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The shard had once occupied the place just over the heart Scrimshaw did not possess. And the last time Isobel had seen it, it had still been intact, though much of the rest of the Noc had been reduced to fragments.
Pinfeathers had battled and destroyed Scrimshaw in the rose garden while trying to protect Isobel, sustaining enough damage to splinter himself apart as well. But now someone had painstakingly pieced the blue Noc back together.
Isobel’s gaze returned to Scrimshaw’s clawed hand and she wondered why.
For what purpose? And was it possible the shard etched with Virginia’s image was being held in reserve, the final puzzle piece that would restore the reconstructed monster to life?
Isobel didn’t know. But she didn’t want to find out, either.
If Scrimshaw awoke to see . . . if he discovered that she wasn’t just a dream . . .
Fighting her rising panic, Isobel searched for an exit. She spotted the narrow door, its surface marred with ominous scratches, and began to wind her way toward it, navigating in backward steps in order to keep the Noc in her sights—the tips of those indigo claws that were still poking out from the corner of cloth she’d dared to lift.
Then, at the sound of humming, she froze.
Someone else was in the room with her—a woman.
The song, slow and soft, was one Isobel knew. Varen’s lullaby.
Isobel stalled her breathing to listen, but just as quickly as the melody had begun, it halted.
She scanned the cluttered room, her sight settling finally on an old dressing screen unfolded in front of the window that, in the real world, led out onto the fire escape.
Squinting, Isobel focused on one of the narrow gaps between the hinged panels.
She could see someone there, sitting on the other side.
As she inched forward, she reluctantly let Scrimshaw’s draped form slide out of her view. Peeking around the screen, she found a woman seated in a cloth-covered chair.
Except, Isobel realized with grim fascination, the figure wasn’t a woman at all.
With seeming disinterest, the life-size doll stared out through the slats of the shuttered window, her eyes lazy and half-lidded, curled lashes throwing long spidery shadows over her rouged cheeks.
Cobwebs swathed her narrow frame, clinging to the moth-eaten frills of her lavender gown. Frizzed wisps of ash-blond hair framed her somber, crackled-paint features, while a familiar purple rhinestone comb secured a loose bun at the base of her neck.
Isobel slipped behind the screen, floorboards whining as she drew nearer for a better look. Triggered by her motions, the brass windup key protruding from the figurine’s back twitched into motion. The key unwound, twisting the cobwebs with it as it rotated, and the humming started again.
Isobel grasped the brass key and held it steady, halting the woman’s voice.
She checked over her shoulder again and could just make out the edge of the boot still sticking out from the sheet. The blue claws, too.
Isobel looked back to the doll.
Sift through his darkness, Reynolds had told her.
Was that what this place was?
Crouching in front of the doll, Isobel searched her fixed features for some answer.
Madeline, Isobel thought. Varen’s mother. Was this how she existed in his mind? As a cold and lifeless mannequin? A windup memory that could only repeat the same sad song over and over? Her image preserved but faded, distorted and worn down by the years of not knowing—not being able to comprehend—what had become of her?
“Why did you leave?” Isobel whispered.
As though in response, the doll’s eyelids rolled up to reveal emerald irises and a glassy stare that trained itself on Isobel. The pupils shrank to pinpricks. Then, with a quiet pop, the orbs cracked. Black oil seeped out from the inner crevices of the doll’s eyes, tracking dark streaks down her cheeks.
Splattering onto the floor, two blots of oil writhed and wriggled into a pair of tiny, dark brown beetles.
Isobel straightened quickly. She jumped back from the insects as they scurried toward her and then, one after the other, into a hollowed knot between floorboards.
