Page 44 of Down Comes the Night

“I’m fine.” Steadying herself, she said, “I think I’ll have a diagnosis for you soon.”

Hal glanced up at her, startled. “Really?”

“Yes.” She hesitated. “If anyone other than me brings you anything to eat, don’t take it, alright?”

Before he could ask any questions, she took one of the candles and slipped into the hallway.

Halfway down the staircase, a strange feeling bloomed cold at the base of her skull. Like the pressure of a thousand eyes boring into her—or the faint stirring of magic within her. Was someone hurt?

Wren glanced back up toward Hal’s room. Surely he hadn’t keeled over in the few seconds she’d been gone. It felt as if her magic urged her onward, downward. The shadows eddied around her skirts like a current:go.

She took one step. Another.

Then stopped dead.

Slowly at first, a moan welled up from below her.

“Hello?” she called, barely above a whisper. “Hannah? Lord Lowry?”

It crescendoed until it tore through her every nerve like shears. Sheknewthat sound—the same one from yesterday morning. For a few seconds, she stood frozen, staring blearily into the whispering flicker of the candlelight.

Some folk would tell you it’s haunted.

It was entirely, completely preposterous. And yet she trembled as if the temperature had plummeted around her. She hurried down the stairs. As soon as her boots touched the ground floor, her magic sighed across her skin. It tugged her, as if cinched around her wristlike rope, toward the forbidden east wing. But if Lowry found out she’d been inside…

What will he do? Send me away?

It seemed ridiculous, but fear forced her to skirt past it and into the waiting gloom of a corridor, past rows of closed doors illuminated by the orb of firelight. The force of her magic’s pull faded—then intensified again as she turned a corner into what looked like a morning room, furnished with white couches and an elegant writing desk that overlooked a curtained window. The air swirled thick with darkness.

Here,her magic seemed to say, when she stood in the center of the room.Here.

Glancing over her shoulder to make sure no one was watching, she crouched and placed her palm flat on the cold floorboards. Magic shot up the length of her forearm urgently. But this room was empty and forgotten, as desolate as the rest of the house.

Wren sighed with impatience, crossing the room to the writing desk. While she was here, she might as well take more parchment and ink for her notetaking tonight. She slid open one of the drawers, letting candlelight pour inside. Inside was an oddity—what looked to be a bound sheaf of anatomical sketches.

A shiver tore down her spine, sudden and fierce as a hailstorm. Her breath caught high in her throat. Hairs on her arms and the back of her neck stood on end. She hadn’t heard anyone in the hall, but without looking, sheknew.Someone was standing behind her.

“This place is of the living and yours no longer,” Wren whispered.

“Whatdid you just say?”

Wren whipped around, throwing candlelight across the room like a spill of water. It sluiced over Hannah, who leaned in the doorway with one hand on her hip. More than anything, Wren wanted the darkness to swallow her whole. Anything to cut short this embarrassment.

“Oh, nothing!” Wren laughed a little too shrilly, hastily slamming the drawer shut. “Nothing at all.”

“What are you doing in here? Are you looking for something?”

“Well, I was going to browse Lord Lowry’s library,” she said. “And then I… got lost?”

“Heavens,” Hannah muttered. In her plain dress and hastily braided hair, she looked nothing like the specter who had greeted Wren on her first night here. She was all too mortal, clearly drawn away from her evening tea. After a moment’s hesitation, Hannah asked, “Do you need me to show you?”

Wren hated she was relieved to have an escort. “Yes, please.”

Hannah guided her across the grand hall and to Lowry’s study, seemingly oblivious to the darkness that sharpened and lurched as they passed. From above the desk, the taxidermied stag’s antlers cast long, stark shadows over the floor like a tangle of briars.

Hannah flipped a switch beside the door, and the wall sconces all sputtered weakly to life. Wren squeezed her eyes shut at the sudden flood of artificial light, but when she blinked them open, a gloom still hung heavy in the air. She’d never grow accustomed to this sickly, pus-yellow glow. She’d read by firelight for the rest of her life if she could.

“Do you need anything else?” Hannah asked.