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Bringing his hands to his face, he crisscrossed claws in front of his open eyes as though to cover them. He watched her, unblinking, through the cagelike barrier.
“One,” he said. “Two.”
Isobel bolted, taking the path directly behind her, the walls of roses whizzing past.
“Threeeeee.”
Met with a dead end, Isobel skittered to a halt. “No!” she shrieked.
“Fouuuur,” she heard Scrimshaw drawl. “Some more numbers. Aaaand—nine-ten!” he shouted, cackling.
Isobel whipped around, only to find the passageway now empty, two foot-shaped depressions imprinted in the snowlike ash in the place where the Noc had stood a moment before.
Panic rose within her as she hurried back down the long vine-covered corridor, over the footprints, choosing her next direction at random, no longer certain from which way she’d come.
The roses seemed to watch her like thousands of spectators as she passed, their delicate heads bobbing in her wake. There was no sign of him around the next corner, or even the next. As Isobel took one passageway after another, she couldn’t help but feel that she was winding her way deeper and deeper into the garden’s maze and into Scrimshaw’s snare.
The soles of her boots slapped the marble floor, the sound muffled only slightly by the thin coating of petals and ash that carpeted each passageway.
Isobel whirled to stare at her tracks, wondering if she should try to cover them or just keep running. She knew the Nocs were too fast for her to outrun. If Scrimshaw had wanted her dead right away, he’d have killed her already. He was looking for a chase, for the hunt before the kill. And as long as she panicked, she would be giving him just that. She had to get a grip. She had to think her way around him—invent her own rules.
Know when you are dreaming, she thought.
Isobel dug one hand into the pocket of her jacket. She brought out the butterfly watch and flicked open the wings. The black hands spun around one another, wheeling faster and faster. She willed them to slow, and to her astonishment, they did. Just like she’d been able to close the stone door of the tomb, the hands of the watch responded to her thoughts.
“Show me the way to the fountain,” she whispered aloud.
In response, all three hands, joining in one line, aimed themselves at the twelve and, like the needle of a compass, pointed her forward.
She began to run again. As she did, she pictured in her mind that in the next tunnel and the next one after that, there would be no ash to record her steps.
Turning the corner, Isobel suddenly found herself in another circular room identical to the first. But now, the rose-covered corridors leading out of this clearing appeared to have been swept clean of ash. Isobel checked her watch again. She saw the hands split apart. They rotated in opposite directions and joined together again, aligning at the number nine. Left!
Isobel made the turn. She hastened toward the end of the covered hall, through the opening, and into the largest clearing yet. And here, in the center of the room, stood the very thing she sought—the fountain.
High above the brass statue’s head and arcing veil, a blanket of roses twined with the decorative domed ceiling, their vines braided with the scrolling wrought-iron bars. A breeze entered through the gaps between flowers and metal, sending a cascade of petals raining down.
Everything was just as it had been in her dream. Everything except for one detail.
“Varen?” she shouted.
There was no response. He wasn’t here. There was no one here. Nothing.
Isobel bit her lip, cursing herself in her mind, knowing that by yelling, she’d given herself away.
Checking the watch, she found that the hands had gone back to spinning.
“Take me to Varen!” She shook the silver charm and checked it again. This time, when the hands stopped, they pointed her in three separate directions. What did that mean? Was the watch telling her that any way would take her to him, or that no way would?
Why wasn’t he here like he said he’d be?
“I told you you’d come,” said a nearby voice, one Isobel knew well. “You said you would.”
She lowered the watch.
With careful steps, she moved closer to the silent fountain. Rounding the ornate grillwork gate, she discovered Pinfeathers sitting against its base, occupying the exact same space he had the morning she’d gone to Varen’s neighborhood, his head hung, held between his clawed hands.
“Pin—?”
