Oblivion

She paused in front of the gap and, peering up at the bust one more time, drew strength from the warrior’s image, from the suggestion of courage it gave.

Then, as she watched the sculpture’s smooth face, a thin crimson split appeared on one alabaster cheek. Blood seeped from the wound, blazing bright.

A phantom pain emanated from Isobel’s own mirroring scar.

She ignored it, though, and taking one knob in each hand, she pushed the doors apart.

12

Phantom Chased

Darkness waited for her in the long, silent hall.

Heavy chandeliers floated above untethered, their underbellies dripping shards of crystal.

The ominous, rolling presence of the smoke ceiling alerted Isobel that she was back in Varen’s Gothic palace, though now she wondered if she’d ever left its boundaries.

She leaned into the hall and glanced left. A pair of violet velvet curtains framed a high wooden archway that led into a joining corridor.

Craning her neck right, toward the opposite end of the hall, she squinted through the gloom—and started. Someone was there, peeking at her from behind a matching pair of curtains midway down.

Isobel withdrew fast into the purple chamber. Waiting a beat, she risked a second glance around the jamb.

The same figure moved in time with her, the stranger’s straight blond hair draping long, just like hers . . . leading Isobel to realize she wasn’t viewing a long corridor at all.

It was a short hall. One that terminated in—a mirror?

Venturing into the center of the passage, she faced her reflection, frowning in confusion. Because she knew she shouldn’t have a reflection. Not as long as she was here in astral form. Not as long as she was dreaming.

With cautious steps, Isobel started toward the image of herself. Taking in the details of her own dust-coated figure, she tilted her cheek slightly to one side to ensure that her reflection shared her scar. It did. She drifted closer before stopping a few feet away.

The image in the mirror matched her movements—her stillness—perfectly.

Until it winked.

Isobel blinked in surprise.

Smiling, her duplicate whirled—and ran.

Isobel darted after the double.

Passing through the curtains ahead, the entity skidded to a halt, opening its arms to keep balance. Following suit, Isobel staggered to a standstill in front of the mirror, unable to fight the sensation that, without meaning to, she’d performed the exact same movement.

Next, she whipped her head around to see her doppelgänger standing under the archway at the opposite end of the corridor. The specter had whipped its head around too, giving the illusion that there was another mirror at the opposite end of the hall. Then the figment grinned again and, sticking its tongue out at Isobel, dashed to the side, disappearing into the adjoining hallway.

Isobel sprinted after, recalling as she did what she’d overheard the two cloaked figures in the cathedral say about her dream-selves—that they always went to the same place. To the same person. Varen.

She sped around the corner, and up ahead, she glimpsed a fleeting whip of blond hair as her double vanished around the next bend.

Isobel rounded the bend too, to find herself in a new corridor, this one empty.

The drapes at the far end hung motionless. She slowed as she approached them, then stopped, carefully drawing back one side of the hangings.

There, at the end of the next hall, her look-alike mirrored her stance, peeking around one drape into the connecting corridor.

Confused, Isobel pulled back. Pressing her spine flush with the wall, she glanced down the passage through which she’d just come.

Nothing. There was no one. And yet . . . one of the curtains swayed.

With bewilderment, Isobel lifted an arm, extending it out into the passage.

And an arm appeared at the far turn.

Isobel withdrew. The phantom limb copied her, vanishing, the drapes rippling. She repeated the test, and keeping her arm extended this time, she stared at the copycat arm, trying to grasp what was happening.

Had she somehow become caught in a looping illusion created by her own mind? Was this dream version of herself toying with her? Could dreams do that? Or was something else at work?

She let her arm sink to her side again—and felt her stomach plummet when the hand sticking out from the far end remained extended.

Twiddling fingers at her, the hand then swept out of sight.

At the sound of a giggle, Isobel pushed away from the wall. Resuming the chase, she dashed around the corner where she’d seen the arm, ending up not in the corridor she’d passed through moments before, but in altered surroundings. New, but utterly familiar.