Page 58 of Down Comes the Night

“A power outage,” Wren supplied.

“So it seems,” he said, voice strained. “How charming.”

Within a few minutes of ringing a bell, a bleary-eyed Nelly brought in a coffeepot piping out bittersweet steam. It smelled of roasted chocolate and jam and wealth. Wren swallowed her dread and chased it with coffee. It tasted burnt and astringent, thick as thrush on her tongue.

Lowry sprawled sideways in an armchair like an overgrown child, his legs spilling off one side. As he pulled down his sleeve and fastened the buttons at his wrists, blood seeped into the white fabric and spread like an unfurling petal. Wren lowered herself onto a chair as if settling into hot water. Now that her nerves had quieted, her magic alerted her to his pale complexion, his too-weak heartbeat, his too-shallow breathing. Even his energy was sluggish as tar.

“Are you feeling well?” she asked as innocently as she could.

Lowry’s pupils were tiny specks in a sea of blue. “Why, of course. I feel amazing.”

From her seat, she was struck by the stench that clung to him. Beneath the smell of coffee and cologne, something chemical burned the back of her throat and stirred hazy memories. Whatwasit? If she closed her eyes, she could see the cold glint of scalpels.Hollow cavities and pale, stringy tendons. Rubbery flesh beneath her gloves.

Formaldehyde?

No, it couldn’t be. Perhaps laudanum? That would make sense of his jumpy, strange behavior and how he hardly felt the pain of his wound. But even if he had a drug habit, it didn’t explain the stitches, or why he would bar access to an entire wing of the house.…

She focused more intently on stirring cream into her coffee.

“I fear I’ve been a poor host to you. I know it’s hard to believe, but Colwick Hall used to be among the finest estates in the country. My friends have counseled me to sell it, but it’s all I have left of my father.” Lowry plucked a napkin from the silver coffee tray. His hands immediately bloodied the fabric. “Do you know what happened to him?”

“No.” Wren dreaded this line of questioning. “I don’t.”

“He was a brilliant scientist but a terrible father, if I’m honest. He spent all of his time holed up in in this library.” He dragged the napkin down each finger as deliberately as a whetstone over a blade. “But he had a single-minded pursuit. He so desperately wanted to know why Cernosians have no magic, whereas Danubians and Vesrians do. So one day, about five years ago, he wrote the University of Greine to inquire about conducting research in Vesria. Everyone suggested it was madness to walk into a war zone, but my father was a brave, somewhat reckless man. When he arrived on the border, the military asked him his business.”

“What happened?”

“They told him they already knew the answer to his question.” Lowry’s gaze was level. “God had blessed Vesria, and that was all there was to it. To suggest anything more was heresy. Naturally, he asked what that suggested about Danu.”

“What did they say?”

“Nothing. He was detained.” Lowry sipped his coffee. “They didn’t release him again.”

“Oh. Lord Lowry, I… I don’t know what to say. I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be.” He sighed. “After the funeral proceedings, my older brother inherited the dukedom and seaside view that comes with it. I, the courtesy title—and this.” He swept an open palm across the library. “Colwick Hall, full of ghosts and memories. It’s all I can do to keep it afloat.”

With his tired smile, one crooked elbow pillowing his head, Lowry was the perfect image of grief. It was no surprise that artists across the continent flocked to capture even a glimmer of him on canvas.

“While your war has never touched my homeland, it took my father from me.” Lowry’s eyes grew wistful. “And I am so tired of death. Allying ourselves with Danu is the best chance we have to cow Vesria into stopping the atrocities they commit. Some might call it reckless to declare a side now, but what can I say? Someday, as the rest of the world catches up with our technology, we will be forced to choose. And I’m nothing if not pragmatic. When night falls, I won’t be the one left alone in the dark.”

Itwasa wise strategy to align himself against a common enemy.And also wise,she thought,to capture and poison their future leader.

“What’re you thinking, my dear? You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.”

“Pardon me, my lord. I was only thinking about Henry.” Wren peered into her coffee, watching her pale reflection shatter again and again on its surface. “I haven’t been sure exactly how to bring it up to you. I’ve uncovered the strangest thing about his illness.”

When she looked up, Lowry had gone impossibly still. “Did you really?”

“It responds poorly to magic,” she said, taking a sip from her cup. “If it were viral or bacterial, I could’ve encouraged his immune system to push it out by now.”

For one moment, Lowry adopted his usual wide-eyed perplexity. But then, as if he thought better of it, he discarded it like a tired old coat. Laid bare like this, he radiated a jittery energy as he leaned across the table. “How unusual. What do you plan to do?”

No warmth. No humor. Only those eyes like ice, boring intohers. She stood on the surface of a frozen lake, one misstep from slipping under.

“I’m currently experimenting with medications. His condition is still precarious, but I have him stable.”

“I see.” As he placed his cup down, candlelight thickened on the coffee’s surface, painting it red as blood. “Then it sounds like you ought to tread very carefully indeed, Ms. Southerland.”