He’d devised a deadly contract.
Then he had tried to soothe Isobel’s fears with a distracting explanation, with a kiss.
Had that kiss been meant as a good-bye?
Panic seized her at that thought, spurring Isobel to charge around the bend after him. But she halted suddenly when she found herself back in Bruce’s house, in that dimly lit hall sandwiched between the stairs and the wall.
All the photos now hung askew, their glass panes cracked and splintered.
Dead ahead, she saw Varen cross through the front door, which hung wide, exiting not into Bruce’s yard but to the courtyard and its shrouded, mist-wrapped forms.
But before she could follow him through to the other side, Isobel spotted something—someone—lying on the stairs.
“Gwen!” Grabbing the banister, Isobel swung down to kneel next to her.
Unconscious but breathing, her chest rising with small, shallow intakes, Gwen lay on her side, head propped on one arm as if someone had positioned her that way. A red welt swelled near her temple, and in one hand, her fingers curled loosely around the canister of pepper spray.
Isobel glanced behind her, to the top of the staircase and the hall, but she saw no sign of Reynolds.
She pushed off from the steps and whirled for the open door. Barreling through it, she ran headlong into the drifts of fog and down a winding path after Varen, whose form she no longer saw.
45
Nameless Here for Evermore
“Varen!” Isobel shouted.
“Varen,” a hushed voice echoed back.
Isobel turned in a circle, shoes scuffling stone.
Marble faces peered down at her from every direction, their features half-lost behind carved veils that perfectly mimicked the sheerness of gossamer. Now, even through the stone shrouds, she could make out their solemn expressions—their lidded eyes that, though closed, still seemed to see.
Looking behind her, Isobel also saw that along with the door to Bruce’s, the walkway had vanished, its curving path now populated with more enswathed figures.
One of the statues moved, swiveling its head her way.
With a jump, Isobel backpedaled and stumbled straight into another.
Laughter, deep and throaty, filled the courtyard, growing louder and louder until the voice swept down on Isobel—and right into her.
Isobel shrieked as the shrill cackling invaded her head. Her hands leaped to cover her ears, dropping the ribbon. She squeezed her eyes shut, but she couldn’t block out the laughter as it spiked into a skull-shattering scream.
Legs giving out, Isobel collapsed. Her knees slammed hard onto cold stone, and, doubling over, she fought the urge to be sick.
Then, departing as suddenly as it had descended, the demon’s voice ceased and fled her mind. Its reverberation clapped through the newly quieted courtyard.
Trembling, gasping for air as well as for the return of her senses, Isobel lowered her quaking hands. She kept her head bowed, opening her eyes again only when she felt something warm trickle from her nose.
Three blots of crimson fell to splatter the smooth rectangular slab on which she now knelt. There, letters formed, creating trenches for the blood droplets.
Through the matted dreads of her hair, Isobel read the carved words.
ISOBEL LANLEY
BELOVED DAUGHTER, DEVOTED SISTER,
CHERISHED FRIEND
LIVED FOR LOVE, YET PERISHED BY ITS HAND
“Carries a certain Poe-etic ring to it, does it not?” asked a low feminine voice.
A soft shifting followed by a quiet drag of fabric sounded loud in Isobel’s ringing ears. Then pooling folds of white and violet-stained gossamer entered her view. Poking through the puddled hem, curved black talons clicked to a stop atop Isobel’s engraved name.
“Pun intended,” Lilith said, “as our wayward Pinfeathers might have suggested were he here. Had you not incited him to self-annihilation, I mean. But then, you do possess a certain knack for impelling lovesick wretches to ruin, don’t you? I suppose you and I have that much in common.”
“I am nothing like you,” Isobel growled. Slamming her palms flat against the slab, she pushed to her feet and lunged at the figure in front of her. Instead of digging into soft veils and flesh, though, her fingers clashed with hard marble.
Another statue.
As though mocking her, the figure smiled serenely at Isobel from behind its pall.
“You do like your epitaph, do you not?” Lilith asked, her voice now emanating from a separate corner of the courtyard.
Isobel shoved away from the frozen effigy. Whirling, she scoured the endless multitude of veiled forms.
“I’d rather hoped you would,” the same voice called, issuing from yet another direction. “Given that it is the prize you’ve been fighting so hard to obtain. A sorrowful ending to a mournful tale whose greatest tragedy is that it happened to conclude with your name instead of mine.”