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Her vision went double while the open-air sounds of night, wind, and rustling leaves became muted in her ears. Then, in a flash, everything disappeared, winking to crystal white.
She floated in a world of nothing, weightless, alone, and strangely unconcerned about what had just happened or where she was or if she would come back. It was like teetering between waking and falling asleep, and it made her wonder if this was what dying felt like.
Something pulled at her, and her senses returned.
Looking down at her side, she saw her hand still clutched in Pinfeathers’s grip.
Disoriented, Isobel glanced up to find herself no longer standing in front of the fountain. Gone were the houses and the trees, the cars and the flickering lamps. In their place stretched a long and dark corridor, lined on either side by plain utilitarian doors. All of them were closed.
She looked up at Pinfeathers, who pressed a single bloodred claw to his lips, calling for silence. Then he loosened into smoke and, with a rustle and flit of feathers, re-formed as an ebony bird, perching on Isobel’s left shoulder.
The weight of the bird’s body felt almost nonexistent, as if even in this form, the Noc was still only hollow within.
Aiming his beak forward, he gave a hoarse and urging croak.
She faced the dimly lit hall, which seemed to stretch on forever into a far-reaching pit of blackness. She wondered where Pinfeathers had brought her and why, but the bird only bobbed his head and snapped his beak with several impatient clicks. Clearly he wanted her to proceed.
Isobel did so with cautious steps, her footfall making no sound on the worn floorboards.
Between each of the doors, antique oil lamps burned with steady yellow flames, their glass holders warping the light into hourglass shapes along the barren walls.
The scent of kerosene and the antiseptic smell of iodine mixed with alcohol permeated the air. Beneath that, though, Isobel could detect another odor, a hint of putridity like the stale reek of a sickroom.
A quiet squeaking drew Isobel’s attention to the right, and she soon saw someone gliding toward them—a woman dressed in white.
She stopped cold. Fear pierced her gut like a spear, holding her in place.
A trap, she thought. She’d been stupid enough to trust Pinfeathers, and now it had landed her right where she should have known it would, straight into Lilith’s waiting grip.
As the woman drew closer, however, her figure became more discernible, and Isobel saw that instead of white veils, she wore what appeared to be an old-fashioned nurse’s uniform. With a starched white cap sitting atop her pouf of dark brown hair, she looked like a costumed actress straight out of a period movie. A matching apron cinched her narrow, corseted waist while long, heavy skirts swished around her feet.
The woman, her gaze intent on the path before her, took no notice of Isobel as she bustled by, even as her skirts nearly brushed Isobel’s legs.
Behind the woman, a teenage girl, dressed in the same uniform, wheeled a gurney, the source of the high-pitched squeaking. On it, an old man with skin like raw dough lay prone and listless.
Isobel turned her head to watch their grim procession as they passed.
A hospital, Isobel thought. She was in some sort of old hospital. But why would Pinfeathers have brought her to such a place?
He’d called this a memory, and clearly she was viewing something from the past, but when? With the gas lamps and the way the nurses had been dressed, Isobel’s first guess was the 1800s. But if they’d gone back this far, then whose memory could this possibly be? Certainly not Varen’s.
A low wailing drew Isobel’s attention forward once again.
There, at the very end of the passageway, a door that she knew had not been there a moment before swung open by itself.
Pinfeathers cawed softly in her ear and, with a loud flutter and flick of feathers, took flight from her shoulder. She watched the bird soar ahead of her, flapping his wings, then shooting straight through the open door and out of sight.
Isobel hurried down the corridor after him, preferring to have the company of a monster than to be left alone in this place.
As she drew closer to the door, the wailing emanating from within grew louder and more distinct. The sound began to build toward shouting, and soon—screaming.
“REYNOLDS!”
The cry, ragged and frayed, caused her to stop in her tracks. Standing frozen in place within the frame of the door, she took in the scene before her.
In the center of the room sat a narrow bed. A dark-haired man lay on the white sheets, his face gaunt and sickly pale. He writhed amid the tangled linens, howling and moaning while, above him, a thick smear of rippling black clouds spread wider against the ceiling.
“REYNOLDS!” the man on the bed shrieked.
