“Then I met you,” he said, his lips hovering close to hers once again. “And the dreams changed.”
His breath washed warm against her, and it made her want to surrender to him again, to feel his touch, to hold his kiss, at once petal soft and incinerating. She’d never been kissed like that before—like the shell of her soul had evaporated.
He inched closer, but paused. Outside, the music, the screaming, the voices, the sounds of the frenzied crowd—it all stopped. Silence pulsed. He pulled back, turned to look toward the door.
The room grew cold. Isobel drew in a breath. She hugged herself, shivering as she recalled the night at the ice cream shop, the time they’d spent in the freezer. It felt so long ago.
Seconds passed.
Against the walls, the dull yellow light began to move and sway. The motion threw their twin shadows this way and that against the walls and floor, making the room seem suddenly more crowded. Varen looked up, and her own gaze followed. They watched the naked bulb swing on its frayed cord, as though caught by the gust of a nonexistent breeze. Back and forth it swung, like the pendulum of a clock.
The light blinked, flickered. Darkness teased, threatening to strike.
Hoarse whispers rose up from just outside the door, a sound like dry leaves crackling over a fire.
At first they started low. So low that Isobel couldn’t be certain of what the sound was or that she was even hearing it at all. But then the voices became clearer, hissing through the crack at the bottom of the door. Something laughed. A fast shadow moved, darting like an animal.
Isobel gripped his sleeve. “What is it?”
He moved cautiously forward, positioning himself in front of her. “They’ve found us.”
39
Much of Madness
The doorknob rattled.
Isobel watched as the chair holding the door shivered and shook. Something banged into it hard, jarring the door in its frame, and she jumped, letting out a yelp.
All at once the whispers died. The door settled.
A small light, white and crystalline, like the light she had seen in the woodlands, appeared in a wink at the bottom. It traveled along the crack slowly, back and forth, as though probing for a way in. There was a sound on the other side, like the slip of gauze fabric over the wooden exterior of the door, and Isobel found herself fighting the urge to scream. Then the white light blinked out.
Silence. Only the sound of their breathing. And then a new sound. Quiet and distant.
Music.
“Do you hear that?” she whispered, still clinging to him. The tune grew louder. One instrument, one note at a time, it pieced itself together until at last she could place what it was she heard. An orchestra?
“Don’t listen,” he said, his voice brittle. “Pretend it’s not real.”
The music grew steadier, firmer, and it
New voices filtered in from beyond the door, different from the whispers they’d heard a moment before. These voices were more substantial, more alive, the sound of real people laughing and talking and shouting. The voices rose steadily, accompanied now by the delicate clink and tinkle of glassware. More and more voices chimed in, one for every second that passed, until they blended into a unanimous, lively hum. Despite the light laughter, the trilling, swirling tune, Isobel clung tighter to the back of Varen’s jacket. It made no sense. All of it felt . . . wrong.
“Who’s out there?” she asked. “What’s going on?”
“Isobel, listen to me,” he said, turning to her. Her stare broke from the door and she looked into his eyes as he spoke. “Look for a way to the woodlands. When you’re there, find the door. You’ll know it when you see it. Go through it and don’t wait for me. Don’t trust anything you see.”
“What? But . . . I—I don’t understand.”
He shook her. “Promise me!”
“Varen, I—”
Her voice caught in her throat, seized into silence as she watched his eyes dilate, the pinprick of fear at their core expanding, consuming the green of his irises until nothing remained.
Nothing except for two black coin-size holes.
She felt a tremble start all over. She reached for him but stopped short as black-to-purple wisps of cloudlike ink, like a thousand crawling insects, whispered out from behind his shoulders. The darkness surrounded him, growing thicker, clamoring to take hold of him, like the unlimited tentacles of some formless wraith. The wisps wrapped his shoulders, his arms.
A pair of blindingly white hands emerged from within the churning void. Like talons, they clung to his chest. A woman’s white face appeared in a flash over his shoulder—her eyes two empty sockets.
Panicked, Isobel reached for him. She caught his arm, and for a moment they held each other tightly.
“Find the door,” he said. Then he let go.
“No!”
With a hiss of shadows he fell backward, into the open wound of darkness. His arm slipped from her hands despite her desperate fight to keep hold, and then the blackness folded over him, swallowing him, knitting together until it was gone and he with it.
She rushed through the space that had taken him. She reached the wall, pressed her hands flat to the wood, beating, shouting. “Varen!”
She swung around, searching the room with her eyes. The light overhead continued to sway. Back and forth. Back and forth. Breathing hard, her heart thundering, she watched it, watched it as though, with its next pass, it would bring him back.
She ran to the center of the room and turned in a full circle. She stopped, but around her, the room continued to spin. It turned and turned, revolving faster and faster until everything smeared and streaked into a blur. The light. The laughter. The voices and music. Her legs weakened. Dizziness overtook her. Her body gave in and her knees hit the floor. The room whirred faster. Nausea crept over her. She lowered her head, shut her eyes, and pressed her hands over her ears to block it out.
“Stop!” she said, then screamed,
A quiet click noise, like the unlatching of a door, broke through her consciousness.
Isobel looked up.
The room had ceased to spin. Before her, the door stood cracked open. Light shone in—a dim crimson glow. Through the crack, Isobel saw plush ebony carpeting and the corner of thick black draperies.
“Come, let us go,” she heard a man say, his accented voice rising over the drone of talk and distant shrill laughter. Small bells jangled.
“Whither?” another man asked.
“To your vaults.”
The scent of cinnamon, freshly baked bread, and spiced meat seeped through the door, causing her stomach to clench. She remained motionless, listening, battling the urge to throw up.
When she thought she could, Isobel stood. Shakily she drifted toward the door. She reached an unsteady hand to the knob. The door opened outward, opposite from before, and it moved easily, seemingly more from her touch alone than from any effort on her part to push.
The music washed over her, building and falling, the melody mimicking itself, then starting over again. A chamber of rich ebony lay stretched out before her. Thick velvet draperies spilled from tall windows, like motionless black waterfalls. Phantasmal light played through the stained-glass bloodred panes, setting shadows loose to
