Oblivion

“Lilith would have found his heart an uninhabitable place,” Reynolds continued. “They were locked in battle even after they had become one, and it is quite possible that Lilith herself—unable to withstand such torture—was the one responsible for stopping his heartbeat, simultaneously bringing about her own demise. Whatever the case, his death—brief as it was—caused the last slip in her tenuous grip. On the boy. On her pitiful existence. On her reign and her very kingdom, as well. On me . . . Now you and the boy have both tasted death, it seems, and in so doing, you have delivered the demon’s. And I believe you have granted me mine.”

Reynolds stopped there, and Isobel let his explanation settle over her along with the returning quiet. Glancing at the gravestone, her eyes traced its grooves and lettering—the raven carved there in profile.

Death, she reminded herself, was what Reynolds had wanted. His desire, even if he had given up hope of ever achieving it, had been to pass on. He’d been in limbo so long, halfway living and halfway dead—all the way lost. But though Isobel knew she should be happy for him, she found that particular emotion hard to summon just at this moment. So she pressed on to her next question instead.

“He . . . Varen . . . said that when the paramedics were working on him, he heard me calling. He said there was darkness everywhere and that he was alone. But then my voice appeared as a bright light. He followed it until he . . . woke up.”

Reynolds’s gaze trailed after hers to Poe’s old gravestone.

“For that,” he said after a beat, “I have no explanation. Except, perhaps, for this: that whatever force the demon could not survive is the same that has allowed my soul to return to you in this moment. The same that allowed the boy’s soul to rejoin with his body—the same that returned him, whole, to you. The same that has empowered you along the way, guiding you better than I could have. For look at us now.”

He smiled at her again, only smaller and more bittersweet this time.

Isobel hadn’t been able to prevent herself from touching his arm moments ago, or from tackling him in this same graveyard less than a month ago, or even from stabbing him through the foot on the terrace in the dreamworld. And now she could not prevent the tears that surged forth from her eyes, falling down her face in two unstoppable streams.

Slamming into him hard, she actually sobbed out loud, straight into his waistcoat.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” she wailed. “Why didn’t you tell me right from the start what was going on? That you had to pretend to be on Lilith’s side? That she knew I was alive? That she wanted me to try to show Varen I was real, so that he would re-enter reality and bring the dreamworld with him? You could have. You didn’t have to play her game.”

“You remember when we fought?” Reynolds asked. “When the demon summoned me by name? I’d stepped out to kill you on her orders.”

Isobel nodded, recalling how Reynolds had tried to coach her even then, guiding her through the sword fight on the terrace overlooking the cliffs where Varen had stood.

“It was not by accident that she called on me to dispatch you in that moment,” he said, his husky voice rumbling through her. “At that point, she suspected I was the Lost Soul who had been helping you all along, and the one who had ended Edgar’s life. Our fight and its outcome, I knew, would only confirm her suspicions. But I also understood that before exacting any revenge on me, she would take my ability to enter your world into consideration.

“After I returned you to that hospital, I knew that since you lived, she would try to use you again. But in order to do that, she would need me. And Isobel, if I was to be of any use at all—if I was to keep my promise to Edgar, to supply you or your world with any aid—I had to accept the demon’s offer to play the part of your guide. I had to deliver her lie to you—that she thought you dead, that you would be facing an unsuspecting enemy. And I had to let her believe I was aiding you only as a means to complete her goals.

“Even if I’d told you the truth, you would not have believed me—whether or not you would admit it now. It would only have made you more wary than you already were. You would have asked more questions. You would have waited to act. I also knew that, regardless of my commands, you would interact with the boy the moment you set eyes on him. Why do you suppose I was so adamant against it? I used your mistrust of me to both of our advantages, knowing that you would take your chance when you saw it. When you saw him. The sooner the better, was my feeling. You are welcome, by the way.”