Of course, she thought, switching her gaze to the wall directly across from her, she highly doubted that she and Reynolds did either.
Nevertheless, at least some of the information Reynolds had imparted to her had to be accurate. When Reynolds had drawn her into the gym at Trenton, for instance, and attempted to explain to her that Varen could not have stayed in reality even if Isobel had been able to bring him home on Halloween, he’d said it was because of Varen’s unbreakable ties to the dreamworld. In so many words, he’d said that Varen had become ingrained in this world, part and parcel of it. As lost to it as he was to the demon who had taken him.
Lilith, Reynolds had said, had a claim on Varen just as she’d had on Poe. And even if the dreamworld had yet to absorb Varen utterly, he had still become a cog in the machinery of this realm. A puzzle piece clicked into a slot fashioned to fit him perfectly.
Or, Isobel wondered, was it that Varen, being the way he was, just so happened to fit the mold? Like Poe would have.
Whatever the case, if Varen had become an element of this world rather than a trapped outsider, then maybe thinking of him as a way to locate him was like pressing enter on a blank Internet search. It could only lead nowhere.
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Did that mean, then, that there was no way to find him?
Isobel sank to sit on the step. Draping her arms on her propped knees, she let her head thud against the stone behind her, unable to accept that all her efforts had brought her here, to a point where her actions could only lead her in endless circles.
Combing through her memories, she considered the different ways she’d found Varen in the past.
During the masquerade party, she’d just kept searching. Pinfeathers had tried to stall her, transporting her into that fake reality. Reynolds had attempted to detour her too, but in the end, neither had succeeded in keeping her from him.
And Baltimore. After Isobel had entered the dreamworld through the tomb door in that churchyard, after she’d crossed into the rose garden, she’d been able to use the butterfly watch Danny had given her as a compass. The hands of the clock had pointed the way through the garden’s maze to where she’d found Pinfeathers waiting for her in Varen’s stead.
Isobel didn’t have the watch now, though. She didn’t have Pinfeathers, either.
Those last thoughts crashed hard over her, until with a sudden spark, Isobel realized that there was one thing she did have. Knowledge of the watch’s whereabouts. And even if its possessor was barely a part of reality, the watch itself remained as real as ever.
Pushing herself to her feet, Isobel shifted the image in her head from Varen to the key-chain timepiece her little brother had given her last Christmas. Closing her eyes, she took care to conjure every detail exactly as she remembered it, right down to its pink flip-open wings, its silver accents, and its yellow, needle-thin second hand.
A heavy clunk from far below echoed through the stairwell. Isobel opened her eyes.
Edging forward, maintaining contact with the wall through her fingertips, she peered down into the corkscrew spiral where, in the center of the blackness, a distant pinprick of light glinted like a coin.
As she watched it, the glowing point began to expand, growing wider into a shaft of light that shot up past her like a flashlight beam into the nothing overhead.
She began moving again, faster now. As she twined round and round, she glanced between the sloping path in front of her and the thickening beam that pierced the center of the stairwell.
When the shaft of light widened to bathe the outer rim of the steps, there came a low boom that Isobel felt through the soles of her shoes and the palm she held pressed to the wall.
A door must have opened below. Or the floor itself . . .
Whatever shift had just occurred, Isobel hoped that it meant she’d found the way out. Or that it had found her.
Before she could venture another glance over the edge, though, she saw the light beam waver, flickering in and out as if something had passed in front of it—a large something.
Quickly she moved back a step, battling a sick sense that down was no longer the direction she wanted to go. That it never had been. She waited, though, keeping a hand cemented to the wall, senses dialing to full alert as a soft clicking noise, like stone nicking stone, rebounded up to her.
Click. Tick. Clack.
Peeking over the edge again, Isobel’s stomach lurched with new terror.
Through an open porthole lay the expanse of a starless night sky.
The beam flickered again as wispy streams of clouds coasted swiftly between the unraveling hem of the tower and the source of the light—a pale-faced half-moon.
Steps loosened from the crumbling wall below, tumbling free like loose teeth from a broken jaw.
For whole seconds, Isobel could only gape in horror while the opening raced higher, climbing toward her, the spiral stairs fanning off like dominoes. Then, just before her own step could fly out from underneath her, Isobel jolted out of her shock.
Turning, she ran.
Legs burning, she fought to keep herself vertical as she darted up and up, around and around.
She stumbled, though, and, slamming onto the slabs as they loosened, scrambled forward on hands and knees. Pushing off from the steps as they flipped out from underneath her and into the sky, Isobel tilted her head back. When she caught sight of the upside-down stairs looping the walls, impulse took over. With no time to pray her plan would work, she jumped, aiming her shoulder at the wall.
Isobel connected with smooth stone, and instead of bouncing off, she rolled.
Tucking her arms in like she would for a stunt fall, Isobel flipped—until her sneakers met the set of steps that moments before had been overhead.
Gravity accompanied her on her switch, causing the world to invert with her, down becoming up and up down.
Descending once again, Isobel quickened her pace to a pell-mell run, while all around her, pieces of the upended stairwell continued to evacuate their structure, bricks and steps lifting to sail skyward, defying the gravity she’d so stupidly assumed had really been there.
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Unrestricted, the moonlight illuminated her surroundings, and she could now see where the separating tunnel terminated.
Another door—this one stamped into the center of the tower’s marble floor.
The wooden, glass-paned entry was one Isobel knew well. As well as she knew the solitary boy seated in the classroom within, his head hung low over a familiar desk so that the locks of his raven-black hair brushed its surface.
Isobel reached the bottom just as the last step soared upward and the final stones disconnected from the ground, ripping free of their foundation.
She flung herself onto the door, and even as the jutting shapes of the Gothic palace entered her periphery, its limitless turrets and spires spiking into the sky all around her, she dared not look away from what lay beyond the glass pane beneath her.
Tuning out the distant roar of rushing waves and the howl of whipping winds, Isobel pounded a palm against the glass, eyes locked on the boy she swore to herself that, from this point forward, she would not allow to leave her sight again.
“Varen!”
28
The Assignation
He wouldn’t look up. He only kept staring at the glinting object he held between his fingers. Isobel’s watch.
She banged on the glass again, ignoring her hair as it whipped in her face.
Still, Varen would not lift his head.
Isobel gripped the knob with both hands. It slipped in her grasp—locked. She pushed hard with her mind, picturing the cylinder inside turning, the latch sliding back, but the knob only rattled.
As before in the courtyard of statues, her mind was clashing with Varen’s, her thoughts pitted against his. And as long as Varen refused to believe she was real, she was destined to lose the fight.
So she would just have to make him believe.
Isobel pounded a third time, hard enough to send a lightning-bolt crack up the center of the pane, straight through her view of him.
“Varen!” she shouted.
His eyes flicked up from the watch. Instantly the howling winds, the distant thundering waves—all of it ceased.
Isobel’s hair fell limp. Her breath grew loud in her ears as roaring quiet replaced the din.
When Varen finally spoke, she saw his lips move—but his voice, calm and monotone, came from behind her.
“Call it a hunch, but I don’t think he can hear you. ”
Isobel swung her head around.
Appearing just as he had through the glass, seated in his usual chair in a now-reversed version of Mr. Swanson’s classroom, Varen stared right at her with hollow black eyes.
“At least, not over all that banging and yelling,” he said.
Confused, Isobel again checked the door, which, though now upright, somehow supported her full weight as if she were still horizontal, lying curled against it.
Beyond its splintered windowpane, rows of blue lockers lined the walls of a deserted Trenton hallway.
Another instantaneous switch had occurred, bringing her inside the classroom.
Heart pounding, Isobel swiveled her head back to Varen. As she did, one of the fluorescent fixtures directly over his head clinked, flickering out.
Isobel continued to hold tight to the doorknob, as if her clutching it was the only thing keeping her vertical. Then she carefully set her feet flat to the floor, one after the other, glad the industrial tiles proved as solid as they appeared. As she slipped free of the door, the folds of her tattered dress fell to hang loose around her legs once more, and, hands shaking, Isobel loosened her death grip on the knob.
Past the rows of empty chairs, through windows lining the back wall, the familiar landscape of the woodlands stretched as far as she could see. Now, though, a crimson sky radiated in place of the violet horizon.
“You’re late,” Varen said. His red-rimmed, shadow-lined eyes fell from her to the watch as he thumbed open its wings, and Isobel knew what he saw through its small window. A mixture of lies and truth.
This was a dream. She was a dream.
“No later than usual,” Isobel murmured, striving to flash a bit of her old spunk, though her voice sounded small even to her.
She needed to keep him talking, though. To keep him calm. Contained.
But what could she say? The words—the right words—evaded her.
“Varen,” Isobel began, taking a step toward him when he did not reply.
“I wanted you,” he said, interrupting her before she could continue, his gaze never lifting from the watch. “From that very first day. I can tell you that now, I guess. ”
Isobel stopped, startled by his out-of-the-blue admission. Curious in spite of herself, she tilted her head, uncertain about what, exactly, the confession meant. Or where it had come from.
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“I kept it to myself,” Varen went on, “like everything else that was happening to me. But in the beginning, it was all just superficial anyway. As shallow as I’d convinced myself you were. ” He paused as if searching for a memory that had become distant, remote. “I meant it, you know, when I said you weren’t my type. ”
A pained smile, involuntary, tugged at Isobel’s lips and then faded. She remembered that conversation. Of course she did. How could she forget their first phone call?
“And I meant it, when I told you I’d be back for you,” Isobel replied.
“Obviously. And that’s why, now, you never . . . ever . . . go away. ”
Isobel kept her feet planted on the tile beneath her, fighting the impulse to go to him. She didn’t dare try. Not when that was precisely what all the doubles did. Not when the long-fingered, ring-lined hands holding her butterfly watch still frightened her.
Isobel winced inwardly, recalling how the same hands that had once communicated such gentleness had also gripped her with frightening force. How they’d tossed her to the side. And let her go . . .
“It was easier to hate you,” he said, snapping the watch closed with a sharp click. “A lot less painful, too. ”
Vines of longing wrapped around her heart, urging her to tell him how she’d gotten there and what was happening—to explain how all this could be possible. Words continued to fail her, though, because his candid brashness and calm indifference all served to further confirm her fears that in his mind, he was only speaking to another figment—a soulless projection of his own consciousness.
“We were better off that way,” he went on, glancing up at her again. “Well, you were better off. Back when I assumed you thought you were better than everyone else, which—ironically enough—allowed me to go on telling myself that you were beneath me. Back when you believed I was everything everyone said I was. ”
“I didn’t—”
“Admit it,” he said, cutting her off. “They were right about me, weren’t they?” An off-putting smile touched one corner of his mouth, causing his silver lip ring to glint. “Your friends. Your boyfriend. Your dad. ” Just as quickly as it had appeared, his smile fell. His eyes darkened and slid to the far wall. “My dad. ”
Isobel wanted to respond, to say the right thing, but she still didn’t know how to enter into the battle that was taking place before her. The one Varen was so clearly waging against himself.
It was never about you.
Pinfeathers’s words rose inside of her, right along with his final message of—
“‘I told you so,’” Varen said. “I bet that’s what they all wish they could say to you now that you’re gone. Your friends, your family—all our teachers. Hell, I wish I could tell you myself. ”
“You have,” Isobel replied, forcing strength into her voice. “In a way. And you’re telling me right now, too. But . . . I’m here to prove that you’re wrong. Just like they were. Are. ”
Varen rose from his desk, pocketing the watch, wallet chains clinking as he drew to his full height.
Isobel’s heart raced faster with every step he took toward her, clumps of ash tumbling from his boots and the hem of that black coat. Her instincts screamed for her to back up, to slide behind Mr. Swanson’s empty desk, if only to put something between them.
She stayed rooted, though. He stopped to stand before her, and even as her body chanted the command to run, her heart begged for her to step nearer, to enfold him in her arms.
She could risk neither.
“I’ve only been wrong about one thing,” Varen said, shaking his head. “And that’s you. Every step of the way, in fact. Whenever I was sure of one thing, you always surprised me, proving just the opposite to be true. Every. Single. Time. ”
Keep shattering expectations.
Another of Pinfeathers’s cryptic one-liners shot to the forefront of Isobel’s mind. Building on one another, each phrase offered glimmers of insight, linking with everything Varen was saying to her now. Maybe, she hoped, that meant the Noc’s advice would do just what he’d said it would: reveal what she needed to do in order to penetrate—and dispel—Varen’s darkness.
“Not anymore, though,” he said. “And I guess that’s the one perk of loving a dead girl. She never changes. ”
Isobel’s head jerked up, and she met his onyx stare.
Loving?
With that single word, the slow-burning ember of her faith caught fire anew, and it occurred to her that she just might be able to do this, to save him. To bring them both home to a reality that still waited for them. She only had to break through. Everything she needed was here. He was here. Pinfeathers had spoken the truth. It should be simple, she thought. As easy as saying it out loud.
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Maybe it would be.
“You think I’m a dream,” Isobel said, “that I’m dead. But Varen, I?
??m not. ”
“You always say that,” he murmured, eyes tracing her face, stopping at her lips. “Always. Just before you die. ”
“I won’t this time,” she said. “Wait and see. I’m still here, aren’t I?”
“Sometimes I do it without meaning to,” Varen continued, as if he hadn’t heard her. “Other times, on purpose. Just to get rid of you. To get you out of my sight. Out of my head for one moment. Every time, though—and it doesn’t matter where we are”—lifting a hand, he touched her cheek, his cold fingers trailing electricity in their wake—“what we’re doing. I’m always the one who does it. ”
“Varen, look at me. ” She seized his hand and, squeezing, pressed it over her scar. “How can I be a dream? This scar. My dress. It’s real. And your jacket, how did I get it? Remember the petals in the courtyard? The blue sky? And on the street. That was me too. I sent you back, but only because I had to. Because it was real. And Varen, we are real. I am here. For you. And . . . it’s time to go home now. ”
“The worst is when I get close, like this,” he went on, and leaning down, he brought his lips almost to hers. “When I try to kiss you. ”
Isobel didn’t attempt to speak again. Her gaze fell to that small silver loop, and gripping his hand harder, she willed him to continue, to move in and press his lips to hers so that she could show him just how real she was.
“I don’t try that anymore, though,” he whispered, pulling back.
Though she attempted to keep his hand, Varen pried free and turned away, leaving her only the view of that horrible, white, spread-winged raven.
Pins and needles played over her skin each place he’d touched her.
“If you really believe I’m a dream, like all the others,” she said, watching him as he drew to a halt at the opposite end of Mr. Swanson’s desk, “then change me. Go ahead. Try. ”
It was a risk. She knew that. But at this point, what wasn’t? Especially when she could sense she was failing. Again. Her window of time with him was closing fast. He would shut her out once more, and that would be it.
“Try,” she pressed, “and you’ll see it won’t work. Then you’ll—”
He moved quickly, snatching the black stapler from Mr. Swanson’s desk. At first, Isobel thought he might throw it at her. Instead, his arm swung out, and he aimed the item straight at her—but now the stapler become something else entirely.