Nevermore

He sighed, eyes rolling. “Blondes, always needing things explained.”

Isobel glared, hands curling into fists.

He smiled wistfully. “See, this is why I like you. You never give up, even when you should. We need a little bit of your resolve, useless as it is. I think that’s why, cheerleader. Because the truth is that I don’t want to kill you. Not if I can avoid it.”

He took another step forward. She hitched in a breath, her back smashing flat against the door. Her hand groped for the knob she knew she would not find.

“And that’s up to you,” he said, his tone softening. “If you’ll only play the game, stay in the dance with me a little longer?” His head tilted to one side. He blinked those black eyes at her, the question in them, she was shocked to see, sincere—if that was a word that could be applied to Pinfeathers. That look frightened her more than his words could have. What was it, she wondered, that lurked beneath that monstrous porcelain shell? If it wasn’t a soul that animated him, then what? More important, what did it want with her?

He took one step closer, then another. “Only long enough to forget.” His face grew serious. “Quaff,” he said, his voice hushed, “oh, quaff this kind nepenthe.”

He closed the remaining distance between them in a series of movements too fast to see and pinned her to the door. He grabbed her chin, forcing her eyes to his. His nails pressed into her cheek, threatening to break the skin.

She twisted her head away, but he looped an arm around her and yanked her to him. His body felt rigid and hollow next to hers. Empty. His grip on her tightened until she could no longer breathe. He pressed his lips to hers.

Isobel’s eyes flew wide. His mouth, smooth, cold, and hard, felt almost sharp against hers, like glass. He tasted of clay and ink, of blood and death.

Bile rose at the back of her throat, and along with it a scream.

He broke away from her, laughing, and released her with a shove before dispersing, unraveling into coils of smoke. Isobel fell, tumbling in a sprawl. Suddenly insubstantial, the floor shattered beneath her. She fell through, and the scream within her broke loose at last. She crossed her arms over her face, shielding her eyes from the jagged shards of emerald glass that winked around her in the blackness, threatening to shred her. She toppled until she jarred to a halt, caught by several sets of arms that dipped her into a low cradle. Glass rained like lethal confetti, a shard embedding itself in her shoulder, another slicing her ankle. She opened her eyes to find a circle of masked faces surrounding her. Above them a shattered stained-glass skylight opened to reveal the swirl of a storm-ridden sky. Ash floated through the opening left by her fall.

The group shouted jovially at catching her, and quickly they set her to her feet. Then the figures disbanded, laughing among themselves.

One look around told her that she was back at the masquerade and that she now stood within the center of a deep green chamber.

Enormous tapestries hung over the walls. A heavy black granite Egyptian sarcophagus stood at each corner of the wide, rectangular room as though on guard. Embroidered pillows and carpets lined the floor, while thick clouds of sweet smoke hazed the air. Lethargic courtiers sat, stooped, and stood around hookah pipes and bowls of smoking incense. A heavy perfume pervaded the space, making her dizzy.

Like a mirage, a dark figure emerged in her blurred vision. It surfaced through the crowd and moved toward her like death itself, face blurred and half hidden from view. She shuddered.

It couldn’t be twelve yet—could it? Had she missed the last chiming of the clock?

She had no time to pull away or even move before the figure seized her. A gloved hand clamped over her mouth, stopping a shout before it could emerge. He dragged her to one side of the room despite her struggling, and reaching the wall, he pulled back one corner of a heavy tapestry, one that depicted a horse trampling its rider. Revealing a small secret doorway, he thrust her inside.

Isobel rolled across the cold and damp stone floor.

She looked up to find herself inside a hidden passageway, the kind in old murder mysteries where the killer hides to spy on his victims through the eyeholes of hanging portraits. Inside this narrow passageway, a tripod torch burned yellow-orange. Its flame threw jagged shapes across the masonry and against the emerald stained-glass windows, the courtiers on the other side moving across in a shadow play of silhouettes.

Her masked abductor ducked inside and emerged above her, all towering height and grimness. She scampered backward until she met with the damp wall.

“Do you have any idea how much danger you are in?” asked a muffled voice.