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And as the sight of Darcy, the casket, and the white square of paper left her vision, Isobel felt the sudden lifting of an inward pressure she hadn’t realized was there.
Because giving up the note forced Isobel to accept the most difficult truth of all.
That the quiet, strange, brooding goth boy she’d fallen in love with over the span of a beautiful and terrifying October no longer existed. Just as Lilith had said.
That Varen would have been here, at the grave site. That Varen would have cared that she was too. He would have heard her out.
But he wasn’t there.
The boy who had composed the words written on that slip of paper was gone.
And he wasn’t ever coming back.
* * *
To avoid being seen pulling into Trenton’s main lot, Gwen chose a parking spot on the side street closest to the door they’d used to sneak out.
A pair of senior boys lounged against the building, the smoke from their cigarettes rising in coils. Their presence there meant the bell ending third period had already rung. Before Isobel could let herself out, however, the car door’s lock slid down with a harsh clack.
“Confession.”
Isobel turned her head and saw Gwen watching her with furrowed brow, one hand poised on her door’s lock panel.
“I totally read the note,” Gwen blurted.
Leaning back, Isobel let her head thud against her seat. Heat crawled up her neck and cheeks. “C’mon, Gwen. I mean, I sort of knew you would.”
“I . . . have to admit,” Gwen said, her words turning solemn, “it made me think for sure that you would come back. With him. That you had to.”
“Yeah,” Isobel murmured, watching the two boys stamp out their half-smoked cigarettes. “That was the plan.”
“Your dream last night. About Varen . . . all that stuff in the hall. Do you think . . . I mean . . . is there any way that he could be—”
“I think that you were right,” Isobel said, and felt the flush leave her cheeks.
“A favorite pastime of mine but . . . about what specifically?”
Isobel’s hand went to the hamsa charm at her neck, her fingers running it back forth on its chain as she recalled how, on the same morning Gwen had given her the amulet, she had also related to Isobel all the known lore surrounding Lilith. That demons operated by luring their victims with false promises, but that Lilith’s treachery and deceit could only accomplish so much on its own. In the end, Gwen had said, a demon’s victim—at least to some extent—had to be willing.
“I think,” Isobel murmured, “Varen is where—and what—he wants to be.”
An uncomfortable tenseness spiked the air. Quiet buzzed.
Isobel couldn’t meet Gwen’s gaze, so she glanced to the door again and saw the two boys slide inside, one of them giving her and Gwen a fleeting backward glance.
Seconds later the cry of the bell came, muffled through the school’s redbrick walls.
Isobel gathered her things into her lap and peeled her winter coat from her shoulders, planning to leave it in Gwen’s car, since, as she’d feared might be the case, they no longer had time to stop by their lockers.
“We should go,” Isobel said, and pulling up the lock tab, she climbed out.
Wordlessly Gwen shed her own coat, tucked a notebook under her arm, and exited her side. Huddling against the cold, they hurried to the doors.
Inside, the warm stairwell had already cleared of students. A faint odor of mildew hung in the air, commingling with the quiet to give the enclosed space, Isobel thought, a tomblike feel.
“So,” Gwen said, “what happens now?”
Isobel shrugged. “Maybe nothing.”
