As I am, so now are you.
Lilith’s words from the hall of mirrors clanged through Isobel’s head, and suddenly she knew Reynolds’s and Varen’s ultimate intent—the plan the two of them had apparently made without her.
To end the demon by ending Varen.
Isobel gave herself no time to think. No time to process what was happening as her surroundings began to peel away faster and faster, allowing patches of another world to show through. Her world, she realized, as flashes of blue and red light sparked in her periphery.
Sirens wailed, warped and distant—but getting closer.
Reynolds moved toward her with a purposeful, even stride.
“No,” she said as she ran to meet him. To stop him.
Somewhere behind her, tires screeched and car doors slammed. Men shouted, their voices muffled and indiscernible.
“Please!” she gasped as she crashed into Reynolds, hands latching onto his arm and pushing it down. “There has to be another way.”
To her surprise, Reynolds lowered the sword at her behest.
“I am sorry, my sweet friend,” he said, his gaze shifting to meet hers.
Isobel stopped, arrested by the deadness in Reynolds’s eyes, how it now seemed more absolute than ever before.
Why, if he had decided against making his attack, would he still apologize?
“You! Drop your weapon!” a man shouted, his voice now clear and sharp in Isobel’s ears.
“Varen, you do what he says!” screamed another, and this time, the voice was one Isobel knew.
But . . . what was Mr. Nethers doing here? How had Varen’s father found them? And why was he yelling for Varen to—?
Isobel’s eyes grew wide as she realized, with a sudden gut punch of horror, that Reynolds hadn’t intended to harm anyone.
He’d only been distracting her.
Whirling, she saw Varen turn to face the dark street now lined with police vehicles, leaving her, again, with only the view of that horrible, white, spread-winged raven.
In one hand, Varen held a black object. Lifting an arm, he aimed it toward the spinning lights and the silhouettes who, huddled behind their car doors, raised their own in response.
Isobel broke forward, terror shredding her insides.
Reynolds caught her, though. Pulling her back, he wrapped her tightly in his strong arms.
But his hold on Isobel lasted for only a second.
Because, when the sharp bang of a gun rang clear and loud through the street, Reynolds’s arms—like Lilith’s tomb, Varen’s palace, and the rest of the wreckage left in the wake of the departing dreamworld—transformed into dust.
Varen’s imagined handgun followed suit, his black coat as well. Both dreamworld remnants crumbled to ash.
Then Isobel’s ribbon fell from the sky, tumbling to the dirt only half an instant ahead of Varen.
47
Nepenthe
The grave still looked fresh a week and a half after the funeral.
Hands clasped in front of her, Isobel’s eyes traced the welt of earth. Over the next few months, the mound would sink and heal over with grass, blending in with the surrounding turf until the only evidence left that anything lay beneath would be the smooth black granite marker.
The stone shouldn’t have looked so new, she thought, with its clean-cut edges and glossy surface, its numbers and letters cut so rigidly deep.
Actually, everything about the monument struck her as too utilitarian, too unfeeling for the grave’s tenant. Except for the epitaph, which appeared below the standard information of name and dates, its lines written in looping, scrolling cursive.
SOUL OF STORMS AND FRIEND OF FEW,
O CAPTAIN, MY CAPTAIN,
FOREVER SHALL I MISS YOU.
Though touching and beautiful in their own right, the words—which she had not allowed herself to read until now—affected her less than the knowledge of who had penned them.
Isobel drew in a long breath and released it with a shuddering sigh. But that couldn’t stop the heat that rushed to her cheeks, the tears that stung her eyes and fell despite her efforts to hold them in.
Before leaving the house to come here, she’d promised herself she would not cry. But she hadn’t accounted for how real everything would feel after seeing the stone. So real that for the first time since all this began, she didn’t have to fight the impulse to check a watch or clock to see if it really was.
The crisscrossed flowers piled atop the hill of brown earth helped attest to the grave’s authenticity too, the carnations and roses drooping their heads as if sharing in the sorrow.
When fresh, the flowers had been colored cream and yellow, pristine and bright. Isobel found it both ironic and fitting that their petals now resembled aged parchment. And while February’s dying breaths had apparently held enough chill to preserve the half-wilted flowers for this long, they hadn’t been able to prevent the heavy odor that overcame all blooms at the onset of rot.
