Oblivion (18 page)

And even as the flames conjured by her mind engulfed him, Isobel could not bring herself to let him go.

White-hot and blinding, the blaze enveloped them both.

Colliding with the pavement, Varen's figure disintegrated on impact, his form dissipating against the dusty ground that caught her fall alone.

Blood. Pain. Grit.

Opening her blackened hands, Isobel found only those three things in her grasp.

Varen was gone.

Her plan to banish him had worked.

The fire had vanished with him, snuffing out the moment he had ceased to exist in this world, and as they had before when she'd summoned them in the bookshop, the flames had left her unscathed.

Breathing out in a rush that caused the cinders beneath her to disperse, Isobel found herself wondering how it could have happened again.

Before, when she'd asked Reynolds why she had survived the summoned flames, he had told her that since the fire she'd created had been a dream, it had ceased to exist when the realms parted. He'd also told her that the underlying strength of Varen's feelings for her had provided protection.

But that protection, which once shielded her from the Nocs, had been lifted. That was why Pinfeathers had been able to scar her. And why he had. So she would know.

Could that protection have somehow been reinstated?

If so, did that mean some small part of Varen—conscious or not—still hoped she
was
real?

Isobel wasn't sure.

Rolling onto her back, she gazed up past the gray-powdered grilles and bumpers of the surrounding cars to where Varen's storm unraveled.

Bleeding white, the clouds evaporated, giving way to blue.

Sunlight burned through the cascade of ash, the remnants of which floated down to light softly upon her.

Her skin prickled, alive with the sensation of pins and needles, and Isobel blinked long and slow as the car alarms continued their frantic blaring—though now without the underscoring cries of the Nocs.

Along with Varen, the crows had receded into the dreamworld, through the veil that somehow—despite its now accelerated disintegration—still managed to separate her world from his.

From somewhere far off, the howl of sirens rose, and she knew she needed to move. To get up and get out of there.

As the full weight of what she'd done came crashing over her, though, she found herself unable to lift even one limb.

She'd sent him back. Back into that world of despair. Back into his empire of shadow.

But doing so had been the only way to prevent him from bringing it all here with him.

The only way of closing the link.

Soon, she was sure, Varen would return, stronger and more malevolent than before—bent on wreaking the havoc that would bring his darkest imaginings to life. Because even if there
was
a small part of him that
did
suspect she could be real, there was an even stronger part that had lost the capacity to trust in anything other than the nothing he'd come to know so well.

The nightmare. How would it ever end if she could not reach him?

How, when she had already gone to every length, faced each monster, risking all in the process?

His darkness remained—impenetrable. And it would stay that way as long as he refused to believe her.

To believe
in
her.

In himself
.

The thought floated up through the mire of her anguish in a whisper. As her eyes traced the open sky, she knew it was true. Reynolds had been wrong to suggest that Isobel could dispel the darkness, could stop the worst from happening, by proving herself to Varen.

That power, in the end, lay with Varen alone.

Then again, at this point, maybe Reynolds—wherever he was—would see his mistake.

She doubted she would ever find out. He wasn't coming for her. That much was obvious. If her name had still been penciled in his murky agenda, he would have found her by now, before Varen had.

Soon, though, it wouldn't matter even if Reynolds did appear. The two worlds were already blending, merging as they had Halloween night. It was the reason Varen could no longer tell the difference. And why the hands of her butterfly watch had spun out of control. They would do so wherever he went. So long as
he
remained the link.

Varen must have discovered the trinket in the rose garden. After the cliff.

And he'd kept it with him. She'd seen him fiddling with it in the courtyard of statues, she realized. What had he been thinking as he held it?

Tasting ash, smelling the sharp scent of ozone, Isobel clutched at her collar. She wrapped the hamsa in one fist. The pendant could not instill her with the same strength it had that morning, though.

Muscles aching, she managed to climb onto unsteady feet and survey the damage.

Dust covered all.

Though the charcoal trees had disappeared with the storm, the buckles, rents, and pockmarks they'd made in the pavement remained.

Looking down, Isobel found herself standing in the center of a scorch mark not dissimilar to the one in the attic of the bookshop, where she'd burned Varen's sketchbook.

The shrieking sirens grew louder.

Backpedaling from the charred starburst, Isobel began to weave her way through the maze of stalled and abandoned cars.

Then she paused, turning slowly in place—because no matter which way she faced, she could not see where the blanket of ash ended, or where the preexisting trees had not twisted and gone black.

Whirling, she started running in the direction of Cherokee Park, toward the path that would take her to the home she hoped she still had.

Only when Isobel arrived at the next bus stop, her stop, did the field of damage caused by Varen's storm reach its end.

Car horns honked as drivers steered slowly past the cop-car barricade blocking the intersection. A police officer directed traffic while pedestrians stopped to gawk at the mess and confusion, holding up camera phones and pointing.

Isobel, trying not to draw attention to herself, slowed to a jog as she hurried over the place where the layer of dust terminated, its blanketing white giving way to the curb and the painted lines of the crosswalk.

Someone shouted at her as her feet found the sidewalk, but she didn't stop, not until she arrived at the side entrance to the park—the same she'd taken that night after meeting with Varen at Nobit's Nook.

Until this moment, her plan had been to use the shortcut to get to her house. Now, though, even with the midafternoon sun blazing and the sight of people strolling within, bundled in their coats and scarves and still unaware of the chaos that had rocked the world mere blocks away, something held her at bay. An inkling that warned her against entering.

Isobel told herself she didn't have time to deliberate—or to take the long way around. She didn't have time for inklings, warranted or not.

She needed to get home, to check on her parents and Danny, to warn them about what was coming. And to tell them she was sorry.

Pounding pavement, her feet carried her up the snaking road, past thickets of trees that flanked the narrow lane. As she rounded one bend after another, winding farther into the park, flashes from her previous nighttime run along this same stretch began to flip through her head.

Murky figures skirting through the brush. Whispers in the woods.

Something hissing her name.

Isobel shoved the memories aside. Keeping her pace up and her head down, she focused on the pavement, on putting as much of it behind her as quickly as possible.

Veined with the shadows cast by branches overhead, the road skimmed by beneath her. Her own shadow rotated this way and that, orbiting underfoot while she followed each curve.

When the lane straightened, however, her shadow, which had situated itself in front of her, grew suddenly longer with each stride.

Isobel slowed, watching her silhouette stretch then fade into a sudden darkness that, like a consuming presence, seeped in from every corner.

The nagging sensation she'd tried to brush off at the entrance returned, too intense now to dismiss. This time the foreboding brought company—that old feeling of being watched, a ghost in and of itself.

Isobel drew to a stop and tilted her head back. Gone was the white-gold sun. In its place, ragged patches of clouds blotted brightening stars from view. The darkness thickened. Night was falling—in the middle of the day.

Glancing one way and then the other, she no longer saw the pedestrians, snug in their winter wear. She didn't hear talking or footsteps or the whirring
tick
of coasting bikes.

Aside from the forestlike patches of trees, though, there wasn't anywhere any of them could have gone.

Straining her ears, she tried to detect the sound of voices, the chattering of birds. Anything at all.

She was rewarded only with the hush of the wind and the rustle of dry foliage as it scampered across her path.

Scowling at the collage of papery hand-shaped leaves, she wondered how, in the dead of winter, they had managed to retain their vibrant autumnal colors.

Whirling, she found the answer waiting at her back.

Fall trees, their boughs garbed in ember orange and flame yellow, now bordered the narrow lane. Their fiery colors drained away fast, though, siphoned off by the deepening dusk that should not have arrived for several more hours.

Isobel turned again, looking ahead.

Darkness waited on the stretch of road before her, where the canopy of limbs and leaves became an all-too-familiar tunnel.

Slap slap slap slap.

The sound of someone running up behind her, panting hard, had Isobel pivoting yet again.

A girl barreled up the road toward her, and Isobel knew her instantly—as well as she recognized the scene unfolding before her.

Fear, primal and gut-wrenching, owned the girl's expression. Clutching tight to the straps of her backpack, she kept glancing behind her, blond hair whipping this way and that as she tried to see what was chasing her through the line of trees.

Isobel had no time to dart aside before the past version of herself rushed into her—through her.

The world flickered black, and Isobel swung in the direction of her running self, aware that somehow she'd become caught in another memory. Like when Pinfeathers had shown her what had happened to Poe. But how?

Squinting through the gloom, she no longer saw her past self on the path. That specter had vanished.

In its place stood another on the road.

Even with his lean figure enswathed by shadow, she could still make out the insignia of the upside-down bird on the white patch of cloth pinned to the back of his jacket.

Turning his head, he glanced at her from over one shoulder, revealing the open pit in his porcelain cheek.

“Some say memories are merely another form of dreaming,” the Noc said. “We, of course, would argue that they are, rather, another form of torture. Wouldn't you agree?”

“Pinfeathers.”

He angled toward her, lifting a clawed finger. “Half right,” he said. “Or, pardon, do I mean right half?”

She took one cautious step in his direction; then, automatically, she took another.

“No, I don't think so,” he continued. “You had your chance. Made your choice. Besides, we broke up. Remember?”

“H-how?” she said. “How did you—”

Now he aimed the claw at her, and the slight smile he wore dropped away. “The question you
should
be asking is
why
.”

Isobel quickened her steps.

“Stop,”
he said.

Her heart, already pounding, thrummed louder in her ears. A fresh surge of adrenaline coursed into her bloodstream. But she didn't heed his warning; loosed inside of her, apprehension and relief merged to create a hybrid emotion. Fear mixed with longing. Tenderness laced with trepidation. It drew her toward him.

“I said stop,”
the Noc commanded, leveling a look of hate at her, the shadow of which she'd seen before on another face. Varen's.

She broke forward in a run, and even though it seemed as if he wanted to dissipate, to become smoke and slide out of reach, the Noc stayed rooted.

Colliding with him, Isobel wrapped her arms around his middle. She pressed her cheek—the same cheek he had scarred—flat against his chest, right over that place he'd once hollowed out in order to store her stolen ribbon.

“The rose garden,” she murmured into him. “You . . . I thought you were gone for good.”

“We're at least as gone as we are good,” he muttered, trying, it seemed, to resist touching her. “And equally annoyed to see that, still, you don't
ever
listen.”

“I'm glad you're not,” she rushed on, ignoring his admonishments. “So glad. I—I need a friend.”

“Ah.” She heard his form creak and felt his claws stroke her hair. “I get your game. You would deliver cruelty for cruelty. Torment for torment. It won't turn out the way you think. We'll get our revenge. We always do. Even if only in our mind. Don't you forget that, cheerleader. Don't you ever forget it.”

His voice, pained and bitter, as rueful as it was distorted, reverberated through his hollow frame, causing her cheek to buzz.

“I never meant to hurt you,” she whispered, aware that in some sense, Pinfeathers
was
Varen. Part of his psyche, if not his soul. “Either of you.”

“We
are
hurt.”

“I know,” Isobel murmured, tears stinging her eyes, slipping free to sear her skin and seep into his jacket. “And I'm sorry . . . so sorry.”

He laughed.

The sound, acidic and humorless, unsettled her enough to make her loosen her grip on him. She started to pull away, but his hands clamped down on her shoulders. Claws digging in, he held her in place, keeping her close.