Frantically brushing her arms and legs, swiping at her collar and shoulders, Isobel wiped away only dust. She coughed up grime, the choking soot coating her mouth and throat. She didn’t care, though. Not so long as the beetles were gone.
She flinched, eyes darting wildly in search of her tormentor, but like the beetles, the Noc and the attic had vanished. An even deeper darkness bathed new surroundings, interrupted only by the red glow of embers emanating from a fireplace far larger and more ornate than the one through which she’d entered.
She was now in a tidy study.
Quaking uncontrollably, Isobel whimpered, raking her fingers through her hair. Breathless, she whipped her head from side to side, anticipating the next horror Scrimshaw would no doubt inflict on her at any moment.
“Shh, we’re here now,” spoke the distorted voice through the gloom, its tones softer than before, though no less caustic.
“Stay away,” Isobel said, wrestling herself onto quivering legs.
“Hush now,” the Noc said. “Hush. No need for all that. It was just a bad dream. That’s all. We’re here, and that means he’s gone. For now.”
Isobel wrapped her arms around herself tight and, though her eyes searched, she could not find the source of the voice that seemed to echo from everywhere and nowhere.
On a nearby table, she saw the same oil lamp she’d encountered in the attic. Its chimney, now clean and unbroken, guarded a minuscule blue flame. Then the lamp’s skeleton-key handle twisted on its own, and the flame grew into a tall column of flickering violet fire.
The glow illuminated the same leather-bound books from the attic. Now clear of cobwebs, the tomes lined shelves that followed the walls. Thick purple curtains hung over a shuttered casement window, their folds pooling on the floor, and against one wall stood a familiar pair of ornate double doors.
The plush velvet armchair from the attic now sat facing the glimmering hearth, and suddenly Isobel remembered exactly where she’d seen it before.
Here. In this very room. The purple chamber where she had found Varen imprisoned the night of the Grim Facade.
But someone other than Varen occupied the chair now, red claws resting on one of the arms.
“Don’t be angry with us,” the Noc whispered, “but we had to let him have his fun. Only because we wanted to be sure. Then again, scars don’t lie, do they?”
Motionless, Isobel waited to see if the claws would move, if the seat’s occupant would rise and face her. Well aware that this could be yet another illusion brought on by the treachery inherent in this ever-changing realm, she held her ground.
Still, if Scrimshaw had been pieced together again, then couldn’t the same have been done for—
“Pin?” Isobel said, the single syllable quavering.
“You know how the saying goes,” answered the voice, which sounded weak now, fading. “Where there’s one . . .”
“There’s more,” Isobel breathed, her memory snatching the final line from the poem Varen had written about the Nocs, the same one she’d read in his sketchbook just moments before burning its pages.
She started forward, keeping her gaze trained on that clawed hand. But when she rounded the chair, she found the seat empty—like the crackled, hollowed limb that occupied the armrest, amputated at the bicep.
Someone snickered.
“Please,” Isobel said, spinning to search the shadows again. “No more tricks. No more games. If it’s really you . . . then help me. Help me find him. Help me find both of you.”
“If it’s really you,” the voice whispered, its nearness causing her skin to prickle, “you’ll know where to look. You always do.”
A hand stroked her hair, claws clicking as they grazed her shoulder.
She snapped her head to the right, but still, there was no one. Even the empty limb had vanished.
Behind her there came a quiet click followed by a low creak, and, turning, she saw that one of the tall double doors had eased ajar.
Her gaze trailed up the slim black crack to where, positioned at the top of the door frame in an extension of its decorative molding, the back-lit bust of the chamber’s Grecian warrior woman held the appearance of slumbering.
Isobel remembered that the statue hadn’t been sleeping when she’d been here before, though. Nor had it so closely resembled her, with its hair no longer tightly coiled but straight, falling long to rest around bare shoulders.
“Issssobel.”
Feet sinking into the thick carpet, heels trailing the dusty residue of her last nightmare, Isobel approached the beckoning call that had come from the open slit between doors—and whatever new horror waited beyond.