Page 73 of Down Comes the Night

“I’m afraid I must insist.”

With an edge to his voice, he said, “Sit down.”

“Not until you tell me where we’re going!” Wren shoved his shoulder—and immediately regretted it. She’d meant it as more of a warning than an attack, but it was enough to provoke him.

He reeled on her, slackening his hold on the reins. The dogs overcorrected the sled’s course, and it lurched, skidding sideways along a patch of ice. Wren stumbled backward, clinging to the edge of her seat to steady herself.

“Are you insane?” he yelled. “We’re going to Danu, just like you asked.”

The dogs barreled ahead, howling. Fear, cold and stiff as icicles, pierced her heart. Her options raced by, quick and ungraspable as the screaming winds. She could try to take over the sled, but the thought of hurting Collins by mistake made her hands tremble.

She was paralyzed.

If she did nothing, they’d both be arrested. She would be Severed. Or worse.

Do something,she told herself.Move.

Before she could talk herself out of it, Wren slipped off her glove and dug her fingers into the back of Collins’s neck. “Sorry!”

Her magic flooded into his nervous system, and Wren felt the moment his consciousness flickered out. He slumped forward, the reins slipping from his deadened hands. Bent over the front seat, Wren fumbled for them, her eyes stinging in the wind. The dogs veered off course, their paws scrabbling in the wet snow as the sled teetered dangerously close to the precipice. She whispered frantic prayers as they strained against their harnesses.

Another lurch, and the sled crested an embankment, up to safety. Wren’s relieved sob misted the air—just as the tracks hit an icy outcropping. The sled jolted, and her boots left the floor.

On reflex, she grabbed the back of Hal’s collar, and together, they tumbled off the side of the open-backed sled. For one moment, there was nothing but wind and darkness wailing around her. Then, a sickeningcrack, a stupefying burst of agony, as her head struck the ice. Hal’s dead weight crushed her as they landed in a heap, forcing the air from her lungs.

Far ahead of her, the dogs faded into the veil of the blizzard. Her vision swam with snow and stars as she shoved Hal off her, her breaths coming in long wheezes. As the pain pulsed in her skull, she heaved herself onto her knees and vomited.

Not good, she thought hazily. A concussion, most likely.

Exhaustion and nausea pulled her back down. As the cold seeped into her coat, she turned to look at Hal. The last thing she saw was a pair of black eyes regarding her through the flurries.

Then, darkness.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

The world howled as Wren blinked into consciousness.

She turned onto her side, already numb from cold, and looked for Hal. But as the white and black tendrils of the storm twisted and knotted around her, she realized that his imprint in the snow was all that remained of him. He’d left her.

And he’d taken her stuff, that bastard.

At least the grogginess blunted some of the terror. The blow to her head had thickened her thoughts to molasses and attenuated her focus. But she knew, deep down, that if she didn’t get it together, this would be bad. She didn’t know how long she’d been out, and while her extremities were numb, they weren’t frostbitten. Not yet, anyway.

The longer she stayed curled up here, the more heat she would lose and the quicker she would die. Once her core temperature dropped enough, her control over her magic would falter. Then her mental faculties would slow—followed soon enough by her heart.

No, she couldn’t die here. Not after she’d come so far.

Wren rubbed her temples and pushed as much magic as she could spare into her head to ease the concussion. Her fingers came away caked with blood. The wind had already covered Hal’s tracks, but he couldn’t have gotten far in weather like this.

She dragged herself to her feet and began to walk.

It felt like hours that she wandered in the dark, alternately stumbling and clawing her way forward when it took too much effort to keep upright. Ice slipped into the nailbeds of her ungloved hand. Her eyes and nose streamed from the bitter air, which froze the water on her skin in seconds. And with every step, she sank deeper and deeper into the drifts until she feared she’d be entombed.

Everything that lay behind her was as white and featureless as what lay ahead. The world was insubstantial, little but wind and cold water slipping through the gaps in her bone-white fingers. No matter how she looked at it, it was hopeless. It would be so easy to lie down.

Wren sank to her knees. Everything hurt, every part of her fragile. Ice wound its way through her blood until she couldn’t even remember her own name, much less what she had set out to do in the first place.

No rush, then,she decided. She deserved to rest.