Wren let out her breath shakily, pressing her head into the velvet back of the sofa. As her nerves settled, she felt a steady tick, tick, tick against her hip. Her pocket watch? She’d been so fixated on investigating that noise, she’d forgotten to leave the timer with Hannah. As soon as Lowry left, she’d have to hurry back upstairs. Her antidote would finish brewing in a minute, and she needed to make sure it was taken off the heat before it denatured.

Just as realization struck, her pocket watch rang as loud and bright as a whistle.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Like a shock of cold water, fear doused Wren with an eerie numbness.

She expected Lowry to react, to scream, to startle. But he stood perfectly still, his expression slowly clouding with dread. “Who’s there?”

She reached into the pocket of her nightdress and turned off the timer. With every churn of the second hand, it pulsed in her fingers like a beating heart. There was no use trying to hide. Wren stood on unsteady feet. “I’m sorry to disturb you.”

“Oh, Ms. Southerland. What are you doing here?” He didn’t exactly sound impatient, but there was an edge, an urgency, to his question. His lantern’s flicker made the broken darkness swim on his tightly drawn face.

“I thought I heard a noise.”

“What sort of noise?”

“A moan, I think.” Her voice was surprisingly even. As she found her footing, she tried at a playfully stern tone. “And it seems I was right to check. You’ve hurt yourself.”

Up close, through the steady trickle of blood, she could see his wound more clearly. It was already knotted shut with black thread, and his skin was puckered from the imperfect, hurried job. It looked like a railroad sewn into his flesh. Around it were other scars, shiny and ridged. Some were pockmarks, like strawberry seeds—others were wide and irregular like canyons.

“Oh, this? This is nothing.” Lowry angled his arm away from her. “I wish you hadn’t seen this. It makes me look quite hypocritical, doesn’t it? That wing is a death trap, but it’s … well, it’s where the wine cellar is. I was going to fetch a bottle and took a spill in some debris.”

Liar.

The explanation made little sense—the chronology even less so. She’d seen him emerge from the east wing just now, and the wound had already been treated, shoddily done as it was. Whatever he was doing in there, he had brought medical supplies with him. Not to mention, the cut was perfectly clean. No debris would leave such a deep, straight cut.

But a scalpel would.

He smiled, and although unease curdled within her, she smiled back. “Would you like me to take a look at it?”