Page 55 of Down Comes the Night

Hal’s breath caught. She’d drawn blood again.

When he met her eyes, it was not with the hurt she expected. It was with resignation. As if she’d delivered a sentence he’d long agoaccepted. This was not the Reaper of Vesria. He was nineteen and painfully mortal. And so…sad.What had she done? She hadn’t even meant half of that.

“I am a monster. I deserve your hatred.” Hal was as quiet and cold as a winter night. “The things I have done are unforgivable. I’ll face punishment for them, and someday, I’ll gladly submit to whatever your queen sees fit. But not until I find them.”

He let her hand drop, and with nothing holding her together, she trembled.

What was he suggesting? That hewantedto face trial for war crimes? That hewantedan end to their countries’ war? That all his reading, every evasion of discussing who he was on the battlefield, belied guilt? It went against everything she’d believed true about him. All her life, Hal was the specter of an enemy who wanted to destroy everything she loved. This was the first time she considered he might notwantbe to Vesria’s prized weapon. But hadn’t he already told her the truth in the morning room? He did feel. He did regret.

“What does Lowry have to do with any of that?” Wren whispered.

“I said nothing about Alistair Lowry.” Bitterness—maybe even hatred—twisted the sound of his name.

“No. I guess you didn’t.” But he had to be involved with this somehow if Hal was here. Wren crossed her arms as she studied the weariness seeping into his expression.

“I regret that I’ve been opaque with you. The plainest truth I can offer you is that I am afraid. I need you, but I can’t allow myself to depend on you.”

“I wouldn’t depend on me, either,” she said. Lately all she’d done was lie. All she’d done was betray her friends’ trust and hurt them. “I gave you my word, though. I’ll do my best to find an antidote.”

Hal stared determinedly out the foggy window. “I’m sorry to hear about your friend.”

Wren sucked in an audible breath. How could he give her compassion after everything she’d said to him tonight? “I’m sorry, too. I… don’t know what came over me.”

Hal glanced her way but said nothing. Forgiveness, she supposed, had to be earned. As Wren walked away from him, she replayed his words over and over again.

Not until I find them.

Were they really so different? Two weeks ago, Wren had thought she knew herself. A medic in the Queen’s Guard. Reckless, yes, but good-hearted at her core. But with the weight of Hal’s life and a war in her hands, she wasn’t so sure anymore. Nothing was as simple as she wanted it to be.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Something about the thirty-third hour awake brought the world into sharp relief: a light-headed, transcendent clarity. If Wren was to have any chance of curing him, she couldn’t waste time sleeping until she had a solid lead on the antidote.

As Heloise’s apprentice, she’d welcomed the quiet comfort of the witching hour. Bone-weary after a long day of work, she often felt euphoric crawling into bed. Like she was the only person left in the world to watch the dawn sprawl out over the gray miles of hoarfrosted fields. Tonight’s solitude, however, only made her feel small and unhinged. The wind rattled her windows, and with thick ice calcified on the glass, she could see nothing of the world outside. She existed now only within the wavering confines of a lantern’s light.

A rat in a gilded cage.

Chipped white moonlight slipped through the latticework of cracks in the ice and illuminated her makeshift workstation. Crinkled papers littered the floor. Spilled tinctures stained her books and the heels of her palms. There were dirty pipettes and stirringsticks, overflowing beakers, and loose herbs dusting every surface like snowfall. Everything hurt. Everything. But she couldn’t rest. Only five more days remained to develop an antidote for Hal, and all she could see in her own messy handwriting was

Failure

Failure

Failure

in a neat column down the page.

Not a single one of her experiments had worked.

Her anger had simmered itself dry hours ago. What remained was despair. She wanted to go home, far away from Hal and her guilt and fear. Home, where everything she loved waited for her. Una and her flat and the polluted River Muri and—

Her book’s text warped and glimmered, and Wren squeezed her eyes shut to hold in tears. Self-pity wasn’t productive right now, as much as she wanted to indulge it. She needed to prepare the next batch of antitoxin. She opened her pocket watch and set a timer. In five minutes, she could run another set of tests. And most likely collect another set of failures to add to her growing list.

“You have to go to sleep.” Hannah’s concerned voice came from the doorway. “You’re going to run yourself ragged at this rate.”

“I will. I just have to finish this one thing.”

“You said that about the last five things, milady. Perhaps you should at least take a break. You’re looking a little, uh…” She gestured vaguely to her eyes.