Page 30 of Down Comes the Night

She struggled, only for him to dig his knee harder into her spine. Her rotator cuff crackled in protest, desperately struggling to hold bone to socket. If she couldn’t touch him, her magic was useless.Shewas useless. Death at his hands was said to come fast and silent, like an injection of barbiturate. But incapacitating her like this meant he intended to savor this. How much pain could she stand before she begged to look into his eyes?

The sound of wheezing cut through the haze of her fear. His breathing grew thicker, more faltering, until a hacking cough bent him double. All at once, his hold went slack.

This time, she did not hesitate. She grabbed his leg—the first thing she found—and sheared through muscle like fabric. Her traitorous heart lurched as he choked back a sound of pain. He rolled off her, and Wren scrabbled off the bed, hands raised and blazing with magic.

“Don’t move.” The sound of her own voice startled her. Such a sound, so wild and raw, couldn’t have come from her. “Or I’ll—”

“Wait.” His chest heaved with every miserable breath. With her eyes locked onto his chin, she could see the blood dribbling fromthe corners of his mouth. Slowly, he drew his sleeve across his face. It was too intimate to see him so abject, so… ashamed. “Please.”

“Please?” she snarled. “Are we using our manners now?”

“I acted too rashly. I’m more use to you alive.”

Alive? No wonder he’d been so jumpy. He assumed she’d come to assassinate him. It was so ludicrous, she almost burst into laughter. Wren had devoted her life to her work. No matter how much she hated Hal, she was honor bound as a soldier and a healer to cure him. How she would relish the look on his face when she told him she’d been in the process ofsavinghim. Then again, if he was so eager to bargain with her, he must be desperate. Hal wanted to live, and there were few things people wouldn’t trade for their lives. If it meant forcing the Reaper of Vesria into her debt, she would bluff.

She would make him beg for her help.

“You think I’m here to kill you?” she asked incredulously. “I’m a doctor, not an assassin. Don’t you know healers take an oath of nonviolence in Danu?”

Confusion pulled at the corners of his lips. “Then you were…?”

“Examining you.” The silver tracery of her activatedfolafaded as she crossed her arms.

“Why are you here?”

“I might ask you the same thing.”

He did not respond. They glared at each other across the room, but Wren’s resolve slipped as she watched him tremble with fever. Heat flushed his skin and clouded his eyes, and blood spattered his sheets. Yet he still carried himself like he might strike at any moment, watchful and intense.

Sighing, Wren broke first. “Lowry hired me to heal a patient. Imagine my surprise to find you. I considered leaving, but I couldn’t resist seeing how far you’ve fallen.” When he didn’t respond, she pressed on. “It’s a shame, really. A war hero dying like this. That disease should finish you off in a few days.”

If it frightened him, he gave no discernible reaction.

Wren matched his blank expression. As long as he believed shecould and would walk away from him, she’d won. She lifted one shoulder and turned toward the door. “Goodbye, Cavendish.”

“Wait.”

Wren allowed herself a self-satisfied smirk before composing herself and glancing back at him. “What?”

“I have information on your missing soldiers.”

That, she did not expect.

All the air in her lungs left in a rush. “How would you know anything about that?”

He hesitated. “I’ve been involved with the case.”

“Then Vesriaisresponsible.”

“No, we aren’t. But I have a lead.”

Una’s words flooded back to her.Despite the fact it makes no sense, the queen believes Vesria is responsible. It can’t be this simple.

The air thickened like nitrogen, too heavy to breathe. If he was telling the truth, then their nations were indeed careening toward a pointless war. One Danu would not survive. Yet here he was, wasting away and hoarding information that could save them all.

“We had a lead, too,” she snapped. “A boy with magic, watching patrols. If he wasn’t your agent, then whose?”

His only response was blank-faced silence. Wren bristled.