“I couldn’t impose on you. In fact, I hardly feel it.” He smoothed back the limp mop of his curls. “You should be in bed.”

Wren showed him her pocket watch. “Eleven fifty, my lord. I’ve ten minutes of freedom left.”

“So you do.” The key around his neck glinted as it caught the light. It was covered with fingerprints stamped in drying blood. “In that case, let me entreat you to join me for coffee. If you don’t mind my saying, you look positively dreadful. Are you sleeping enough?”

A pocket of fear bubbled in her chest. Something was terribly wrong, and she didn’t want to prolong this meeting any longer. She wanted nothing more than to lock herself in her bedroom and leave only when she could afford to never look back again. “No, thank you. I need to get back to work.”

“Come now,” he cajoled. “Don’t tell me Henry is rubbing off on you with that attitude of his. Such seriousness will halve your life, Ms. Southerland.”

He most certainly was not.

“Actually,” she said sourly, “coffee sounds wonderful. I believe you’re due for an update on Henry, anyway.”

Wren followed him to the drawing room. He flicked on a switch and cursed under his breath when the lights remained dark. Only dim firelight from the hearth twinkled on a chandelier dripping with crystals and cobwebs.

“A power outage,” Wren supplied.

“So it seems,” he said, voice strained. “How charming.”

Within a few minutes of ringing a bell, a bleary-eyed Nelly brought in a coffeepot piping out bittersweet steam. It smelled of roasted chocolate and jam and wealth. Wren swallowed her dread and chased it with coffee. It tasted burnt and astringent, thick as thrush on her tongue.

Lowry sprawled sideways in an armchair like an overgrown child, his legs spilling off one side. As he pulled down his sleeve and fastened the buttons at his wrists, blood seeped into the white fabric and spread like an unfurling petal. Wren lowered herself onto a chair as if settling into hot water. Now that her nerves had quieted, her magic alerted her to his pale complexion, his too-weak heartbeat, his too-shallow breathing. Even his energy was sluggish as tar.

“Are you feeling well?” she asked as innocently as she could.

Lowry’s pupils were tiny specks in a sea of blue. “Why, of course. I feel amazing.”

From her seat, she was struck by the stench that clung to him. Beneath the smell of coffee and cologne, something chemical burned the back of her throat and stirred hazy memories. What was it? If she closed her eyes, she could see the cold glint of scalpels. Hollow cavities and pale, stringy tendons. Rubbery flesh beneath her gloves.

Formaldehyde?