Page 128 of Down Comes the Night

Hal.

He didn’t say a word. He didn’t have to. His eyes, solid black and threaded with silverfola,were as vicious as the ocean. He crouched beside them and turned Lowry onto his back. Rain beat onto Lowry’s upturned face, and horrified recognition parted his lips.

Their eyes locked.

Lowry opened his mouth to scream, but no sound came out. He broke into convulsions, and his fingers, stiff as claws, scratched at his own eyes. Then, with a dullcrack,his head struck the pier and lolled toward her. Pink foam poured from his mouth.

Alistair Lowry was dead, his lips pulled back in a final, terrible smile.

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

Her existence was nothing but pain and glimpses of Hal as he carried her, spray dripping from his hair, worry burning in his eyes. He set her down clumsily beneath an overhang in the cliffs and began rummaging through her bag. She heard glass vials clinking together like wind chimes. For the first time since she’d met him, all his defenses were down. He was hurried, nearly frantic, as he tossed aside gauze and gloves, scalpels and forceps.

Somehow, it was… endearing.

He caught her looking. “Wren.”

“Mm?”

“Tell me what to do,” he said hoarsely. “I don’t know what to do.”

Although her eyes were already falling closed again, medical instruction flowed as easily as breathing. “Don’t take out the knife until another healer can stabilize me. That is very important. In the meantime, inject the antidote. Intravenous is ideal, but intramuscular will work. Don’t give me an embolism.”

Hal let out a soft, frustrated sound. “You need to stay awake.”

“I am awake,” she said indignantly.

“Which one is it? You have too many vials in this bag.”

“It’s the greenish one.”

There was an interminable pause. More rustling. He swore.

“Goddess above, Hal, they’re labeled. It’s the one that saysantidote for Halon it.”

The last thing she saw, as darkness swirled through her vision, was him fumbling to affix a vial to a syringe.

By the time Wren woke again, she decided that dying would have been preferable to this. The light was too bright, and the air too heavy, too full of broken ice. The pain in her stomach, at least, was mostly gone.

As she rolled over in the bed she’d been tucked into, she realized two things. She was back in the North Tower, and someone had dressed her in one of Isabel’s nightgowns.

She kicked the thick blankets off and pulled up her dress to examine the stab wound. Her skin was white-splotched red, still angry and streaked with cold, but underneath the flush was a thick band of shiny scar tissue. It was a slapdash job if she’d ever seen one. She’d done better work as a child.

Then, memories of Isabel’s palms washed in silver flooded back. Wren ran her fingers over the scar and fought back the wave of emotion. Her aunt had given her many scars over the years, but this one… Maybe it wasn’t so terrible after all. Wren was too tired to fix it now, anyway.

Not that she could.

If she reached deep inside herself, she felt her magic sleeping like it was imprisoned beneath a thick layer of ice. It was distant, but thank the Goddess, it was there. Maybe someday it would forgive her for all the abuse she’d put it through. Wren blinked back a teary wave of relief and instead drank in her surroundings.

Compared to the rest of the Tower, this room was homey. It glowed with warmth from the fire, which washed the room in the soft orange of a sunset. She buried her nose in the wool trim of the blanket and inhaled its comforting scent.

When the door opened, Wren turned to see Hal in the threshold. He froze when he noticed her awake, as if she were some precariously perched ceramic that would fall and shatter if he moved too quickly. Steam lazily curled from the two mugs in his hands. “Wren.”

“Hi,” she said hoarsely. Hal placed both mugs on the bedside table and sat beside her. She twined her fingers in his. Her hands were still bone-white and stiff with cold, but his were sowarm.Wren squeezed him tight. “You saved me.”

“The other way around, I believe.”

She decided not to argue with him. Not when he was being so affectionate.