The Ragpicker King (The Chronicles of Castellane, #2)

by Cassandra Clare

“Montfaucon’s infatuated with a new lover,” he said. “Been very secretive about him. Won’t even tell us his name.” Montfaucon shrugged, though he was clearly pleased with himself. “I told you, he goes by his Arena name. The Gray Serpent.”

Even last night, she had dreamed of a dark-haired woman with fire spilling from her hands and of a man turning to ash against a white marble pillar.

(And then there was her most precious volume, which she had reclaimed after the Maharam had confiscated it: The Works of Qasmuna, so rare and so forbidden that she kept it wrapped in black velvet. The Prince had given it to her personally, and she could not help but see his face every time she opened the pages.)

“He called me by a name that wasn’t mine,” Silla said. Some of the metallic paint on her face had smeared; silver tears appeared to be trickling from her eyes.

Kel held up a hand. “I don’t want to know.”

“We all have armor,” she said. “As if you do not have yours, Kel Anjuman.” He choked on the words he could not say. I am the Prince’s armor. I cannot have my own.

“Now?” Mariam tugged at the cuffs of her dressing-gown. “The same thing again?” “I’ll try to do it quickly. It isn’t hurting you, is it?” Mariam shook her head. “No. And I always feel better afterward. But it is…odd.” She raised her chin as if in defiance of her own illness. “I’m ready.”

The Word is the sum of human will. Magic cannot exist without the Word because it cannot exist without will.

“Who f—ah, who did you wrong?” asked Merren. Kel saw Jerrod hide a grin. Sailors swore, and nobles swore like sailors. The middle class—guildmasters among them—were far more prudish.

I love Merren

Raimon dipped his head. “A woman,” he said. “Called herself Magali—” The front window exploded. Shards of glass flew, shedding illumination, a crazy-quilt of reflected fire. Raimon’s body jerked as a silver crossbow bolt slammed into his chest, pinning him to the chair.

He was already bolting toward the front door, his hand to his neck. He knew those fletchings. They matched the ones on the bolt that had killed Luisa.

And when it spoke, it was in the same guttural hiss that revealed nothing of the person speaking—man or woman, old or young. “Stop following me, Királar.”

“Does your Prince know where you are, Sword Catcher? Should you not be by his side?” That hurt, more than the boot to the chest.

Kel stared past the Dark Assassin, at the stars fretted across the sky like glimmering needlework. You are my unbreakable armor. And you will not die.

Merren scrubbed ineffectually at the dried scarlet flecks on his hands until Jerrod, wordless, tore a strip of cloth from his own shirt and used it to scrape Merren’s hands clean.

“You’re arresting us all in the name of the Arrow Squadron?” said Jerrod. “What—No, of course not. Have you been expecting me to say that?” “Every time I see you,” said Jerrod. “I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop.” “Jerrod, you have an untrusting personality,” said Kel. “It’s about the killer who shot Raimon.”

I love them!!!

“There are giraffe fights in the Arena?” said Merren, eyes wide. “I love giraffes. They always look surprised to be up so high.”

She wondered what he would say if she told him she saw Antonetta often, that they even spoke of him sometimes, and that Antonetta was as flustered by mentions of him as he seemed to be by mentions of her?

“So who was it?” Lin says, removing a roll of bandages from her satchel. “Who did this to you?” “Artal Gremont,” says Silla, after a long pause.

NOOOOO

There are other girls, the kind who cater to men who like to inflict pain. I suppose he’ll see them. But they’ll have to pretend they truly hate what he’s doing; he won’t enjoy it otherwise. He wants to cause misery.”

Eewww

Realizing everyone was staring, the musician nearly dropped the instrument, but that was not why Kel was staring. He was staring because the three musicians, all dressed in Alleyne livery, were Jerrod, Merren, and Ji-An.

Lmfaoooo

“Forget anything Jerrod or I may have said about the dangers of murdering Gremont,” Kel said, his voice low but surprisingly steady. “Go ahead and kill him.” Merren did not look surprised. He did, however, look relieved. “I’m so glad you said that.” He exhaled. “You see, I’ve already poisoned his wine.”

Without a word, he reached out, took the empty glass from her hand, and set it down on a small table nearby.

HAWT

She expected the Prince to turn on his heel and walk away. Instead, he held out a hand. “Dance with me,” he said.

“Relax,” he murmured. “I know you can dance.” She felt the blush spreading across her face.

“I am glad you were there for Asher Benezar in his time. I wish you had tried to be there for me and Josit, long ago.” “Well,” he said, looking as tired as she felt, “I’m trying now.”

“I was fifteen,” Antonetta says. “You were the one who told my mother that it was time for me to stop spending all my time with you and Kel and Joss.

Kel said, in a peculiar sort of voice, “If Conor had a talisman like that, he might not even need a Sword Catcher.”

Her eyes were fixed on his face. “Spoken like a clever Prince,” she said. “But you are not the Prince, are you?” She studied him as if he were an interesting puzzle to be solved. “Conor Aurelian cannot tolerate walnuts. They make him sick. But you appear to be suffering no ill effects.”

And most important, how had they gotten hold of that name, Prosper Beck? The name of the man who’d first taught her sword-fighting when she was just a teenager?

“In fact, something a patient said to me turned up in my dream. It was Malgasi, I think. Hollazekyer di niellem pu nag.” “What an odd thing to say.” Mariam looked puzzled. “It’s Malgasi, yes. It means ‘They are trying to prevent me from becoming what I am.’ ”

“I was surprised to see Lin at the Arena today,” he continued carefully. “And to see you laughing with her. I thought you didn’t care much for her.” At least, I know you’d like me to think that. But I know well how rare it is for someone to truly make you laugh. And how rare it is for you to look at anyone the way you look at Lin.

He is in love and in deniallllllll

Lin found blackroot described near the end of the book: Sports beautiful obsidian flowers, has no scent, blossoms and leaves are toxic to animals and people. Legend has it that, before the Sundering, blackroot was used to suppress the effects of magic. Sorcerer-Kings were known to have slipped it into the cups of their enemies before a duel, in order to blunt the edge of their power.

Inside, the Prince is watching a red-haired girl read a book with the expression of a starving man staring at a plate of food.

Did you truly never realize that the magic you stole runs in your blood now, and that you would pass it on to him? Your boy, your pretty Prince? Perhaps you understood, a little. Perhaps that is why you insisted he have a Királar. A Sword Catcher.”

nooo :(

It was unusual for Conor to conceal his feelings this way, but Kel already knew that when it came to Lin and Conor, everything was unusual.

Conor had rolled onto his back, looking up at Kel with wide gray eyes, as he had when he was a child. “You are the only one I trust,” he said, and when he fell asleep, he did it holding fast to Kel’s wrist.

“Help you how?” The flush on her cheeks darkened. “I don’t want Artal to be my first. I want it to be you.”

OMFG

One day, Kel thought; one day he and Conor would be able to do this again—to lie side by side, looking up at the stars they had known since they were children—without this distance between them, without this space he could not define or name.

“I feel as a sailor must,” Conor said, “when he has been out at sea for a long time, and now he can finally see the land.”

Artal caught her by the arm as Elsabet brought her hand down in a quick, swooping gesture. Fire burst again from her palm, arrowing up into the sky, a plume of brilliance. The flames spread and scattered, and for a moment, Kel thought he saw them make the shape of a bird with outspread wings. “Elsabet!” shouted Gremont. “Enough—”

Gremont fell to his knees, his hands wrapped around his own throat. Blood pulsed between his fingers, and he sank to the ground with a choking gurgle. Behind him stood a figure in a black cloak, the edge of a silver mask glinting from beneath his hood, a scarlet-stained blade in his hand.

When Lin fell asleep at last, she tumbled into awful dreams in which a captor whose face she could not see bound her arms and legs with long strips of cloth in different colors: a scarlet rope tied her ankles, while one wrist was bound with blue and the other with black. She cried out as her limbs were dragged painfully in different directions. “Hush,” said her captor, “do not struggle, and it will go easier for you.” The voice was Conor’s.

But was he watching her? Lin could not shake the feeling of a gaze resting heavy on her; she turned to look toward the Temple and saw that beside the kneeling Princess, Conor stood straight-backed, one hand on the hilt of his sword. He was not looking at the Hierophant: He was staring directly at Lin, and even at a distance she could feel the bladed sharpness of his gaze.

Conor was with her. She felt the warmth of him, his presence. His hand brushed back hair from her face. “Look at me, sweetheart,” he said. “Can you do that?”

sweetheart omgggg

He raked his hands through his hair, almost disarranging his circlet. “I should never have let you come here alone,” he said. “I wanted you in the square. I wanted you to see me with Anjelica. I wanted you to be—” He flung his hand out, slammed it against the wardrobe, making the remaining contents rattle.

Jealoussss oh Conor

he was so beautiful it hurt, black-ink hair and the bones of his face graceful as a soaring heron. “I have never trusted myself,” he said. “But I think, if you did—I could.”

“Kel?” Conor’s voice. His eyes adjusting to the dimness in the room, Kel saw Conor for the first time. He was seated in the embrasure of the arched western window, still in his ceremonial clothes, dark-gray velvet chained with brilliant threads of silver. There was a bottle in his hand. “Kel, is that you?”

NOOO way she did this. “Will? Will is that you?” omfG

“I was blessed and bound, as was the Princess. It is not the ceremony that preys on my mind.” Good, Kel thought. At least he’s willing to admit something is preying on his mind.

Beck had kicked the wall with a booted foot. Kel was never supposed to be harmed, Jerrod, you ought to have known that.