Nevermore

At the front of the crypt, an iron door stood ajar. Backed by blue-tinted stained glass, the door was the source of the sapphire light, which fell like a translucent gauze over the crypt’s centerpiece—an elevated stone tomb. Atop the tomb, chiseled in polished marble, lay the carving of a beautiful woman, her eyes closed in death, her cold stone hands fastened around an equally frozen bouquet of roses. Isobel knew she had seen that face before, had watched it emerge from the unfolding blackness that had claimed Varen.

The woman’s hair, like that of a sorceress, lay spread around her head. It draped over the sides of the sarcophagus in long, coiling tendrils. Her marble dress, heavy and flowing, like the inaugural gown of a queen, spilled from either side of the elevated tomb while the embellished train fell in gentle folds along the stairs leading down from the base. The pleats and endless ripples in the marble garment gave the illusion of softness, her face the illusion of life. It was as if at any moment Isobel could expect to see her chest rise and fall with the intake and release of breath. Perhaps the most disturbing element about the tomb, however, was that the impossibly heavy lid had been shifted open.

Isobel didn’t dare climb the steps and peer inside, knowing that the only thing worse than finding a withered body within would be not finding one. She waded instead through the carpet of broken faces and parts until she reached the crypt door.

“Mistress?”

At the sound of the voice, low and grating, she halted.

“Mistress, is that you? Have you returned?” the voice asked, curious.

Isobel’s hand stopped short of the iron-and-glass door. She pulled back and, with careful steps, drew to peer around the other side of the sarcophagus.

He sat slumped against the far wall, half of him lost in shadow. A Noc. He looked up, his dark gaze focusing on her. “Ah,” he said, grinning, “now there’s a surprise. Tell me, what demon has tempted you here?”

He was different from the other Nocs. This Isobel noticed right away. Instead of a dark red to black, his hair was deep black to blue-violet. As he lifted his head from the wall, his hair spiked up from his skull like the feathered crest of a bird. His teeth, pointed like the tips of countless sharpened pencils, gleamed an unsettling indigo. Though his face was whole, he was missing nearly half of himself on one side, including an arm from the shoulder down, part of his abdomen, and his leg from the knee. A thin layer of dust coated his dark pants, evidence that he’d not moved for some time.

He wore no shirt or jacket, which was what revealed the most unusual thing about him.

Scrolling designs covered much of his exposed skin. His chest, sculpted and smooth like a Greek statue’s, depicted minutely detailed tattoos of sailing ships, tossing waves, and foam. A long-haired mermaid graced his existing shoulder, her scaly tail sweeping the length of his arm. An entire portion of the sea epic vanished into the pit of his missing side, and though the pictures themselves might have been beautiful, Isobel was too distracted by the fact that they had been chiseled into his skin like carvings. That thought, combined with his demonic grin, the garish white of him, and the jagged gaps in his body, made them somehow vulgar.

“Who are you?” she asked.

“Not who”—he wagged a blue-clawed finger at her— “what.”

“Fine,” Isobel obliged, “what?”

“Baffled,” he replied, “at how you, fetching though you are, could have cost me an arm and a leg.”

Isobel stepped out fully from behind the tomb, eyeing him warily.

“If I had known about your masked friend,” he continued, “and his way with a sword, I’d have let Pin go first in the chase.”

“Chase?” she asked, her voice echoing through the crypt.

He grinned and pointed at something behind her with a detail-swirled finger of his existing hand. “Be a doll,” he said. “Show your worth and hand old Scrimshaw that empty limb over there.”

Isobel glanced over her shoulder, where against the side of the open tomb lay a hollow arm, complete from shoulder to wrist, though missing its hand.

Her head whipped back to him and she stared in disbelief, all other questions forgotten. She watched as, with his remaining hand, he rooted through the pile of dust beside him and pulled free a large shard. He held it against his gaping body, like someone trying to determine where a puzzle piece might best fit. With horror, Isobel realized what he was doing. He was piecing himself back together. Was that possible? She took a step back, her footstep crunching.

He looked up. “No?” he said.

She took another step back from him.