Queen of Shadows ( PDFDrive )

A communal stairwell lay beyond, the wooden steps stained and rotted.
Completely dark.
Male voices echoed too close behind, and banging began at the bottom of the
stairwell.
Aelin raced for the ascending stairs. Around and around, her breath now
shards of glass in her lungs, until she passed the third level—until the stairs
narrowed, and—
Aelin didn’t bother being quiet as she slammed into the roof door. The men
already knew where she was. Balmy night air smothered her, and she gulped it
down as she scanned the roof and the streets below. The alley behind was too
wide; the broad street to her left wasn’t an option, but—there. Down the alley.
That sewer grate.
Perhaps pay a visit to the southeastern section of the tunnels tonight. You
might find the person you’re looking for.
She knew who he meant. Another little present of his, then—a piece in their
game.
With feline ease, she shimmied down the drainpipe anchored to the side of the
building. Far above, the shouts grew. They’d reached the roof. She dropped into
a puddle of what smelled undoubtedly like piss, and was running before the
impact had fully shuddered through her bones.
She hurtled toward the grate, dropping onto her knees and sliding the last few
feet until her fingers latched onto the lid, and she hauled it open. Silent, swift,
efficient.
The sewers below were mercifully empty. She bit back a gag against the reek
already rising up to meet her.
By the time the guards peered over the roof edge, she was gone.
Aelin loathed the sewers.
Not because they were filthy, reeking, and full of vermin. They were actually
a convenient way to get around Rifthold unseen and undisturbed, if you knew
the way.
She’d hated them ever since she’d been bound up and left to die, courtesy of a
bodyguard who hadn’t taken so well to her plans to kill his master. The sewers
had flooded, and after freeing herself from her bonds, she had swum—actually
swum—through the festering water. But the exit had been sealed. Sam, by pure
luck, had saved her, but not before she’d nearly drowned, swallowing half the