Page 69 of Down Comes the Night

“For now, yes. In a few days, when Una finds no trace of us, we come back and deal with Lowry. While that may make it harder to investigate, I’m less afraid of him.”

As soon as she’d said it, she wasn’t entirely sure she believed it. If they stayed, Una would arrest them. And if they left, who knew what Lowry would do when they returned? There were no good options, but thinking about it too hard made her feel nauseous with dread.

“Una Dryden is not a forgiving person,” Wren said. “She’ll arrest me on sight—and you… I don’t want to find out what she’d do to you.”

When she turned around, he sat on her bed, traced in golden light. His jacket lay beside him, and he’d unbuttoned his shirtsleeve to roll it above his elbow. Wren fought to keep the dumbstruck look off her face as she took his elbow in her hand.

“Would she truly?” he asked. “If you were best friends?”

Wren hesitated, his skin and her magic warm in her palm. “She would, and I’d deserve it. She tried to stop me from leaving. Hence, the assault charges.” She busied herself with injecting the serum into the crook of his elbow. Hal hardly flinched. “It’s funny. I deserted because I was reassigned. Because I wanted to stay with Una. But now she hates me, and I’m completely alone.”

“Why were you reassigned?”

Wren sighed, watching the vial drain gradually into his arm. “Because I healed somebody I wasn’t supposed to. We had a prisoner with a compound fracture. Una thought it wasmisplaced pity.She tried to stand up for me when the queen dismissed me, but she’s always thought I was too soft anyway.”

“Then why are you friends?”

He asked it so plainly, it startled her. “What do you mean ‘whyare we friends’? We went through the academy together. We survived the war together. We’ve doneeverythingtogether. I love her.”

“While you made a tactical error,” he said, “compassion for its own sake isn’t something worth punishing.”

Wren withdrew the needle from his arm. “What are you getting at?”

“I don’t know that I would’ve given you the same order.” He paused, as if considering his next words carefully. “Do you see what you did as wrong? Do you see compassion as a weakness?”

Alwaysquestionswith him. Wren absently healed the puncture on his arm and let her fingers trail lower, along the ridge of his palmaris longus tendon. Her entire life, everyone had told her that her emotions would be her downfall. They made her too irrational, too impulsive, too sensitive. That much was true, but compassion… She didn’t know if it was wrong.

“If I could change it, I would. It would make my life easier.”

“Yes, it would. It’s easier to feel nothing.” He hesitated. “If she’s worth your loyalty, she’ll forgive you. In the meantime, you’re not completely alone.”

Wren looked up, her heart fluttering at the tentatively warm glow in his eyes. “No. I guess not.”

Her hand still lingered on his forearm, and here, in the comfort of her bedroom, she realized just how close they were. How easy it would be to bridge the last of the space between them. Her focus narrowed to the whisper of candles around them; to the shape of his mouth, soft and serious; to his bared skin and that goddessdamned jacket beside them, so casually rumpled. She wanted to lay her hand flat against his beating heart, beneath the fine black embroidery of his waistcoat. She wanted to—

Oh no.

Pulling her hand back, she said, “You mentioned that you went to an inn called the Guiding Light?”

The tension between them shattered.

“I did.” He righted his sleeve and began to fasten his buttons. Regret chased each deft movement of his fingers. “Why?”

“Something’s been bothering me since you mentioned it.” Wren worried her lip. “I’ve been there before, too. I found goddessblood growing in its garden. You said Lowry owned it. That can’t be a coincidence.”

“No,” he said quietly. “It doesn’t seem like it is.”

“Since we need to lie low, why don’t we go there? See if we can turn up anything?”

“It’s a good idea, but dangerous. The weather might not hold until we get there.”

“What? Hal Cavendish, scared of a little snow?”

His eyes narrowed. Only Hal could look so irritated with the slightest change of his expression. “I’m only trying to consider the potential risks.”

As practical as ever. “Fair enough. We’ll leave for town early tomorrow morning before sunrise. Maybe someone can get us there before the storm blows in. Then we’ll stay in town for a little while.”

“Understood.” His eyes searched her face and, although it looked like he wanted to say something else, he settled on, “I’ll let you rest.”