Another stifled screech, followed by a muted crunch.
Isobel turned her head, and at her feet, a felled Noc peered up at her, his form shimmering between shadow and clarity. He tilted his head at her in a motion that suggested curiosity. But it was also a motion that caused the creature’s neck to fracture. Sputtering out, his inkwell eyes went hollow.
The indistinct image of his empty, cracked face recalled the bittersweet memory of Pinfeathers’s final moments in the rose garden. So much so that she could almost have knelt beside him, brushed his cheek—until, with a high-pitched shriek, the Noc at her feet burst into life again and sent a clawed hand straight into her chest.
Isobel stiffened in shock, locked in place by the clutching sensation of the hand that held her steady, as if its claws wrapped her very heart.
She gripped the Noc’s arm but could not pull herself away. She tried to scream for help, but her voice had become lodged in her throat.
Then, from nowhere, a flash of silver sailed between Isobel and the Noc, severing the creature’s arm at the elbow with a crash.
Released, Isobel collapsed onto the gym floor in unison with the arm—and with the Noc, who hissed, bearing teeth at her until an ash-covered boot came down to crush his head.
“The creature that defended you,” she heard Reynolds say while she clasped at her chest, checking for the hole that wasn’t there. “He was not like the others. Do not make the mistake of assuming otherwise.”
Reynolds’s dark form sank to crouch beside her. In one hand he grasped the hilt of a cutlass. His other clutched his shoulder, where ash tumbled through a tear in his shirt.
“They will attack you if they suspect you’re not a dream. You cannot fight them as you are now.” As he spoke, his focus shifted to something straight ahead.
Isobel followed his stare, and her fear ratcheted higher.
A ragged, pitch-black hole marred the place where the gym doors and red exit sign should have been. Like the papery faces from last night’s dream, its edges peeled back, crumpling into the familiar form of ash. The floor, too, began to erode as if being eaten by invisible flame, its jagged perimeters creeping toward them.
Reynolds rose, and Isobel rose with him. Together they backtracked several steps.
Isobel glanced to where she’d left her body. It stood just a few feet away, the shining silver cord wavering between the two versions of herself with a luminous radiance she’d seen before—in the ethereal glow of Lilith’s veils.
Before Isobel could contemplate what that might mean, Reynolds spoke again.
“I have told you before that the ghouls of the woodlands are the darkest shards of the self. A visceral manifestation of the boy’s capacity for evil. That one of them defended you—perished for your sake—serves as my best evidence that his heart, at its core, remains pure toward you. Knowing that, will you put aside your mistrust and do as I tell you?”
“You want me to go in there,” Isobel said, nodding to the open crater, which had expanded to envelop part of the wall. It wasn’t a question.
Reynolds lowered his hand from his closing wound and stooped to reclaim his second sword, dropped during battle.
“The darkness within him is building,” he said. “His rage gathers. His self-hatred is fueled by what he believes he has done. You and I already know that he is unlike anyone else. He should not be able to traverse realms, but we have seen that he is capable of that and more. Through him, I believe she has found a means to fulfill her desire for destruction. Somehow, he has become the link. His wrath is eroding the veil. If he sees you, though, if he discovers that you are alive, that you still—”
“When you and I were here before,” Isobel said, cutting him off, “you told me Varen was lost. You said that there was no way to—”
“There is one way to sever the bond that holds him,” Reynolds said. “Edgar knew what it was. And though I doubted him before, I now believe my friend might have found his freedom had the Nocs not dragged his spirit back into the woodlands.”
Isobel scowled at him.
“Care to share?” she asked, figuring that it would be beyond the point to question why he hadn’t bothered to relate this tidbit to her before now—why he hadn’t explained it instead, say, that one time he sent her into the woodlands to die.
“When it becomes an option, I will tell you. First, we must return the boy to this world.”
“Pinfeathers showed me what you did,” Isobel said. “What happened to Poe.”
“What you saw,” Reynolds said, his voice gaining strength, “was indeed accurate. A memory stolen and replayed for your protection. Yes, I ended Edgar’s life. But the task fell to me because of my ability to do it, not because I betrayed him.”
