam and how she failed him. Nacho gives her some platitudes. He then tells her that there was a lady named Lithaen. Rolaids decided to knock boots with her and have Nacho discover them. Nacho was in love with her by the way. She went back to Rolaids' home but Nacho never found out what happened to her.
Cel decides to go to bed, and Nacho offers to walk her to her room. They banter about this inanity because this book is 90% banter. Cel is like "She was a fool to leave you for Rolaids" and then thinks to herself that she's glad Lithaen isn't around because I guess she likes Nacho.
Cel can't sleep, so she heads to the library.
With the chill tonight, it was no surprise to see someone completely concealed by a black cloak, hood drawn far over the face. But something about the figure standing between the open library doors made some ancient, primal part of her send a warning pulse so strong that she didn't take another step.
Here's a fun trick, count how many shitty YA books use the ubiquitous "something" to warn the heroine about danger, that the cute suspicious boy is actually good and trustworthy, or that someone's lying. It's a cheap, lazy ass shortcut and I'm tired of it.
The thing makes an animal sniffing noise and moves towards her. Her amulet, given to her by Elena, starts to glow.
I'm totally getting a ringwraith vibe, btw
The thing hisses, then goes back to the shadows in the library. The creature then disappears. Cel, being intelligent for once, peaces the hell out and goes back to her room.
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