Page 59 of Down Comes the Night

“I’m always careful, my lord.” Wren met his gaze evenly. “We have an agreement.”

“That’s what I like to hear. When this is all over,” he said, each word deliberately and artificially pleasant, “I shall have to write to the queen about how well you’ve done.”

Wren stilled. She knew a threat when she heard one.

But before she could stammer out a response, the grandfather clock gonged.

“Midnight already.” Lowry clapped his hands, snapping back into his usual character. “My, how quickly time passes in good company.”

Wren wished him good night and hurried into the corridor. Her path through the estate was lit only by the sputtering magic cupped in her hands like water. Through the tinny buzz of exhaustion in her skull, Wren almost believed that conversation was a dream. But as she replayed it again and again, Wren was becoming increasingly certain of two things.

One, Alistair Lowry knew who Hal Cavendish was and what plagued him.

Two, if she didn’t cure this poison soon,shewould be the one left out in the dark.

In the quiet of her room, everything fell away. Wren shed her suspicions along with her cape, casting them aside in a rumpled heap. At her desk, it was easy to pretend that this—the next batch of antidote—was the only thing that mattered. Right now, ithadtobe the only thing that mattered. She wanted nothing to do with sealed-off corridors and Lowry’s veiled threats.

Hannah had taken the beaker off the burner for her and organized her desk—a gesture she appreciated. She prepared a slide with Hal’s blood and dribbled in a few drops of the antidote.

Underneath the microscope, Wren watched as the serum’s compounds enveloped the goddessblood toxin. Bit by bit, they broke down the poison until it was small enough to be engulfed by the immune system. Wren came untethered from her body and stared into the eyepiece with numb amazement.

It worked.

She could cure Hal. She could go home.

In a little over a week, shewouldbe home.

To hell with the curfew. She’d administer the first dose to Hal at once. After gathering her supplies, Wren hurried down the hall, buoyed by the lacy trail of her nightgown and the light bounce of her hair. When she flung open his bedroom door, the air barely stirred.

The silence was eerie, unbroken even by the rasp of Hal’s breathing. His heartbeat kept a halting rhythm, as faint as the flutter of moth’s wings. As she approached his bed, the soft candlelight washed over him. He did not move beneath the blood-spattered sheets.

Cold terror seized her. He wasn’t… He couldn’t be…

Wren shook him by the shoulder. “Hal?”

His eyes cracked open, and in them was a glimmer that filled her with a rush of relief.Salvation.“You’re here.”

“Of course.” She grabbed a fistful of the sheets and dabbed at the blood on his face. She could hardly dwell on the intimacy of it, how he let her fuss over him without any protests. How long had he been like this while Lowry detained her? She affixed the antitoxin to a syringe, squeezing the stopper until liquid oozed onto the tip of the needle like a pearl.

“Wren.” He’d hadn’t said her name since their first meeting.Where that was all cold antagonism, this was… almost tender.Delirious again,she decided.

She pinched the skin of his upper arm and injected him. “Don’t talk.”

Given time, her cure would do its work. In the meantime, she had to repair the worst of his organ damage to ensure he would survive the night. Herfolawouldn’t hold up long enough to mend him entirely, so she’d have to triage carefully. She called on her magic, and her veins ran silver. Although her hands tingled as if she’d plunged them into ice, she was too frantic to care right now.

Every button popped as she pulled apart his nightshirt. Placing her hands on his bare skin, she poured magic into him. How could he have taken a turn for the worse so quickly? Admittedly, ever since she’d begun research on the poison, she’d been distracted, but…

Her single-mindedness had almost killed him.

Be sorry later. Dead men can’t forgive.

Time ceased to have meaning as she worked. Throughout the night, they spoke little, and by sunrise, Hal had fallen asleep. Wren, meanwhile, was ready to lay her head on his chest and succumb to exhaustion. Even after so many hours together, it still felt like a strange, unearned privilege to gaze upon Hal Cavendish without fearing for her life. In the hazy lavender dawn, he looked entirely untroubled.

I deserve your hatred,he’d said.

No you don’t,she wanted to tell him.

His confession unsettled her more than she cared to admit. He had shown her patience, sometimes even kindness. And genuine remorse. Was he really so self-loathing as to overlook that? Could he truly not forgivehimself?