Page 92 of Down Comes the Night

“Focus.” Wren snapped open her own fan. “Do you see Lowry anywhere?”

No sooner had she spoken than an excited hush fell over the crowd.

He’d arrived.

Wren stood on her toes. There, high above the clusters of top hats and towering headdresses, was Lowry. He and Barrett descended the grand staircase to the pop and flare of tripod cameras. While Barrett wore a sensible, well-tailored jacket, Lowry wore along, jet-studded cloak. Here, in his element, Lowry exerted his own gravitational pull. As they walked, the crowds parted for them like oil dropped into water. Some sneered their disdain, and others gazed on in open adoration. All of them were rapt and unblinking.

Lowry turned his head to smile roguishly at a camera, revealing the mask fastened to the side of his head. A wolf snarled at Wren, so lifelike, she paled. She thought of its fangs sinking into her, bleeding her onto the marble ballroom floor.

Breathe,she reminded herself.You can do this.

A servant passed, balancing a tray filled with flutes full of sparkling golden wine. Wren reached out and plucked one off the platter by its stem. For good measure, she took a sip, and while it tasted crisp and more expensive than her life was worth, it settled like grease in her churning stomach.

Wren turned back to Hal. “Guard the cake while I’m gone. And save me a dance, will you?”

“If I must. I’ll dread your return.”

Wren grinned at him and turned to leave. Before she could take a single step, Hal reached out and caught her by the hand. She understood the unspoken message in the warm pressure of his fingers, the worry in his eyes.Be careful.

“I’ll be right back,” she said, more tenderly than she’d intended. “I promise.”

Hal let her go.

It took her a few minutes to wade through the masses, but the motion of the crowd eventually swept her into the parlor. Here, muffled by a set of heavy doors, the strains of the music were fainter. Roughly thirty people hugged the edges of the room, elbows planted on cocktail tables, backs turned to the crackling fire in the hearth. At the center of it all, Lowry luxuriated on a velvet lounge as if it were a throne. Barrett and two women she didn’t recognize basked in the twinkling light of the gems on his hands and jacket. Even Wren stilled.

He was laughing. The eye-crinkling, doubled-over kind. Among his friends, he looked almost… happy. Then her gaze landed onthe golden key glinting at his throat like an exposed artery. Wren squeezed the vial of chloral hydrate in her palm.

Now or never.

As she approached the group, Lowry looked up and met her gaze. Surprise flickered across his face before he concealed it behind a wide, welcoming smile. It matched his mask: all fangs. Ignoring the prying stares of his other guests, Wren edged herself into the circle. “My apologies for interrupting. You seemed to be having such fun.”

“Oh, we are.” Lowry wiped the heel of his palm across the bottom of each eye, brushing away tears.

“At last, someone to put a barrier between us.” Barrett pulled out a chair beside him. “Join us. Please.”

Wren sat. Two carafes of deep red wine rested on the end of the table, one already drained to the dregs. But what chilled her was the centerpiece. Five skulls arranged in a circle, each of their parietal bones lopped clean off. Red and golden petals, all from deadly varietals, spilled from their empty eye sockets and open craniums.

One skull for each missing soldier—all but one.

Wren raised a hand to her lips to conceal at least half her horror. For so long, she’d yearned to find answers. She’d yearned to findthem.Now, she wished she could take it all back. Some horrors were best unknown.

“Looks like she’s seen your new décor, Alistair.” Barrett grimaced. “It’s downright sacrilegious to exhume relatives, if you ask me. Gaudy at best. Honestly, five of them?”

“It’s their debut, so they needed to make a lasting impression. They’re most striking as a collection,” Lowry protested. His eyes sparkled with curious, hungry delight as he watched her expression morph. “Although I’m still missing one.”

If he was so flippant, so open, Alistair Lowry was even more of a monster than she imagined. Was hemockingher?

“Surely as a healer, Ms. Southerland, you can appreciate the beauty of anatomy laid bare,” Lowry continued. “Be honest with me. I can take it.”

“It’s dreadful,” she breathed. “I’ve never seen anything so macabre.”

When Lowry’s face fell, Barrett slammed his fist delightedly on the table. Wine shuddered in the carafes. “At least there’s someone else with some taste in this place.”

Lowry picked up a skull and chuckled to himself when the jaw, bolted at the temporomandibular joint, hinged open as if it had seen something scandalous. “I daresay I’m the only one here who has any fun.”

Wren had never hated him more. But she managed to plaster a smile onto her face and gesture to his empty glass. “How right you are. I’m being so dour, when tonight is for celebration. Another drink?”

“Very well.” Lowry replaced the skull on the table, shaking his head as if recovering from a particularly rich joke. “I do believe I promised Henry a drink to your talents.”