It took what felt like an eternity to drag Una to the gates, her breaths coming in ragged gasps. Someone would stumble upon her eventually, but she couldn’t leave Una out here in the cold for long. Worrying her lip, she lowered her friend to the ground and propped her upright against the wall. Unconscious, with her lips parted and dark hair falling into her face, she looked young and frail. And so beautiful, her skin near lustrous in the silvery night.

“I’m sorry, Una.” Tears made the world hazy. She tucked the loose strands of hair behind Una’s ears. “I’m so sorry.”

Wren rang the gate’s bell. Then, she ran.

She nearly stumbled into the snowbanks as she paused to snatch up her suitcases, which lay abandoned beside Una’s imprint in the snow. With every stride, her luggage bruised the backs of her legs. Her shoulders ached in protest and icicles seemed to cut into her lungs with every panicked breath, but she did not slow until she saw the carriage, an open-fronted glass coach lit by the flicker of a lantern.

It stood beside the black bend of the River Muri, a churning mirror that shattered the moon’s pale light. The four white horses hitched to it snorted, their breath curling upward like smoke from a snuffed candle. A man in his fifties stood beside it, dressed in a worn brown coat and a tall hat.

“Ms. Southerland?” the driver asked, clearly flustered by her appearance. “I’d begun to worry you got lost.”

“Not lost,” she wheezed. “Just delayed. Sorry.”

“Can I help you with anything?” he asked, bewildered, as she loaded her belongings into the open trunk. “I’m Basil, by the way.”

“A pleasure.” Wren opened the passenger door. “We have to go. Now.”

He glanced over her shoulder, squinting at the abbey in the distance. “Right. I’ll move us along as quickly as I can. There’s a storm coming, and we won’t make it to the estate if we delay.”

Wren climbed into the carriage and slammed the door shut behind her. Basil took his place on the box seat, and with a snap of the reins, the horses galloped into the flurries and gloom. It would take a few hours for Una to awaken, and a few more still for the news of Wren’s disappearance to hit.

By then, the storm would have gained force, and Wren would be long gone.

Wren pressed her face to the window. She hardly recognized her reflection in the glass. Although she had the same thick eyebrows and the same broad forehead, the harried girl staring back at her was a deserter.

Wren felt dead with exhaustion, but the rough shape of her breaths let her know, despite it all, she was alive. Without Una, without her job, she was still Wren. A Wren composed of all the worst, unlovable parts of herself. But still Wren.