This was the last shred of evidence Isobel needed to know that Varen was present, that he’d been seen, and she wasted no time. She lashed out at Mohawk Man, jerking his arm, causing him to drop Lacy’s drink. It splattered on the floor, dark droplets flying onto the skirt of Lacy’s dress. She gasped in horror and let go of Isobel’s tag. Isobel, seizing her chance, broke away from the group, running headlong into the black throng. She plowed forward, pressing her way through the bodies, weaving between them. Her dress snagged on someone’s spiked bracelet, and she had to stop to free herself. She glanced behind her, then turned and spun in another direction. How would she ever find him? Was he down below, or above, somewhere on the gallery?
The farther she wove into the crowd, the more eyes she seemed to attract. Whispers started up around her. Strange faces turned toward her, most of them either porcelain white or covered by masks. She looked over her shoulder, still expecting to find Lacy two steps behind, furious and ready to snatch her bald. Either that, or drain her of blood.
Isobel stepped on someone’s toe and looked up. The boy, dressed completely in different versions of plaid, smiled at her. That disturbed her more than if he’d glared, and she turned and pushed through again, the space growing tighter as she wove her way deeper into the crowd. Someone caught her around the waist and she screamed, her voice lost in the noise of the screeching music. She wrenched away. A laughing face fell backward, becoming lost within a haze of colored lights. She stared after it, wondering if she had imagined the hole in his cheek.
Isssobel.
Isobel jumped at the sound of her name. It was as though someone had spoken it from inside her head, the voice metallic and sharp—a woman’s.
Someone knocked into her, and she was jostled to one side. Sharp red fingernails reached out from the darkness. She gasped and pulled away, stumbling. Like the face, the hands vanished, leaving her unsure whether they’d been real.
Isobel blinked and watched as the dark figures around began to merge and meld into one another. Becoming one, they moved in on her like a black tide. Blood rushed into her ears and drowned out the music. All sound seemed to drift farther and farther away. She drew her arms in tightly around herself and turned once more, then again, only to find every clear step closed off, covered over by shapeless black shadows.
Isssobel.
That voice again, that same haunting hiss. It caused the hair on her arms to rise and prickle, the thrum in her ears to intensify.
Isssobel, it breathed.
A wave of dizziness washed over her. The room around her shifted on its axis. She lost her balance and threw her arms out to brace herself. She felt people all around her, shapes moving, dancing through the blackness as though they’d been swallowed up just like her but hadn’t realized it. Isobel shut her eyes and opened them, but nothing changed. Why did it suddenly feel as though she was slipping away from herself, disconnecting? Why did it feel as though the world was falling away—capsizing?
Was she falling asleep, or waking up?
Isssoooobell . . .
Who was that calling her name? Coach? Mom?
No. It was someone else. Some thing else.
This wasn’t right. This couldn’t be happening. She was here. She was really here. She couldn’t be dreaming. Even if this was a dream, she couldn’t wake up now. Not when she’d come so close.
Isobel reached out, felt the air shimmer in front of her.
From behind, she felt someone take her hand, clasping hard, pulling her around. She spun sharply, and the force of the movement seemed to shock her into herself.
The world snapped into place.
All at once, the noise of the party spiraled into full volume again. A girl’s siren voice now replaced the frayed chords of the skull-faced boy. Her song, backed by the haunting pull of a cello’s strings and the gentle thump of percussion, reverberated through the hall. The figures around sprang apart from formless shadows to become people again, leaving in their wake a dark figure that now stood before her, his face hidden beneath a mask of white.
“It’s you,” she gasped.
38
Out of Space, Out of Time
It was his eyes that gave him away. Despite the phantom’s mask that hid his face, she could not have mistaken those eyes. She would have known them anywhere, those two jade spheres, their gaze so sharp it could cut. Framed by the holes in the simple white mask, they blazed into her like they had so many times before, lit now by a strange and unearthly fire.
Isobel could not have stopped herself if she’d tried. Not as she closed the distance between them. Not as she lifted her arms to wrap them around his neck. Not as she pressed herself to his frame, breathed him in, took in the scent of him—a concentrated dose of spice and incense that sent her mind reeling. She clung fast to him, tightened her hold on him, felt the realness of him in the fabric of his familiar jacket, in the warmth of his body.
Unbidden, his arms encircled her, invited themselves around her waist. He drew her in. Isobel’s heart crashed against the cage of her chest, beating against his.
She looked up at him and, unwinding one arm, reached to remove the mask. It came away in one easy motion, revealing the darkened, purple bruise beneath his left eye, the angry split in the skin above his lip.
Her brow furrowed. Brad. He’d been telling the truth. And Bruce had been right. But how could that be? She’d seen Varen earlier that day, in Mr. Swanson’s class. The contours of his face had been smooth.
Her fingertips reached to trace the damage, but he grasped her hand with his own. He leaned down, far enough that the dark ends of his hair brushed feather-light against her face, caught in her lashes. She had just enough time to take in a breath, to blink, to part her lips before he took them with his own.
Time froze. Her heart ceased to beat. Her eyes fluttered shut.
The cool slip of the small metal loop pressed into her skin as he kissed her. Urgent. Gentle. So slow.
Sweet, soft demolition.
He tasted of cloves and coffee. And of something else. A faraway essence, familiar and yet somehow foreign, too. Something sere and arid. A little like smoke. A little like decay.
Ash.
A tiny sound of alarm escaped her. She pulled back. He gripped her, though, and pulled her to him. Did he think that she might slip through his arms or vanish? Or was his fear that he might? He raised both hands to cup her face, to hold her lips against his own. It was as though the moment was a stolen one, as though every second counted, as though this first kiss was doomed to be their last.
Like horrible skeletons, these thoughts reared in her mind, corrupting the moment, frightening her enough to pull away. This time he let her.
A gentle sting played over Isobel’s lips, as though they’d just met with a battery’s charge. Onstage, the girl continued to croon longingly, though the music behind her began to build and climb, to swallow her reverberation and careen once again toward sure chaos.
“I found you,” Isobel whispered.
An agonized expression crossed his features. He gripped her behind the neck, pressed his forehead to hers. His soft hair draped around them, shielded their faces from view. “You shouldn’t be here.”