“I kept it to myself,” Varen went on, “like everything else that was happening to me. But in the beginning, it was all just superficial anyway. As shallow as I’d convinced myself you were.” He paused as if searching for a memory that had become distant, remote. “I meant it, you know, when I said you weren’t my type.”

A pained smile, involuntary, tugged at Isobel’s lips and then faded. She remembered that conversation. Of course she did. How could she forget their first phone call?

“And I meant it, when I told you I’d be back for you,” Isobel replied.

“Obviously. And that’s why, now, you never . . . ever . . . go away.”

Isobel kept her feet planted on the tile beneath her, fighting the impulse to go to him. She didn’t dare try. Not when that was precisely what all the doubles did. Not when the long-fingered, ring-lined hands holding her butterfly watch still frightened her.

Isobel winced inwardly, recalling how the same hands that had once communicated such gentleness had also gripped her with frightening force. How they’d tossed her to the side. And let her go . . .

“It was easier to hate you,” he said, snapping the watch closed with a sharp click. “A lot less painful, too.”

Vines of longing wrapped around her heart, urging her to tell him how she’d gotten there and what was happening—to explain how all this could be possible. Words continued to fail her, though, because his candid brashness and calm indifference all served to further confirm her fears that in his mind, he was only speaking to another figment—a soulless projection of his own consciousness.

“We were better off that way,” he went on, glancing up at her again. “Well, you were better off. Back when I assumed you thought you were better than everyone else, which—ironically enough—allowed me to go on telling myself that you were beneath me. Back when you believed I was everything everyone said I was.”

“I didn’t—”

“Admit it,” he said, cutting her off. “They were right about me, weren’t they?” An off-putting smile touched one corner of his mouth, causing his silver lip ring to glint. “Your friends. Your boyfriend. Your dad.” Just as quickly as it had appeared, his smile fell. His eyes darkened and slid to the far wall. “My dad.”

Isobel wanted to respond, to say the right thing, but she still didn’t know how to enter into the battle that was taking place before her. The one Varen was so clearly waging against himself.

It was never about you.

Pinfeathers’s words rose inside of her, right along with his final message of—

“‘I told you so,’” Varen said. “I bet that’s what they all wish they could say to you now that you’re gone. Your friends, your family—all our teachers. Hell, I wish I could tell you myself.”

“You have,” Isobel replied, forcing strength into her voice. “In a way. And you’re telling me right now, too. But . . . I’m here to prove that you’re wrong. Just like they were. Are.”

Varen rose from his desk, pocketing the watch, wallet chains clinking as he drew to his full height.

Isobel’s heart raced faster with every step he took toward her, clumps of ash tumbling from his boots and the hem of that black coat. Her instincts screamed for her to back up, to slide behind Mr. Swanson’s empty desk, if only to put something between them.

She stayed rooted, though. He stopped to stand before her, and even as her body chanted the command to run, her heart begged for her to step nearer, to enfold him in her arms.

She could risk neither.

“I’ve only been wrong about one thing,” Varen said, shaking his head. “And that’s you. Every step of the way, in fact. Whenever I was sure of one thing, you always surprised me, proving just the opposite to be true. Every. Single. Time.”

Keep shattering expectations.

Another of Pinfeathers’s cryptic one-liners shot to the forefront of Isobel’s mind. Building on one another, each phrase offered glimmers of insight, linking with everything Varen was saying to her now. Maybe, she hoped, that meant the Noc’s advice would do just what he’d said it would: reveal what she needed to do in order to penetrate—and dispel—Varen’s darkness.

“Not anymore, though,” he said. “And I guess that’s the one perk of loving a dead girl. She never changes.”

Isobel’s head jerked up, and she met his onyx stare.

Loving?

With that single word, the slow-burning ember of her faith caught fire anew, and it occurred to her that she just might be able to do this, to save him. To bring them both home to a reality that still waited for them. She only had to break through. Everything she needed was here. He was here. Pinfeathers had spoken the truth. It should be simple, she thought. As easy as saying it out loud.