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Frozen in place, Isobel stood aghast as Pinfeathers continued to retreat from her, revealing more of himself the farther away he drew.
Horrible and heartrending, the truth left her wondering how she hadn’t guessed it all along.
A zigzagging crack split the Noc’s face in two. On the right half, the side that bore Pinfeathers’s trademark crater—the side that mirrored her scar—a single black eye watched her.
On the other, a hollow socket appeared to do the same.
Her gut feeling about Pinfeathers, she now knew, had been right. He wouldn’t harm her.
Of course, her gut had been right about another thing too. That she should never have entered the park. That something horrible awaited her within.
The very same something that had stalked her through its boundaries the last time.
Isobel’s hands sprang to her lips. “What—what did she do to you?”
“Ah well,” Pinfeathers said, shrugging. “Apparently, it was either this or scrapbooking. You know what they say. Everyone needs a hobby. You should take up jogging. Now would be optimal timing, I think.” He tugged at his collar with one claw, as if loosening a necktie. “I’m starting to feel a little crowded . . . if you catch my drift.”
Though the two Nocs apparently occupied a single shell, it was becoming more and more evident with every passing second that only one Noc could hold dominion over the shared body at any given time. What had Pinfeathers said when she’d heard his voice in the purple chamber? We’re here, and that means he’s gone.
The struggle—it must be constant. But . . .
“You can fight him,” Isobel said, inferring through his words and by the way he flinched, his head jerking suddenly to one side, that Scrimshaw was attempting to surface. To push through and take over. “Like . . . like you did in the garden,” Isobel added more weakly, and now she sounded desperate even to her own ears.
Wrapping his arms around himself, Pinfeathers lowered his head. Claws digging into his biceps, he quivered with restrained energy.
“Yes, the garden,” Pinfeathers said. “While that little scrap was so easily won—no contest, really—we’ll have to tag-team it this time, I think. Me plus he against me and you. Two against two. What do you say, cheerleader? That way the odds are more even. Can’t beat that now, can we? Ha. Well, I guess we’ll soon see.”
Without her telling them to, her feet began to take her in reverse.
“Don’t let him through,” Isobel urged. “You’re strong enough. You are. Please. You—you’re all I have.”
“Touching.” Wincing, he held up a palm. “Really. Romantic even. But save it. I think we both know that’s not how you would have it. Otherwise, you might have stayed in the dream. The one I made for you. For us.”
She knew he was referring to the last time the dreamworld and reality had come this close. On Halloween night. Almost as soon as Isobel had crossed from the warehouse of the Grim Facade into the masquerade ball of Poe’s story, she had encountered Pinfeathers. After throwing her into a mad waltz amid the masked revelers, guiding her through steps she shouldn’t have known how to execute, he’d swept them both into an alternate version of reality. Appearing to her there as Varen—blond, like in the childhood picture Isobel had glimpsed in Varen’s house, normal-looking right down to his blue button-up shirt and jeans—Pinfeathers had entrapped her, lulling her senses with the promise of an ideal existence.
At first Isobel’s mind had accepted the lie as easily as it would have the beginnings of any pleasant dream.
But then, there’d been something off about the other people populating the classroom setting. Most of all, everything had been off about Varen.
One at a time, the inconsistencies and contradictions had pushed her further and further toward the truth, until she’d had no choice but to blast through the deception. And there, on the other side of the Noc’s carefully constructed mirage, Pinfeathers had been waiting for her in Varen’s chair. Angry. Disappointed. And, Isobel recalled, hurt.
“Think about it,” Pinfeathers said. “We’d still be there if you hadn’t spoiled it all. If you hadn’t insisted on waking up. There, in that world where your parents loved me. Where your friends accepted us. We could have graduated and gone to college together. Anywhere you wanted to go. Everywhere you wanted to go. Everything would have been the best. I would have been the best. The version of us that you keep hoping exists. Everything you’d ever want and more. Anything you’d want. And it might have all worked out, Isobel. It might have all been okay, if only I was what you wanted. But . . . we both know I’m not.”
Her eyes brimmed once more, burning with restrained tears because she couldn’t deny any part of what he was saying. Pinfeathers might have been connected to Varen, but as much as she’d wanted to believe the opposite moments before, he wasn’t Varen. Only a piece of him. And even though she and the creature had come this far, meeting and parting time and again as if they’d never quite disengaged from their crazed masquerade dance, Isobel still couldn’t say what exactly—who—he really was. She doubted the Noc could either.
“I’m sorry,” Isobel said, because those were the only words she could offer him.
“You’re sorry?” He threw his head back, his laughter manic until another wave of pain caused him to double over at the waist, wiping his grin away and replacing it with a grimace.
She reached toward him, wishing there were some way to stop this. To make it all okay. To make him okay. To take away the pain it caused him just to be. “I don’t know what to say. Please, tell me what to say.”
He straightened, chin lifted. “Say that you’ll keep shattering expectations. That you’ll show her—and us—that you can’t be predicted. Say that when ole Stencil Beak here gets close”—he pointed a red claw at his empty eye—“when he thinks he has you, and when I push through and hold steady, you’ll prove to me that this time you have been listening. That you’ll strike.” Pulling down the fabric of his collar with one hand, he pointed at the etching of Virginia with the other. “Here. Hard as you can.”
Horrified, Isobel closed the distance between them, taking hold of his arms, fingers twisting around the coarse material of Varen’s jacket. “I—I can’t do that.”
“You’ll have to,” the Noc said, and though he clutched her arms in return, it was only to push her back, to hold her away from him. “If you expect to live long enough to keep your promise. And you damn well better keep it. After all, you wouldn’t want to have us demolished twice in vain. Talk about rude. Besides, you should know better than to think you can have us both—me and I. Three’s a crowd, remember? Selfish of you to even consider it, really. Can you let go now? You’re wrinkling the duds. Might be secondhand, but, as you can see, that’s part of my new loo—”
“Stop making jokes!” she screamed, shaking him. “It isn’t funny.”
