“That’s just it. I can’t,” he said. “I can’t ever stop. Even if I wanted to. It’s always just too late when I’m ready.”
“This isn’t who you really are,” Isobel insisted. “I know it isn’t. And so do y—”
“How?” he asked. “How do you know anything about me? You don’t. Not anymore. Because now I’ve become exactly what everyone expected. The only difference is that I’ve decided to stop fighting it. To fit the mold, so to speak. Isn’t that what we’re supposed to do in life? We’ve all got a part to play. Someone’s gotta be the bad guy.”
“I do know you,” Isobel said. “You are gentle. You’re kind. You care about what’s important, what’s right, even when no one else does. I’ve seen the real you, and that person—that beautiful soul—he wouldn’t hurt anyone. Please. If you let me, I can show you that I’m real.”
“You don’t have to show me,” he said, his tone turning mocking. “All you have to do . . . is promise.”
Once more, he switched the gun’s position, leveling its barrel at her. He squeezed one eye shut, taking aim at her head. Though he stared directly at her, his gaze would not meet hers.
“Do you promise?” he asked.
“Varen, I never meant to leave you—”
“I said!” he yelled, and her heart stalled. He lowered his voice again, his tone suddenly soft, rational. “Do you promise?”
Yes, Isobel wanted to tell him. Yes, I promise. But was that the right answer? Was there a right answer?
She didn’t know what to do, what to say. Even if she could shift their surroundings again, break through the constructs of his world, it wouldn’t change his mind—it hadn’t before in the courtyard of angels. He’d shut down completely this time. And if he could be counted as lost to this realm, then he was even more lost to himself.
Isobel didn’t know of any way to combat that. How could she reach him when he wasn’t even present?
Darkness there and nothing more . . .
Taking a step forward, moving before she even knew why, Isobel brought her forehead to the mouth of the gun. The sensation, cold and hard, reminded her of the last kiss Varen had given her, delivered to the very same spot just before he’d sent her over the cliff.
“I made you a promise once,” she said.
She saw the cuff of his sleeve move when she spoke, the fabric stirred by her breath, and she knew he’d felt it, because his hand, so steady before, suddenly began to quiver.
“I tried to keep it,” Isobel went on. “I tried, and I failed. So I came back. I know you didn’t think that I would. I know that’s why you did what you did. On the cliff. Because you didn’t think it was me. That I would find you again. I guess I failed you twice. But Varen, I never gave up. No matter what it looked like to you. I never did.”
The anger in his expression began to siphon off as she spoke, transmuting into sorrow. His finger eased from the trigger.
“In your note,” Isobel continued, “you said we would see each other again, and I never stopped believing that. I never stopped believing in you. After you showed me what I should have known already—that there’s so much more to someone than can be seen on the surface—I couldn’t ever give up on you. But . . . what about me? I’m not everything you thought I was either, am I? You said so yourself. Just now. So what if I am really me and not just a figment of this place? If you thought there was a chance, even a small one, that I could be real, tell me, would you still pull that trigger?”
Varen cringed. Withdrawing the gun, he spun away. He tossed the weapon aside, and at once it burst into a flapping crow. The creature squawked loudly, its brash voice and frantic flittering breaking Isobel’s spellbound stare as Varen moved through the now-occupied classroom chairs.
Aside from her own chair and Varen’s, each desk now seated a skeleton.
Books and notepads littered the desktops in front of them. Bony fingers held pencils, while empty eye sockets stared down at papers filled with unfinished writing.
Isobel recognized the skeletons by their clothing. These were her classmates.
Even Mr. Swanson’s swivel chair held a skeleton, her teacher’s familiar spectacles askew on his nonexistent face.
Dumbstruck by her altered surroundings, Isobel felt her blood freeze.
She found Varen again and watched in horror as he threaded himself through one of the shattered windows. The bird, cawing, shot through another.