Page 117 of Down Comes the Night

Winter had raked its claws across the River Muri, dredging up thick curtains of coal-laced fog. Along the riverbanks, it coagulated so thick that drivers dismounted from their carriages and led their horses by torchlight. Traffic slowed to a crawl because of collisions, and eerie, disembodied voices echoed in the alleyways. Wren kept her eyes fixed on the grime-caked streets.

“There is so much mud,” Hal said.

“It’s not mud,” Wren and Una muttered in unison.

He coughed and pulled his jacket collar up around his nose.

The cold here was nothing like the sharp, thin air of Cernos. This was a wet cold that filled Wren’s lungs like phlegm. Every moment in the open wore her ragged. She ached for home, her wide selection of teas, the floral smell of her apothecary, the familiar sound of the creaky old floorboards. But the moment the Guard discovered them missing, her flat—or Una’s—would be the first place they’d check.

So Wren let her feet carry her to the only sanctuary they had left. A few miles down the road, where the buildings grew short and petered out into empty fields, Wren stopped at the abbey gates. Its enormous rose window was illuminated like a harvest moon.

Wren rang the bell and took a cautious step backward. After a few minutes, the gates rattled open and Mother Heloise stepped out of the shadows. Time slowed to a crawl as she took them in one by one.

For Una, guarded surprise.

For Wren, concern and fear braided together.

And when she recognized Hal, her face twisted into something unrecognizable.

“You.” The Healing Touch glowed on her hands, as razor-sharp as a scalpel.

Wren threw herself in front of him, her arms outstretched. “Don’t! I can explain everything.”

“How dare you bringhimto my door? Do you have a death wish?”

“It’s only until tomorrow night,” Una said, her hand on the hilt of her sword.

“I don’t care if it’s one hour or one day—”

“You have every right to hate me,” Hal interjected. “I understand I have done things even your Goddess cannot forgive, but I ask for your mercy.”

The silver light continued to flicker like a pale flame.

“Please, Mother,” Wren pressed. “Let me explain.”

“Go on, then.”

Heloise’s face remained impassive while Wren laid out everything they’d uncovered, from Isabel’s collusion with Lowry to his sinister plan to expand Cernos’s reach with stolen magic. “If we don’t get Hal out of the city, we’re all lost. We don’t have anywhere else to go.”

“You want to end these wars?” Heloise asked Hal. Her hand was still leveled at his axillary artery at the lateral margin of his rib. He’d bleed out in minutes if she cut it.

“Yes. More than anything.”

Heloise did not respond at first. They must have looked like a ragtag bunch, all of them exhausted and afraid, because Heloise’s resistance gave way to numb acceptance. The Touch faded from her hand and plunged them into darkness. With a long sigh, she stepped aside to let them pass. “Hurry. Before someone sees you.”

Wren could have sobbed in relief. “Thank you.”

The three of them piled inside, and as soon as the doors banged shut, Heloise rounded on Hal. “If a single one of the girls in my care is hurt because of you, I will show no mercy.”

“I understand,” he said. “I owe you my life for your hospitality.”

Heloise grunted dismissively, clearly already tired of him. “Come on, then.”

For an old woman with a lurching gait, she couldmovewhen she wanted. Wren fell into step beside her. Heloise’s silence weighted down her shoulders like a cloak of lead. Even years removed from her apprenticeship, one sharp look was enough to make her wither. But when she snuck a glance at Heloise’s face, there was cool assessment in the thin press of her lips—no judgment.

“Saving that man is among the worst of your ideas, Sister Wren,” she said wearily, as soon as she’d pulled them ahead of Hal and Una. “And I have seen you through the fallout of many.”

“Without a doubt. I’m ready for my lecture.”