Page 28 of Down Comes the Night

“Henry,” he supplied.

“Right. I’ll give you my assessment of Henry tomorrow. I can meet you for tea?”

“Tea would be perfect.” Lowry slumped lower in his chair, pushing his curls away from his forehead. Like this, even in his finery and polish, Wren could see the cracks. He looked utterly exhausted—and deeper still, something else burned. Something like iron, determined and unwavering. And something… almost frenetic. “I cannot begin to tell you what a relief it is to have you here. I don’t think I can bear any more death.”

Wren understood that sentiment painfully well. “I’ll make sure you won’t have to.”

“Thank you,” Lowry said hoarsely. “From the bottom of my black and shriveled heart, thank you.”

“Of course.” Her gaze fell on the contract again. Although her gut roiled in protest, what else could she do? She signed her name. The ink shone red in the lamplight.

When she looked up, the taxidermied deer head behind him leered eyelessly at her. Wren shivered. She wasn’t superstitious, but to have so much death staring her down…

It boded ill for her patient’s recovery.

The hallway outside Wren’s room reeked of sickness: boiled herbs and stale air. Her body ached and her heavy eyes begged for sleep, but her healing magic pulled her toward her patient. The disease had settled over the house like a funeral pall, wedged itself into every woundlike crevice. She hated to admit that she was unsettled, but maybe the familiar rhythms of healing would soothe her.

It wasn’t that she was afraid. She just couldn’t shake the dread that had settled beneath her skin like a chill as soon as she’d signed away her freedom to the whims of Alistair Lowry. But it was an entirely unreasonable worry. Lowry was eccentric, as Basil warned her. Cautious, as anyone would be after witnessing so much death.

It wasn’t as if she needed to go anywhere, especially in this storm.It had begun in earnest now, wailing and rattling the windows like a ghost. Outside the hallway window, the view was solid, swirling white.

Wren slung her medical bag over her shoulder and crossed the hall to the sickroom. With every step, the sound of labored breathing grew louder. Her magic bristled again, tingling and hot in her fingertips. She’d never been able to resist its yearning to heal, but this was a new kind of hunger. Whatever illness the man had, it had raged for too long. Another few days untreated would likely kill him. The door creaked as she pushed it open inch by inch.

“Hello? Henry?” she called, hoping not to startle him. “I’m the healer Lord Lowry sent for.”

There was no answer.

A single candle, melted down to a puddle, burned in the darkness, but shadows stubbornly clung in the corners like smoke stains. A four-poster bed took up nearly the entire room, its white canopy closed. It gave Wren the impression of a long-abandoned room, all the furniture cloaked and hidden. A wet, barking cough sounded from behind the canopy.

Wren sat in the chair beside the sickbed and drew back the curtain. A man lay tangled in the sheets and propped up by pillows. Although exhaustion made her sluggish, she collected magic in her palm and laid it on his chest to assess the damage. What could have decimated a household in weeks?

Her eyes adjusted to the darkness. Bit by bit, shadows gave shape to his face. Black hair and a fawn complexion. Long, imperious features. An almost pouting mouth. This was not the dignified butler she’d imagined. He was just a sullen boy. Just a—

Wren stifled a gasp and snatched her hand away.

This was no boy, no common servant.

Sleeping fitfully in the sickbed was Hal Cavendish.

CHAPTER NINE

Although years had passed since their last encounter, he was unmistakable. It was him. It was Hal. He was supposed to be missing.

But here he was, laid low in a canopied bed. Wren stood abruptly, and the scrape of the chair on the floorboards stirred him awake. With a groan, his eyes peeled open. Wren’s mind blackened in terror, the same color as his eyes. She fixed her gaze on his chest to avoid meeting his. Even one second, one glance, would be enough to stop her heart.

No, no, no. This couldn’t be happening. Why, of all places, was hehere?

He was the Reaper of Vesria. He was a monster, above mortal things like sickness. Yet he languished here the same as any flesh and blood being with a fever. It was almost pathetic, the way he shivered.

As fear solidified into rage, a thought slid effortlessly into her head:Kill him.

The ink was already drying on a contract that required her to heal him, at risk of everything she’d taken such pains to secure. But this was a man with too much blood on his hands to wash away. It would be so easy, so right. She could sever his carotid artery right now and not spare a thought to the trifling consequences of breaking her contract.

Wren had never killed anyone before. Her oath as a healer forbade it. But she had watched her friends do it time and time again with the grace and remorselessness of a wolf snapping a rabbit’s neck. Killing him now was as good as an act of mercy, as holy as healing. It was a far more honorable death than succumbing to fever like a feral dog.

Silver magic glowed in her palm. His every undeserved breath rasped.

If Una wanted her to be ruthless, she would be ruthless.