Page 26 of Down Comes the Night

“No, no, don’t apologize! It’s not your fault. With all thissicknessnonsense, my nerves are so frayed of late, I…” He cut himself off with a shake of his head. With more cheer, he said, “Enough of that, anyway. I’m not paying you nearly enough to burden you with my anxieties.”

“It’s quite alright. I don’t mind.”

“All the same, please allow me to offer you a warmer welcome.” Lowry entered the room, pursued by the dramatic sweep of his cloak. As he approached her, she smelled warmth: coffee and rich spices. But it was the kind of late-summer warmth too quickly chased away. In its wake was something icy and almost floral, like sterilizing chemicals.

He towered above her, and if not for his wide-open expression, she might have found him overwhelming, almost intimidating. Still, she found herself flustered. He had a smile like an air pump. It sucked all the oxygen from the room. With a bow, he extended his hand to her. “Alistair Lowry, at your service.”

Wren accepted his outstretched hand. “Wren Southerland. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“The pleasure is all mine. I can’t begin to tell you how relieved I am you’re here. Recently this has been such a lonely, eerie place.”

“I can only imagine.” Wren frowned. “This illness sounds quite serious.”

“If I’m honest, I do my best not to think on it. The healers warned me I’d work myself up into a paranoid fever.” After a beat, he glanced down at the book in her hand and said, “Ah. I see you’re admiring the library.”

Wren sheepishly replaced the book on the shelf. “Indeed. You have an impressive collection.”

“It isn’t mine to take credit for, I’m afraid.” Lowry hopelessly gestured to the library, to all its dark corners and gawking taxidermy. “I dabble in the sciences here and there, but this is all my father’s. Were he still alive, I know he’d demur and call it provincial.”

No one could call this provincial. He had nearly the entirety of medical and mystical knowledge at his disposal. If she had freerein of this room during her stay, she’d die happy. “Your father was a scientist?”

“Ah, yes. He was quite the radical in his day, as a matter of fact. He was interested in the biology of magic. I could only understand his obsession as jealousy. He craved what he couldn’t have. Such is life.”

Wren could hardly envision a life without magic. To be born in a country without it seemed an awful fate. An unjust one. Cernosians’ genetics equipped them with a fully functioning but inaccessible set offola.The biological energy that produced magic coursed through them; they simply couldn’t mold it into anything useful.

“Well.” Wren cleared her throat, uncertain of what to say. “It’s marvelous, in any case.”

“You’re welcome to browse any time you’d like.” Lowry ran his hand absently along a shelf and sighed when his fingertips came away gray with dust. “It could use some attention, anyway. This room is just so… depressing. And rather grim and tacky. Although I do have a certain fondness for it, I myself being grim and tacky. Runs in the family, I suppose.”

Wren let her eyes wander to the crimson gemstone swinging from his earlobe and the black cape pinned around his shoulders with a garnet brooch. “Oh, no. Not at all.”

“You’re darling—and far too obliging. I do mean it, though. Take whatever you’d like. I meant to clean out all his things years ago, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Now I fear life has gotten away from me. When I had no energy to fulfill my social obligations, all but my dearest friend abandoned me. The house is falling apart around me. My servants are all dying.” As he sank deeper into his fur-lined collar, he looked like a sad, fluffed-out bird. “And there I go again, unloading my anxieties onto you. I need a drink. Do you?”

“No, thank you.”

With a shrug, Lowry walked to a bar cart beside a gold-trimmed writing desk and poured himself a glass of brandy from a crystal decanter. Although his tone was light and his words almost flippant,Wren could see the despair that swallowed any of his former playfulness. In profile, his eyes dulled to flat black. Perhaps there was more to him than his shallow reputation—maybe even some kindness, if he was eaten up about his servants enough to summon her.

“I imagine it’s been difficult for you lately.”

At that, he snapped back into himself, his smile chasing away the lingering gloom. “My apologies, Ms. Southerland! I’ll be alright. You needn’t let me talk your ear off. Come, sit. We have business to discuss.”

Wren followed him to the writing desk and took a seat across from him. She caught a glimpse of her frazzled reflection in the desk’s polished surface and tore her eyes away.

“Here is my proposal for you.” He curled his hands neatly around his glass of brandy, all his rings glimmering in the dim light. “I’ve grown tired of being tired. Next month, I plan to make my grand return to society and host my annual Midwinter celebration. At the risk of sounding vain, it’s among the most well-attended and well-documented events of the year. And I daresay it will be even more so this year. The people have missed me.”

“Even in Danu, they miss you,” Wren offered. “Last year, I read about nothing but your parties in the gossip columns. Now they have nothing new to talk about.”

“Didyou?” He seemed to perk up. “What did they say?”

“I… Well—”

“No, no. Ignore me. I’ll carry us adrift.” He swirled the liquid his glass. “Anyway. As I mentioned in my letter, there are serious debates among the Cernosian nobility about forging an alliance with the Danubian Crown. I intend to present you to my circle as Cernos’s official liaison.”

“Me?” Wren sputtered. “A liaison?”

“Yes, you. You’ll be wonderful! It will hardly require any effort on your part. You’ll wear a dress that will occupy every slavering paparazzo on the continent for weeks to come. We’ll dance. We’ll drink. We’ll socialize. Once I take care of the tedious paperwork, all you need to do is deliver Cernos’s messages to your queen. You’llbe in court, and you’ll be reinstated to your post, of course. What do you say?”

It sounded too good to be true.