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The Noc might have caught her off guard that morning, but Isobel knew that Pinfeathers’s power lay in his ability to surprise her—an advantage she would not allow him to have again. Not now that she knew he’d found a loophole through which to enter her world again.
It made her wonder if a version of that same loophole existed for Varen, if its emergence had any correlation to his repeated appearances in her dreams. Not to mention Lilith’s intervention that afternoon through Gwen’s book.
Isobel recalled the statue that had stood atop the fountain in the rose garden in her dream. She remembered how the figure had turned its head to look at her, its pair of empty black eyes matching those of the woman in the etching.
Other images of the dream continued to swirl through her mind.
The absence of her reflection in Varen’s sunglasses. The interior of his car. The spinning dashboard clock. The nothingness inside those eyes.
Gwen’s mention of the rose garden had tipped the first domino of Isobel’s recollection, bringing the rest of the dream into stark relief.
It was clear that somehow, some way, they had both visited the same dream space.
If so, why had Reynolds appeared to Gwen and not her? What had he been doing there in the garden?
It made her think about the strange aroma that clung to him. It had been almost overpowering that night Reynolds had carried her home—that musty smell of sweet decay, exactly like roses on a grave.
Isobel rolled onto her back to face the ceiling, the blank white space offering a better canvas on which to connect the emerging series of dots.
The garden, she knew, must be the place from which Reynolds took the roses he brought to Poe’s grave. It made sense.
Still, his presence in the garden didn’t explain why Varen had felt the need to take her there.
His face winked into her thoughts, so clear and complete in every detail, close enough that she could almost feel the silken strands of his hair brushing her cheek.
I’m here. Right here. Waiting.
Isobel shut her eyes as Varen’s words resurfaced in her mind. In them, she knew she had the answer to her questions.
When she came for him, when she finally discovered a way to step physically back into the dreamworld, she knew she would need to locate the garden. He’d be there, waiting, just as he’d said. That had to be what he’d wanted her to know, what he’d needed to convey.
It still didn’t explain why Reynolds had been there. But now Isobel realized that Reynolds knew how to get there, wherever “there” happened to be. And after she followed him out of the cemetery in Baltimore, he would be able to lead her to the rose garden.
To the place where Varen was keeping his promise to wait.
The place where she would fulfill hers of finding him.
THE SMOOTH SOFTNESS BRUSHED HER arm first, the sensation faint as a sigh.
Isobel rolled onto her side.
The slight silken something returned, though, tracing the curve of her jawline.
She lifted a hand to brush whatever it was away, sending a ripple through the still pool of her slumber.
But the ghostly slip of velvet would not relent.
It passed over Isobel’s lips.
She scowled and snatched at the air in front of her face, catching something sleek and stiff within her fist.
Her eyes fluttered open. Shooting upright, she unclenched her hand and frowned down at the object that now rested in her palm.
A black feather.
Isobel jerked convulsively. With a small cry, she released the plume as though it had scalded her.
Scrambling backward, kicking off covers, she collided with the cubbyhole headboard of her bed, causing its contents to rattle.
