How could she be anything but desperate? Hal Cavendish was alive and here, and for the life of her she could not fathom why Alistair Lowry had summoned her to heal a man she despised. If she’d acted on her first impulse, all it would have taken was a single cut, one severed artery or neuron, and the Reaper of Vesria would have been no more. Lowry knew that, as surely as he knew tensions were rising between their countries. Concealing Hal’s identity from her wasn’t a minor omission—or a prudent one. Which meant the only logical explanation was that he’d thought her patient’s name meaningless.

Maybe Lowry simply didn’t know who Hal was.

No, not even Lowry could be dense enough to mistake the Reaper of Vesria for a common man. Then again, Cernos had maintained their neutrality for centuries, and the estate lurked deep in the isolated Dramlach Mountains. Lowry himself admitted he hadn’t followed politics before now. Still, too many questions remained. How did Hal get here? And what was he doing, posing as a servant while his country mobilized for war?

Not that it mattered urgently when both she and Hal would be gone in two weeks. Earlier, Wren had dashed off a letter to the local carriage company, and when a servant boy dropped off her breakfast, she slipped the envelope into his hand along with two gold coins. He returned half frozen two hours later with a response:

W—

The weather is far too dangerous to leave today, but we should be able to get you down the mountain two weeks from now. Meet at 0500 sharp. Stay warm.

—Edward Collins,
Aldershot Sled & Carriage Company

All she had to do until then was maintain this house-doctor charade. From her examination last night, she could tell Hal’s condition was critical. She’d need to treat his worst symptoms before she moved him into another room, much less across the country in a snowstorm.

Only fourteen days, she reminded herself. You can do anything for fourteen days. Even lying to the most influential man in Cernos and healing the most wanted man in Danu.

Wren winced at a sudden sting in her hands. The water gurgled as it circled the drain, stained pink with blood. The cold air last night had dried out her skin, and she’d been so absentminded as she scrubbed her hands, she must have chafed them raw. She turned off the tap. Blood ran slick off the end of her fingertip, then spattered in the bone-white basin with a dull plop.

Just then, a groan—distant, almost muffled—sent gooseflesh rippling up her arms. What was that? It sounded almost anguished.

After hastily healing the abrasions on her hands, Wren crept out of the washroom and into the hall. Nothing stirred save the painfully familiar tick, tick, tick of an old grandfather clock. The air seemed frozen, already splintering at the disturbance.