Page 127 of Down Comes the Night

“More of the same? You’ve slaughtered each other for nothing. I’m doing this for the greater good. I will be remembered as a hero. A visionary. My people have hidden themselves away for too long, butIwill make a difference in this world.”

The horrible truth of it struck her. He believed it—every word of it.

“Can you really be so heartless?”

“Spare me.” Lowry sneered. “Now be a good hostage and get up.”

Wren dragged herself to her feet, ignoring the steady pulse of pain in her broken arm. The gun was an insistent pressure at her back, urging her forward. Over the edge of the bluff, a tethered steamboat bobbed in the battering surf. As soon as he was finished with her, he would pitch her into the waves. She could imagine the taste of the water as it filled her mouth, her nose. How the salt would burn all the way down.

But he’d be dead before that happened.

They descended the stairs slowly. Lowry’s steps were heavy and staggering against the weathered dock. Then, suddenly, they stopped. She turned over her shoulder just as he collapsed.

“What did you do to me?” There was a feral, desperate look in his eyes now, like a wolf trapped in a snare. “What did you do?”

His fear filled her with cold satisfaction. Was this how it felt on the battlefield? It felt so right. She could lose herself in this rush of power. Finally, she understood why generation after generation had signed up to die for Danu. She understood why everyone called her weak. She’d never been ruthless, but it was so easy to surrender to this hatred.

Too easy.

At her feet, so desperate and pale, Lowry looked like a frightened child dressed in too-fine clothes. How could she preach forgiveness and then watch him die by her hand?

Mercy is the most difficult thing.

Killing Lowry would not bring Byers back. It wouldn’t erase the horror of these past few weeks. It wouldn’t make her hate herselfless. She couldn’t do this. Hurt begat hurt over and over again, and she was sotired.

She was so tired of death.

Wren dropped to her knees beside Lowry and with her good arm she rummaged through her medical bag for the antidote, one of the last vials of it she’d prepared. She pushed up his sleeve and plunged the needle into his arm. The look he gave her as the serum emptied into his veins was baleful.

“Why?”

“Because killing you solves nothing.”

“Is this the part where you forgive me?” he wheezed bitterly. “Where I repent?”

“No.” She could see the fire fading from him, the exhaustion beginning to take over. His heart steadily slowed as sleep struggled to claim him. “I willneverforgive you. Not for as long as I live. But I won’t kill you, either. This ends with us.”

Then—a pain worse than any she’d ever known. When the spots cleared from her vision, she saw Hal’s knife buried to its hilt in her stomach.

He’dstabbedher. In numb disbelief, she touched the wound, and her fingers came away slick.

Lowry grabbed her medical bag and threw it. It skidded across the dock and teetered on the brink, just above the hungry suck and lap of the waves. With a panicked, animal sound, Wren scrambled for it, but Lowry’s hand locked around her shin.

He dragged her back. The knife twisted in her gut, and the fragments of her broken arm ground together. Her every nerve burst into flame, blinding her with white light. She would black out from the pain if she so much as moved. The salt and blood coating her tongue threatened to gag her.

She couldn’t do anything. Her magic was spent. She was going to die here. But at least Hal and Una were safe. Vesria and Danu would know peace.

She lay nearly forehead to forehead with Lowry. He looked wicked and triumphant as streaks of rain glimmered on his paleskin like tear tracks. “After all your efforts, all your struggles, how does it feel to fail?”

Wren struggled to form words. Her body was useless, broken. And it was so, so cold. Through chattering teeth, she growled, “I only feel sorry for you.”

“How precious. Thinking of others, even as you die.”

“I saved my country. I saved my friends. You dream of progress, but what have you really accomplished? In five years, no one will even remember your name.”

Something flashed in his eyes—both anguish and longing.

Over his shoulder, a dark figure approached.