It took them nearly forty-five minutes to push through the worst of it, to where carriages and footprints had packed and worn a glassy road into the town square. Compared to the fog-thick gloom of Colwick Hall, it was quaint—even cheerful.

Incandescent lightbulbs burned in the streetlamps, and the smoke curling from the chimneys filled the air with scents of woodsmoke and baking pastries. Still-sleeping taverns leaned against inventors’ shops. Wren paused to gawk in a storefront window. A plaque beneath a prototype, apparently called a telephone, claimed you could use it to talk to someone miles away. Impossible, yet sorely needed in a place like this. Her fingers had gone numb in her gloves.

Hal’s reflection appeared beside hers in the glass. “I like this place.”

Wren turned to face him. “Oh?”

“It reminds me of where I grew up.”

“There are snowy hellscapes in Vesria as well, then?”

Hal shook his head at her. “It’s a feeling. The quiet and the cold. The smell of bread and storms.”

Wren lifted her eyebrows in surprise. “A small town then?”

“Yes.” The curve of his lips was wistful. “My father was a fisherman. My family moved out of the city when the bloodline ran dry two generations ago.”

It stung a little, imagining what kind of life he could’ve had. Sun-browned and rough-handed, briny winds tangling in his hair and a ship by the harbor. Still serious, still dedicated—but unhaunted.

Happy.

“I left home to enlist when I was eight.” At her horrified expression, he frowned. “They recruited us young—and my father was eager to see me go. I haven’t been back since and don’t expect I ever will be.”

They both looked up as the snow began to fall. It gathered in her eyelashes, the world going pale and sparkling. In spite of herself, she wanted more from him. More personal things to keep safe. “Do you miss it?”

“I do.” Hal tucked his hands into his pockets. “But I can’t make a difference from there.”

Too many follow-up questions arose. Too many thoughts, all unhelpful and masochistic, flooded her with unwelcome dread. If she did this, Hal would never see Vesria again.

“I don’t feel well,” he said.

Her heart twisted sharply. “Let’s get you inside then.”

They continued down the quiet, lamp-lit street, the cobblestones slick and shining. This early, still before full light, none of the townspeople had stirred yet. All the better for her. No witnesses. Wren counted the slowing beats of Hal’s heart, observed his movements as they became looser, less precise. Any moment now, he’d be out.

Give up already.

In front of the carriage company, Wren saw eight dogs, tails wagging, hitched to a sled. The snowflakes danced madly against the gas lamp, reminding her of a swarm of flies around a carcass. Hal stopped in his tracks, his eyes hard as he turned toward her.