Isobel inhaled, gulping for air. Her dizziness lifted, and Scrimshaw’s split face snapped into clarity.
“Speak plainly,” he snapped, shaking her. “Tell me what you just said. Say it again, girl.”
“Virginia,” Isobel rasped, pressing fingers to his cold chest, to the engraving of Poe’s young cousin and bride.
Scrimshaw’s expression collapsed. Pain blended with sorrow, replacing his rage.
“Why?” he snarled, thrusting his halved face in hers. “Why would you dare speak that name to me? Why make hers the last you’ll ever utter?”
“Because,” Isobel said, her voice hoarse, ragged—almost gone. “She’s standing right behind you.”
23
In the Hearts of the Most Reckless
There hadn’t really been anyone there. No one at all.
But Isobel’s lie that there had been someone—a very specific someone—proved a far better distraction than she had initially dared to hope.
Because when Scrimshaw turned his head to look, suddenly there was someone.
Isobel had not imagined the young woman into being. She hadn’t been able to think that far ahead. Or that fast. Not with the Noc gripping her throat, squeezing the life from her.
So the phantom standing before them had to have arisen from the depths of the Noc’s consciousness, triggered by Isobel’s suggestion and, perhaps, by the underlying current of Scrimshaw’s own repressed longing.
Though Isobel could recall only a few specifics regarding the appearance of Poe’s wife—a handful of vague characteristics picked up during her study with Varen, retained from the one or two glimpses she’d had of her portraits—Scrimshaw, it seemed, had forgotten nothing.
Black-haired and pale in complexion, her small hands clasped in front of her, the round-faced young woman—so real, so completely lifelike—watched the Noc with large and soulful brown eyes.
Releasing the fabric of Isobel’s shirt, Scrimshaw angled slowly toward the vision.
Freed, Isobel retreated from him fast, and though she expected the Noc’s head to snap back in her direction and for the illusion to rupture as instantaneously as it had materialized, she was relieved when the Noc remained entranced.
“Do you remember the Valentine I’ve been writing for you?” Virginia asked, her voice soft and high, sweet like a songbird’s. “Well, you and Mama will both be pleased to know that even though I haven’t yet finished it, I have begun setting the lines to music. Just as you suggested.”
Transfixed, Scrimshaw took two slow steps in Virginia’s direction.
Isobel watched, clasping her throat where he’d gripped her, still stunned that her bluff had worked and that, somehow, she’d managed to buy back her life again. For at least another moment.
But maybe, she thought as she trained her gaze on the upside-down crow in the center of the Noc’s back, another moment was all she needed.
Spinning away, Virginia strode to the piano bench that appeared only just as she sat, the skirts of her simple, cream-colored dress swishing. With girlish flair, she lifted delicate hands and placed slender fingers on an invisible keyboard.
As Virginia pressed down, a squat, rectangular piano unfurled from the nothing and the middle chord she’d struck resounded softly, as gentle as a sigh. More notes followed, her hands wandering to and fro over the keys as if the song were one she had to find her way back to.
“Oh, and Eddie?” she went on to say. “I’ve hidden your name in the lyrics, so keep a sharp ear. Listen closely and tell me—either of you—if you can discover the trick.”
Isobel curled her fists at her sides. Her chance, hard won, had arrived.
So why hadn’t she taken it?
If she moved now, if she ran fast enough, she could slam right into him. She could shove him straight to the floor. As fractured and fragile as he was already, such a fall would surely finish the Noc.
Of course, it would finish both Nocs. Was that why she was hesitating?
And why hadn’t Pinfeathers returned? Couldn’t he do so now that Scrimshaw was distracted? Now that his guard had been lowered?
“Lenore,” the Noc whispered, and as he spoke the word, the decorative molding and flaking gold paint of the once-decadent walls began to melt away, becoming plaster.
Worn wooden boards bled through the dingy ivory dance floor, seeping through like a spreading stain.
Against all inner urgings, Isobel continued to wait and watch as the room morphed around them. The walls smoothed and squeezed inward. The ceiling dropped low.
In mere seconds, the ballroom had transformed, its macabre scenery replaced by the cramped interior of a meager and sparsely furnished sitting room.
