Page 4 of Down Comes the Night

“Clearly not.” Wren fished a vial of poppy tincture from her bag. “Although you may want a painkiller. Setting your arm may feel worse than death, at least for a minute.”

“I’ll be fine.”

He still thought she was going to hurt him. It was almost precious.

“Suit yourself.” In his unbroken stare, Wren saw Una, hard and defiant. It filled her with affection, of all things. “Look. Whether you’re guilty or not, it’s not right to leave you like this. So what’s it going to be?”

In the silence, she marked time with the sound of his tight, shallow breathing. At last, the boy squeezed his eyes shut and turned his head away from her. “Alright. Do it.”

Finally, an ounce of trust. She’d take it.

Wren unlocked the manacle from his injured wrist and held him fast. As she called on her magic, a second network of veins, thefola,ran silver and glimmering down the length of her arm. An aura radiated from beneath her skin, wrapping her hand in a glow like moonlight.

“Ready?”

He nodded, his features stark and hollow in the cold, flickering light.

Wren squeezed his wrist reassuringly, the only preparation she could offer. Then her magic poured into him, and he whimpered through the realignment of bone, the rapid division of cells. The healing took several minutes, and by the end of it, the boy was panting and clammy with sweat. He ran his fingers over the unbroken skin and the straight line of his forearm with a slack-jawed awe, as if Wren had performed a miracle. She beamed with satisfaction. Her healing was far from miraculous—only a biological wonder. Even so, she wasn’t sure she would ever grow accustomed to her patients’ wide-eyed gratitude.

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” She had a thousand questions, but his trust was a delicate thing, like a rabbit’s spine. It would be easily broken if squeezed. “I can tell you’re not a fighter.”

The boy huffed. “What do you know?”

“Nothing, I guess.”

After a pause, he spoke almost too quietly to hear. “You wouldn’t understand. Where I come from, this is the only option. My family can’t protect me anymore.”

“I do understand.” Wren smiled sadly through her exhaustion. War had made orphans of them all.

All at once, uncertainty prickled her skin. She shouldn’t speak to him this way. She couldn’t. No matter how pathetic he looked as he cradled his arm like a broken doll, he was connected to her comrades’ disappearances.

He was her enemy. A spy. A Vesrian.

The boy must have seen her darkening expression. “Please. I swear I don’t know anything.”

Her magic still sung in his veins, forging a connection between them. Every one of his vital signs betrayed him. The stutter of his heart shouted,liar, liar, liar.

Before she could say another word, he slammed his fist into her solar plexus. Her breath fled her lungs in a whine, and as white burst behind her eyes, she watched her life unravel like this: the boy scrabbling for the key in the grass; her body surging forward to stop him; her skull cracking against the tree; the rattle of chains and cold metal clamping around her wrist.

He moved far too quickly to be a civilian, and the energy humming in her very bones whispered,magic.The world split like a cell in mitosis: two wavering keys fell from the boy’s open hands and into the bloody slush. Step by swaying step, two boys backed away from her.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. Then he was gone.

It was over in a moment, quicker than her diaphragm could unseize.

He’d manipulated her. And she’d let him.

With a shout of frustration, Wren pulled against her restraint until it rubbed her wrist raw and red. No matter how hard she struggled, the key was just barely out of reach. Her stomach churned with a familiar dread, and her breathing was too heavy, too loud.

This wasn’t real. Itcouldn’tbe real.

She had lost their only lead. Her only chance to learn what happened to Byers. Her only chance to ensure no one else went missing. The queen was going to kill her if Una didn’t first.

No, death would be a blessing. She’d proven the queen right. Wren didn’t deserve her approval, and she certainly didn’t deserve her spot in the Guard if she let her emotions make her weak and gullible and—

Reckless, just like Una said. She was right, as always.