Oblivion

Could that protection have somehow been reinstated?

If so, did that mean some small part of Varen—conscious or not—still hoped she was real?

Isobel wasn’t sure.

Rolling onto her back, she gazed up past the gray-powdered grilles and bumpers of the surrounding cars to where Varen’s storm unraveled.

Bleeding white, the clouds evaporated, giving way to blue.

Sunlight burned through the cascade of ash, the remnants of which floated down to light softly upon her.

Her skin prickled, alive with the sensation of pins and needles, and Isobel blinked long and slow as the car alarms continued their frantic blaring—though now without the underscoring cries of the Nocs.

Along with Varen, the crows had receded into the dreamworld, through the veil that somehow—despite its now accelerated disintegration—still managed to separate her world from his.

From somewhere far off, the howl of sirens rose, and she knew she needed to move. To get up and get out of there.

As the full weight of what she’d done came crashing over her, though, she found herself unable to lift even one limb.

She’d sent him back. Back into that world of despair. Back into his empire of shadow.

But doing so had been the only way to prevent him from bringing it all here with him.

The only way of closing the link.

Soon, she was sure, Varen would return, stronger and more malevolent than before—bent on wreaking the havoc that would bring his darkest imaginings to life. Because even if there was a small part of him that did suspect she could be real, there was an even stronger part that had lost the capacity to trust in anything other than the nothing he’d come to know so well.

The nightmare. How would it ever end if she could not reach him?

How, when she had already gone to every length, faced each monster, risking all in the process?

His darkness remained—impenetrable. And it would stay that way as long as he refused to believe her.

To believe in her.

In himself.

The thought floated up through the mire of her anguish in a whisper. As her eyes traced the open sky, she knew it was true. Reynolds had been wrong to suggest that Isobel could dispel the darkness, could stop the worst from happening, by proving herself to Varen.

That power, in the end, lay with Varen alone.

Then again, at this point, maybe Reynolds—wherever he was—would see his mistake.

She doubted she would ever find out. He wasn’t coming for her. That much was obvious. If her name had still been penciled in his murky agenda, he would have found her by now, before Varen had.

Soon, though, it wouldn’t matter even if Reynolds did appear. The two worlds were already blending, merging as they had Halloween night. It was the reason Varen could no longer tell the difference. And why the hands of her butterfly watch had spun out of control. They would do so wherever he went. So long as he remained the link.

Varen must have discovered the trinket in the rose garden. After the cliff.

And he’d kept it with him. She’d seen him fiddling with it in the courtyard of statues, she realized. What had he been thinking as he held it?

Tasting ash, smelling the sharp scent of ozone, Isobel clutched at her collar. She wrapped the hamsa in one fist. The pendant could not instill her with the same strength it had that morning, though.

Muscles aching, she managed to climb onto unsteady feet and survey the damage.

Dust covered all.

Though the charcoal trees had disappeared with the storm, the buckles, rents, and pockmarks they’d made in the pavement remained.

Looking down, Isobel found herself standing in the center of a scorch mark not dissimilar to the one in the attic of the bookshop, where she’d burned Varen’s sketchbook.

The shrieking sirens grew louder.

Backpedaling from the charred starburst, Isobel began to weave her way through the maze of stalled and abandoned cars.

Then she paused, turning slowly in place—because no matter which way she faced, she could not see where the blanket of ash ended, or where the preexisting trees had not twisted and gone black.

Whirling, she started running in the direction of Cherokee Park, toward the path that would take her to the home she hoped she still had.

19

Double Exposure

Only when Isobel arrived at the next bus stop, her stop, did the field of damage caused by Varen’s storm reach its end.

Car horns honked as drivers steered slowly past the cop-car barricade blocking the intersection. A police officer directed traffic while pedestrians stopped to gawk at the mess and confusion, holding up camera phones and pointing.

Isobel, trying not to draw attention to herself, slowed to a jog as she hurried over the place where the layer of dust terminated, its blanketing white giving way to the curb and the painted lines of the crosswalk.