Nevermore

filled in equal parts with pain and desperation. “Help me to honor my vow as I have helped you to honor yours.” The fluttering ash began to fall more heavily around them. “The world of dreams and the world of your reality have already begun to merge. All that you know is in danger. The fusion has only just begun. It is incomplete, and so there is yet a small chance. As long as that hope remains by your side, so shall I. But you must end this now.”

Her eyes strayed down to the churned soil, to the thick, black liquid trail of blood, the ominous path left by the Red Death.

“What about Brad?”

“His spirit, stolen by the Nocs, exists here in astral form alone, trapped between realms. As long as he is held by forces here, his body will remain in your world while his mind, his essence, lingers here, imprisoned. A torturous link, which only death could sever. It is what happened to Edgar.”

He stood, and Isobel felt herself being drawn to her feet.

“But how can I free him when I couldn’t even touch him?”

“You mustn’t touch him now. He has been cast in the role of the Red Death—a figure whose sole function, you well know, is to destroy.”

“What do you mean? Cast by who—or what?”

“There is no more time for questions. If you wish to save either of them, then you must take action now. You must change the dream, Isobel. It is here, in this realm, that you hold the ability to control your surroundings, as long as you do not allow them to control you first. That grave”—he pointed—“you could have flown out of it.”

Isobel stared at the sunken ground, disbelieving.

“Come,” he said, releasing her. “We must go at once to the woodlands.” He started away. Following the path of blood, he moved in the direction of the abbey.

“Wait!” she called after him, gripping Varen’s jacket to herself. “First tell me why you came back. Why did you change your mind?”

“I didn’t,” he said without turning. “You did.”

She took a wobbly step after him. “But you said—how do I know I can trust you?”

Calling back, he did not stop. “As I have been left with no choice but to place my faith in you, Isobel, so it seems have you been left with no choice but to place yours in me.”

She glared after him, a shudder running through her. He was always talking in circles like this, always leaving her with more questions than answers. It made her want to scream at him, to demand one single cut-and-dry, yes-or-no reply.

But she knew he was right. Time had run out. It had slipped through her fingers, like sand, leaving her with no other choice but to trust him. This person, this entity who she knew nothing about yet at the same time knew enough to have called him a friend. He had warned her from the beginning. He had saved her. He’d tried to save Edgar. And now he was trying to help her save Varen.

She moved to follow him, and her feet wobbled unsteadily beneath her, her knees weak. She paused to slide her muddied arms into the sleeves of Varen’s jacket. She drew the fabric close around her and turned up the collar as she had once seen him do. His scent washed over her, expelling from her mind the bitter taste of dirt and the coppery smell of blood. Now each of them held in their possession something of the other’s. Something to return. A double promise. Affirmation that there was still a chance. That they would see each other again when, at last, the nightmare ended.

When she ended it.

Ahead, Reynolds turned, waiting, his black cloak fluttering around him as he watched her through the screen of falling ash.

She ran to catch up, her footfall sure once again.

45 A Door

They found the double-doors of the palace open, a long smear of blood leading them inside to the first chamber—the blue chamber. Crystal snowflakes hung suspended from a vaulted ceiling, wavering ever so slightly in the eerie stillness that now replaced the once feverish chaos of the masquerade.

The revelers had since stopped their antics and had receded from the center of the floor. They stood in a mass of confusion and fear, masks lowered, eyes darting in the direction of the open doors leading into the purple chamber. Following on Reynolds’s heels, Isobel rushed into the room. Or rather, into the space where the purple chamber should have been. Instead she found herself back in the warehouse—at the Grim Facade—the raging goth music blasting at full volume, the sudden noise of it startling her so much that for a split second she’d thought the world truly had ended.

Confused, Isobel turned to look behind her. The archway to the chamber remained, freestanding in midair, all the courtiers watching her, their faces as stunned as hers. She glanced down. Between her feet, a long wet smear of blood marred the floor.

She followed its path with her eyes, her gaze stopping on the hem of a scarlet-stained robe.

The Red Death. It glided amid the other costumers, who, Isobel noticed, began to consist of goths and dream-revelers alike. And the two worlds were only just starting to notice each other.

Reynolds appeared suddenly at her side. “Look out,” he growled, shoving her.

A hissing sound pierced her ears as a Noc came sailing between them. Reynolds, his arm as quick as a striking cobra, grasped the Noc by the neck and slammed the creature to the floor, where it shattered on impact, a look of shock registering on its face the instant before it smashed apart.

Several masqueraders and goths squealed and shrank back from the commotion.

“Reynolds!” Isobel gasped, pointing. Behind him, another Noc formed through a cloud of violet murk. Reynolds whirled, taking a swipe with one arm, his movements precise, practiced.

His attack sailed through the violet mist, and, laughing, the Noc slid away. Another swooped in to take its place, snatching Reynolds’s hat from his head and placing it on his own, while yet a third formed through the air, its crimson claws raised.

Isobel rushed the Noc that was poised to strike. At the sight of her, it screeched in terror and dissipated. She heard an echoing shriek from somewhere to her right, followed by another smash. Then the head of the Noc that had stolen Reynolds’s hat, now free of its body, rolled to a stop at her feet, its eye sockets hollow and void. Isobel brought her foot down, crushing the face in.

The remaining Nocs wailed in terror, and as one, they receded, flitting apart as they took their bird forms. Their dark wings whisked them up and higher, until they reached the banisters of the gallery, where they perched. There they squawked and hopped, their caws ringing in their throats like curses.

Isobel glanced down in time to see Reynolds replace his hat over thick, dark, and smoothed-back hair.

Somewhere in the crowd, a girl screamed. The goth music ground to a slow halt, and the moaning singer’s voice died out. Everyone began to take notice, to shrink back from the visage of the Red Death. At its feet lay one of the dream-revelers, her silver dress spotted with crimson. Beneath her dove’s mask, her face oozed, glistening red from the pores.

“It is happening,” Reynolds said. “You must go to the woodlands now, find the door with the signs. You’ll know it when you see it. The link between our worlds is there inside. You’ll know that, too, when you see it. Godspeed, and beware the white one.”

“What—but I don’t even know how to—”

“Go,” he said. “Only you can change the dream. Only you can sever the link.”

She hesitated. “What about you?”

“I will fight here.”

She shook her head. “That’s not what I meant.”

His eyes locked with hers. Surprise lit their darkness from within. And then he laughed, a bitter sound. “For me, the worst has long since been done. Now go.”

“But—!”