Page 122 of Down Comes the Night

Wren followed Una through the gloom and out the main doors of the abbey. The doors banged shut behind them like the fall of a gavel. Outside, it was too quiet. Nothing stirred but a gust of wind that ruffled her hair and slipped into her jacket like a blade. Una took one step forward—then came to a dead halt.

It took Wren a moment to see them. In their black uniforms, the squadron of Guardsmen were daubed across the courtyard like shadows, but the dim moonlight scintillated on their silver buttons. They gleamed like rows of monstrous, beady eyes.

In an instant, all of her hope crumbled like ash. They were undone.

A woman stepped forward, her uniform marked with the single, glistering star of a brigadier general. Her voice rang out, amplified in the cold air. “Una Dryden, Wren Southerland, and Hal Cavendish. You’re under arrest for conspiracy against the crown.”

No one moved. No one breathed. Piecing her own experienceinto anything coherent was like reassembling a broken mirror, every shard a fragmented sensation, an eternity condensed into a moment.

The feeling of Hal’s hand sliding into hers.

The resignation that smoothed his face into cold impassivity.

Una tracing the symbol of the Goddess on her forehead.

“Very well,” Una called out. “You’ve caught us.”

The Guardsmen shifted in front of them. Some of them hesitated. Although Wren could not make out their features in the viscous darkness, she knew some of them had to be familiar. How many of them had worked under Una? How many of them had fought in the war alongside them?

Una held up her hands, angled her chin skyward. Almost too quietly to hear, she said, “We will die as traitors, but we will die doing what’s right.”

“Una—”

She couldn’t do this. They were too outnumbered.

But Una stepped in front of Wren and Hal and advanced toward the Guard. Each unhurried footstep echoed through the courtyard.

“Seize her,” the brigadier general said.

Everything happened in a rush.

Two soldiers approached Una and, with a ferocious shout, she cracked the hilt of her saber into the closest soldier’s skull. The resounding crunch was like the fire of a starting pistol. They descended on her like wolves, and Wren lost sight of her in the flurry of black coats.

No.Her magic was gone, but she could not—wouldnot—let them take Una.

Her body moved of its own accord. She sprung forward, but before she could land a blow, hands like claws ensnared her from behind. They dragged her backward, and she flailed wildly against their grip.

Then, suddenly, the hands around her went slack.

She whirled around in time to see her assailant frozen mid-stride. His face was white and horrifically twisted. Every tendon corded in his neck. Every vein bulged in his temples. He staggered backward,his mouth tearing open in a scream. It was a broken-glass sound. It crawled underneath her skin, so deep, she couldn’t ever slough it off. He collapsed in a heap of tremoring muscle, his breaths high-pitched wheezes.

Hal.

Someone shouted, “Don’t look at his eyes, damn it!”

Wren turned to see the silver glow receding from thefolaaround Hal’s eyes. The moment’s glance cost her. A sharp pain wrenched a startled cry from her throat.

There was a syringe embedded in her shoulder, the vial draining pale green liquid into her veins.

Wren knew it instantly. A potent general anesthetic composed of boiled herbs, from morning glory to ginseng to crow-dipper. As icy numbness bled down her arm, twilight bloomed across her vision. The last thing she saw was Hal reaching out to her—and a black hood pulled taut over his face.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

Wren blinked open her eyes to the steady rhythm oftick, tick, tick.There was no gap between recognizing herself—her throbbing head, her churning stomach—and jerking violently with the realization of where she was.

The Tower.

Her wrists and ankles were bound to a chair, and her skin was already red and chafed from where the damp rope bit into her. She tugged against it experimentally but found it painfully secure.