Page 72 of Down Comes the Night

They continued down the quiet, lamp-lit street, the cobblestones slick and shining. This early, still before full light, none of the townspeople had stirred yet. All the better for her. No witnesses. Wren counted the slowing beats of Hal’s heart, observed his movements as they became looser, less precise. Any moment now, he’d be out.

Give up already.

In front of the carriage company, Wren saw eight dogs, tails wagging, hitched to a sled. The snowflakes danced madly against the gas lamp, reminding her of a swarm of flies around a carcass. Hal stopped in his tracks, his eyes hard as he turned toward her.

Three things happened at once.

Hal pitched forward, Wren caught him by the shoulders, and a knife pressed into her jacket, directly between her third and fourth ribs. Aiming for her liver, she noted. He was good. That would make for a slow and painful death. The kind she deserved.

They were close enough that Wren could inhale the cloud of breath curling from his parted lips. One sudden movement would draw blood.

“You drugged me.” His voice was colder than the air and firmer than she’d ever heard it. But as terrifying as that flinty glare was, the sedative would claim him at any moment.

Wren grabbed his lapels harder. “Yes. I did.”

“Let me go.”

“You first.”

Hurt—betrayal—sparkled in his dark eyes.

Before she could process it, he went limp. Her knees buckled under his weight when she caught him. He was all limbs, tall and lean, and made even more unwieldy by his winter jacket. It took considerable effort to drag him through the snow and lay him on the sled. His head lolled to the side, his mouth still open in anunspoken accusation. The wind whipped by her, tugging her back toward the estate. But it was too late to turn back.

She was going home.

Snow squalls blotted out everything. Although it was nearly midday by her estimation, Wren could see no sunlight, no life. Only the dim shape of the driver, Collins, stood out in the storm. He leaned over the front of the sled, as sturdy and guiding as a ship’s figurehead.

They’d been traveling for hours, but Wren could not shake a crawling feeling of unease. The valley stretched out to her right, the cliff’s edge serrated by snow cornices. She could feel the hunger of that chasm, darkness swirled through with gray.

As if someone had whispered it into her ear, she thought,We’re going the wrong way.

Granted, the way up had been winding and dark, and she had slept half the time, but… No, no, she could not doubt herself. This couldn’t be right.

There’s only one viable way between Danu and Cernos this time of year.She remembered Basil grinning at her over his shoulder.Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

“Excuse me,” she shouted over the howl of the wind. “Where’re we going?”

“The normal route is too dangerous in these conditions.” In profile, Collins looked like something that had crawled out from beneath the ice. Frost whitened his eyebrows. “I know a better way.”

Bullshit,Wren thought.

Her eyes fell on Collins’s bag, lying on its side in the footwell. Maybe something inside would provide her with some insight. She reached for it but with Hal weighing her down, her fingers curled into open air.

Hal, still unconscious, had proven more unwieldy than she’d hoped. He lay sprawled out with his head in her lap, his thick, snow-matted hair whipping into his face. Carefully, Wren disentangledherself from him and rolled him onto his side. As she adjusted the hood tighter around him, his arm fell limply off the edge of the seat.

She unbuckled Collins’s bag. Whining hinges opened to reveal clothes folded in neat, crisp piles and a thin folder tucked into the side. She leafed through it, pinning the papers with her thumb as the wind tried to tear them away from her.

And there, she found it.

Shoved in alongside his passport, his bills, and a few letters was a poster. In bold, black letters was the wordWANTED. That son of a bitch. It figured he’d betray her. The bounty was at least triple what she could offer him.

Replacing everything exactly as she found it, Wren called, “Can you stop?”

“What?” Collins turned halfway over his shoulder again. “Didn’t you say this was urgent?”

Wren gestured to Hal, lying deathly still. “I’ll double your pay if you stop in the next town. My friend isn’t holding up well.”

“No can do, miss,” Collins said. “Like I said, this is the only way that’s safe.”