“Who said anything about jesting?” His eyes ricocheted between pain and laughter.

  The carriage swerved through the uneven terrain, jolting Leena against St. Silas’s wound, causing him to inhale sharply.

  The white shirt beneath had already adhered to the wound. Grimly, and without giving him a chance to realize what she was about to do, she ripped the fabric that clung to the gash in one fluid motion. The clenching of his knuckles was his only reaction to the pain.

  Leena blanched at the sight of the wound, which scored between his ribs and his hip on the left side.

  It was horrific.

  The blood streaming from the severed skin seemed endless.

  More gruesome still were the spidery black lines that emerged from the center of the wound, spreading outward. Leena had never seen such markings in her life.

  St. Silas watched her face carefully, his eyes half-lidded. “Demon poison.”

  Leena wrenched her gaze to meet his. “Demon poison?” she cried, fear racing down her spine. “What is the treatment? This does not look—” Her tone faltered, mind racing.

  “Easily procurable in Golborne,” he replied without hesitation.

  Golborne—that was five days’ carriage ride away. “Will we have enough time?” she asked frantically.

  “You worry too much.”

  Leena ignored his attempt at lightheartedness. “How did you get injured with demon poison?” She wasted no time in tearing thick pieces of fabric from the hem of her dress to create bandages. The wound needed pressure immediately to stem the bleeding.

  Leena heard Rami curse just as the carriage jostled precariously on the ice, tipping them leftward before righting itself once more and continuing forward.

  St. Silas could not immediately answer as she began to swiftly wrap the gauze around his abdominal muscles. His eyes tightened briefly with every pressure she exerted on the wound, but he said nothing to stop her.

  “We have Hargreaves to thank for this,” St. Silas finally responded after he had caught his breath. Though it obviously caused him pain, he moved slowly to pull back the curtains and look out the window. “We are not moving fast enough.”

  “Hargreaves?” Leena echoed, her mind reeling back to the memories that Lady Hargreaves had left. A missing child—who was not missing at all, but a man now, bleeding in front of her. “Why was Hargreaves at the duel?”

  Another perilous lurch. This time, Leena was more prepared, holding on to the cushioned seat tightly.

  Leena could now see that they’d passed the forest surrounding Weavingshaw. In the distance, she could see big plumes of smoke rising from the miners’ town, but she didn’t have a moment to wonder about the cause.

  “Hargreaves wanted the red diary for the Wake.” St. Silas tried to sit up straighter, but Leena pushed him back, continuing to wrap the bandages firmly.

  “Why?”

  “He very rudely did not specify his reasons.”

  “Have you read the diary? Could there be anything in there that could capture his interest?”

  His mouth was a firm line. “There are few passages, mostly mundane accounts from the First Marquess of Avon. The rest of the pages are blank.”

  Blank?

  “Do you think Lord Hargreaves knows this?” Leena asked.

  “I doubt he does,” St. Silas said, gazing down at her hands tying the bandages. “My father must’ve fooled him into believing that it held vital information.”

  Leena held her misgivings. If the red diary retained benign, mostly blank pages, would this be enough to capture Percy back from the dead?

  Leena looked back out the window, her mouth pursed. They’d just entered the moors, leaving behind Lytham and Weavingshaw’s ever-watching tower.

  He continued softly. “There is something else, something about Theo—”

  Horror descended into Leena’s stomach with St. Silas’s brief but concise explanation of the events leading up to the duel. His expression remained neutral throughout, his voice continuing in that same slow cadence.

  Warring emotions played through her chest: hurt on St. Silas’s behalf, fury at the betrayal of the boy-ghost who stood guard over her bed each night, and shame that Leena had led their entire party to disaster on Theo’s word.

  She felt like the worst sort of fool. Tears pricked the backs of her eyes.

  St. Silas must have marked the expression on her face, for he opened his mouth to say something, something soft and careful—

  —but he was cut off by the deafening screech of wheels, followed by the snap of breaking metal.

  This time, the carriage didn’t correct itself, instead plunging into the snowbanks with force.

  Leena was thrown forward toward the window as the carriage fully overturned, her back painfully crashing against the glass panes.

  Stillness.

  Leena blinked through the confusion, trying to gain a sense of orientation, instantly looking for St. Silas. Before she could utter a word, the carriage door—now where the ceiling had been—flew open, and Rami’s panicked face appeared.

  “Are you two all right?” he cried, eyes jerking between the two of them.

  St. Silas slowly straightened beside her, his hand spasming across the site of his wound, jaw tense with pain.

  Relief flooded Rami’s face when he saw them both begin to stir. “The wheel of the carriage had broken and I couldn’t stop it from toppling over into an icy ditch.” He helped Leena exit the carriage first, followed more slowly by St. Silas. “Hurry. We must move fast.”

  Mrs. Van helped Rami unharness the horses, but her attention kept slipping back toward the road. “They are not far behind.”

  The snow had thickened. Already the sky had darkened beneath the clouds; only a thin remnant of light remained to guide their way. All around them the earth was covered in white, the snow now up to Leena’s ankles, coating the hedgerows and the trees.

  Her teeth chattered, more from spent nerves than the cold, but she knew that the temperature would soon drop further. Already the tips of her ears felt raw.

  St. Silas was leaning against a birch tree, eyes too bright and slightly unfocused.

  She drew closer to him, reassessing him for any new injuries. “Are you all right, my lord?”

  He nodded, the flush in his cheeks a contrast to the paleness of his skin.

  Leena placed a hand against his forehead, her heart sinking when she felt his temperature scorching.

  “You have a fever,” she cried in alarm, turning to Mrs. Van. “He says that he has been injured with demon poison—”

  “Describe the wound,” Mrs. Van demanded.

  Leena did so as best she could, emphasizing the black marks emanating from its center.

  “Detritus Poison.” Mrs. Van’s breath hitched. “The antidote is rare.”

  St. Silas nodded toward Mrs. Van. “Can you make it?”

  “I can,” Mrs. Van confirmed, “but I must go back immediately to Golborne where my books are. Then it will take a few hours to collect the ingredients.”

  Golborne, which was five days away. And now their carriage was broken. “How long does he have before the poison reaches his heart?” Leena’s eyes swung between St. Silas and Mrs. Van in horror.

  Mrs. Van fleetingly looked at St. Silas before answering. “A few days. At most, a week.” She struggled to meet St. Silas’s gaze. “First, he will swing in and out of acute delirium, and infection will ravage his body, before he falls comatose—likely around the fifth day. I have only ever seen this poison used once. Afterward—”

  Mrs. Van stopped, unable to continue.

  Leena touched her chest as if her own heart felt the ache of the poison, already preparing for the end.

  Coming to Weavingshaw’s hunting party, a thousand grim scenarios had played out in her mind. But never once had she seen St. Silas dying in any one of them—or imagined that the very thought of such a possibility would send her into a premature grief, as if that loss could already be felt.

  Leena finally looked at all three of them mutely: Rami, his teeth clenched; St. Silas, poison thrumming in his veins, already ravaged with infection; Mrs. Van, demon-born, whose grim face belied a depth of emotion.

  Leena knew with certainty that St. Silas would not last a journey on horseback.

  She inhaled a lungful of crisp air, welcoming the way it burned her throat.

  Steeling her nerves, she turned to her brother. “Rami, you and Mrs. Van must ride to Golborne now. You will have to push yourself to the limit, but you can make the journey in two and a half days if you ride day and night. You will have to change horses at every posting inn.” Leena glanced at the horses. They were carriage horses and would need to be traded for two riding horses at the next town. That would slow them down as well. “Once you arrive in Golborne, Mrs. Van will concoct the antidote. Once that is done, you must ride as quickly as you can back to us.”

  “Where will you be?” Rami asked as he took hold of the horses from Mrs. Van, already preparing for the long ride ahead.

  “In Lytham, a couple of miles back. There is an old housekeeper who lives in the center of the town. We’ll hide there.”

  Rami nodded. “You two must not walk back on the road, but circle around the town. I will lead the Black Coats away from you. Mrs. Van will take one horse and I will take the other, so that they may think that we have all gone to Golborne.” He paused in the act of knotting the long reins. “If we are lucky, they will not uncover the deception until we are back in the city.”

  Mrs. Van’s gaze raked St. Silas. “He is fever-touched already. Our time is very short—especially as Mr. Al-Sayer will have to travel back with the antidote in this weather.”

  “You will have to make it, Rami,” Leena said firmly. “If not, then I will personally track down Lord Hargreaves and trade the red diary for the antidote.”

  Leena had seen St. Silas hide it in his coat pocket when they’d struggled out of the upturned carriage.

  At this, St. Silas jolted, stumbling forward to grasp Leena’s shoulders in a tight grip. There was urgency in his eyes. “Swear to me that Hargreaves will never get ahold of that diary, Leena. It is essential. Swear it.”

  Leena locked her stare with his. For the first time in her entire life, the lie felt natural on her tongue. “I swear it.”

  He released her, turning toward Rami. “Here.” He thrust out a drawstring pouch, full of coins. “If you need more, Mrs. Van will know where to look in my study.”

  Mrs. Van took one last look at St. Silas, her stern eyes memorizing the contours of his face, and for a moment it looked as if she was in prayer. Then her straight brows formed a formidable scowl as she swung herself onto the horse.

  “I’m sorry,” Rami said as he climbed onto the other black gelding, “that you both have to walk toward town in this snow, but this is the only viable way to lead the Black Coats away from you.”

  St. Silas nodded, his gaze already turned toward the miners’ town and the road that lay ahead.

  Leena kept the information from Rami tucked away in her mind, unable to focus on it now when so many other problems required her immediate attention.

  “Be careful?” Leena implored, looking up at Rami with a lump in her throat. At Rami’s short nod, she gave him the satchel in which she’d packed her botany book and the housekeeper’s timepiece. “Take this back to Golborne for me.”

  Rami took it distractedly, glancing at St. Silas for a moment with a hooded expression that she’d never seen him wear before. He shook his head before he bent to her, his voice low so that only she could hear him. “The Saint knew the duel was an ambush from the very first. He knew it was slaughter. He still went.”

  Leena absorbed the words. “Yes, he told me, but what I don’t understand is why he would do such a thing. It is very unlike him.”

  Rami straightened, staring down at her with something bordering on exasperation. He took the reins and turned the horse southbound.

  “Rami!” She tried to go around him but he threw her an irritated glance before trotting forward.

  “Have you not guessed by now?” The horse grew restless, Rami barely able to restrain it single-handedly.

  “Do not play games now.”

  Rami speared one final glance at St. Silas, before looking back at her intently. “I was going to be executed on the steps of Weavingshaw. The Saint saved me. And it was all for you.”

  Then he lashed the reins forcefully, a canter turning to a gallop, Mrs. Van following closely behind. Leena watched him go, his words echoing in her ears.

  She felt his absence like the cleaving of two branches that shared the same root.

  Rami and Mrs. Van were gone.

  Go with them, St. Silas had told Leena.

  And miss a walk in the snow? she’d responded.

  Only now they walked through a storm.

  The snowflakes had built to a crescendo, and they were the only two figures making slow progress against the harsh drifts. The roads were no longer visible, so they relied on the tall blades of grass peeking through the snow to navigate the banks.

  The farther they walked, the more Leena supported St. Silas—every step laborious, half stumbling in exhaustion. They had passed Lytham in the carriage, and now walked back toward it, away from the road. It had been only two hours since they’d started their slow progress toward the miners’ town, but already Leena felt St. Silas descending further into delirium.

  She looked obliquely at him. His expression was stony, long eyelashes tipped with frost, breath clipped in pain.

  “What are you thinking of?” he asked her. He was no longer able to maintain his habitual honeyed tones. Now his words were grit.

  “I am thinking of you.” Leena felt his head turn toward her.

  Rami’s parting words still tore through her—all for you—until they had remodeled her in some essential and unknowable way. She could not think past them—not when she had spent so long fighting to survive, not when life found new ways to orphan her continuously. Not when she was so exhausted from always carrying loss on her back.

  That St. Silas had deliberately, willingly, met the sword for her—

  She choked on the thought, felt it expand within her until she was suffused with it from the inside out. She knew she could never adhere to Rami’s last caution—to use the inexplicable hold he thought she had over St. Silas to her advantage—and she knew her brother would likely think her a fool for not doing so. But she could not. She would not.

  “Leena?” St. Silas’s voice broke her from her reverie.

  Yet she could not speak of Rami’s words to St. Silas, not when she’d not had time to understand them. Not when he’d not admitted to them himself.

  Instead, she said softly, “You are suffering greatly, yet you show nothing of it. I was wondering where you learned such a trick.”

  He didn’t respond for a while. The growing fever coming from his skin alarmed Leena more than his silence.

  “Tell me,” Leena said, thinking quickly, “how you learned to shoot so accurately.”

  His response, when it did come, was stilted. “It was Hargreaves. We practiced daily when I was a boy.”

  “Is that also how you learned to ride so well?”

  A nod. “Though that was more Lady Hargreaves. She loved horses.”

  With a choked voice, remembering the memories Lady Hargreaves had left in her of Bram as a boy, Leena asked, “Tell me what your father told the world when Bramwell Avon went missing at twelve years old.”

  His words came slowly, as if dragged from a deep cavern. “My mother’s family was not noble. My maternal grandfather was a tradesman. My father and Hargreaves told society that I had been kidnapped by a few of my grandfather’s less savory contacts as a punishment for all the money he’d lost them. They said that they’d thrown every resource into finding me, but they’d been told that I was likely already dead. I think my father always intended to come back for me eventually, to ‘find’ me—”

  “Because you are his son?”

  “Because I am his heir,” he corrected. “Only Percival was killed before he could.”

  “That was a very far-fetched story they concocted. Did anyone believe it? Surely someone must’ve gone looking for you.”

  There was a frown on his face. “Society would believe anything an Avon said.”

  Leena gripped St. Silas’s arm tightly, as if to show him the ache she felt for him. “Lady Hargreaves came to visit me last night. She cared for you. Deeply.”

  St. Silas stiffened.

  A sudden trough in the earth caught them unawares, sending them both flying onto a blanket of snow.

  Leena groaned.

  Ice clung to her cheeks and fell down the back of her collar. Her stockings were now thoroughly wet, and she reckoned that she had a hole through her left boot.

  Beside her, St. Silas lay completely still.

  She scrambled toward him, heart thudding. His skin was entirely bleached of color, his eyes closed.

  “My lord!” she shouted. “My lord, wake up!”

  No response.

  She shook him but his muscles were limp, as if he was already dead. “St. Silas…please!”

  His eyelids flickered.

  She shook him harder, disturbing the snow dusting his hair.

  “St. Si—Bram…Bram! Wake up. Please, wake up.”

  Something shifted inside her. She could not explain it, only that his name on her tongue felt familiar, as if her body had begun to refer to him as Bram—not the Saint, not St. Silas—before her mind had.

  His eyes slowly opened, pupils dilated, hazy and unfocused.

  Leena let out a small sob. “Bram…please, we cannot rest here…”