At first Isobel’s mind had accepted the lie as easily as it would have the beginnings of any pleasant dream.
But then, there’d been something off about the other people populating the classroom setting. Most of all, everything had been off about Varen.
One at a time, the inconsistencies and contradictions had pushed her further and further toward the truth, until she’d had no choice but to blast through the deception. And there, on the other side of the Noc’s carefully constructed mirage, Pinfeathers had been waiting for her in Varen’s chair. Angry. Disappointed. And, Isobel recalled, hurt.
“Think about it,” Pinfeathers said. “We’d still be there if you hadn’t spoiled it all. If you hadn’t insisted on waking up. There, in that world where your parents loved me. Where your friends accepted us. We could have graduated and gone to college together. Anywhere you wanted to go. Everywhere you wanted to go. Everything would have been the best. I would have been the best. The version of us that you keep hoping exists. Everything you’d ever want and more. Anything you’d want. And it might have all worked out, Isobel. It might have all been okay, if only I was what you wanted. But . . . we both know I’m not.”
Her eyes brimmed once more, burning with restrained tears because she couldn’t deny any part of what he was saying. Pinfeathers might have been connected to Varen, but as much as she’d wanted to believe the opposite moments before, he wasn’t Varen. Only a piece of him. And even though she and the creature had come this far, meeting and parting time and again as if they’d never quite disengaged from their crazed masquerade dance, Isobel still couldn’t say what exactly—who—he really was. She doubted the Noc could either.
“I’m sorry,” Isobel said, because those were the only words she could offer him.
“You’re sorry?” He threw his head back, his laughter manic until another wave of pain caused him to double over at the waist, wiping his grin away and replacing it with a grimace.
She reached toward him, wishing there were some way to stop this. To make it all okay. To make him okay. To take away the pain it caused him just to be. “I don’t know what to say. Please, tell me what to say.”
He straightened, chin lifted. “Say that you’ll keep shattering expectations. That you’ll show her—and us—that you can’t be predicted. Say that when ole Stencil Beak here gets close”—he pointed a red claw at his empty eye—“when he thinks he has you, and when I push through and hold steady, you’ll prove to me that this time you have been listening. That you’ll strike.” Pulling down the fabric of his collar with one hand, he pointed at the etching of Virginia with the other. “Here. Hard as you can.”
Horrified, Isobel closed the distance between them, taking hold of his arms, fingers twisting around the coarse material of Varen’s jacket. “I—I can’t do that.”
“You’ll have to,” the Noc said, and though he clutched her arms in return, it was only to push her back, to hold her away from him. “If you expect to live long enough to keep your promise. And you damn well better keep it. After all, you wouldn’t want to have us demolished twice in vain. Talk about rude. Besides, you should know better than to think you can have us both—me and I. Three’s a crowd, remember? Selfish of you to even consider it, really. Can you let go now? You’re wrinkling the duds. Might be secondhand, but, as you can see, that’s part of my new loo—”
“Stop making jokes!” she screamed, shaking him. “It isn’t funny.”
“Who’s laughing?” he asked, his voice doubling, its register dropping low. And then he did start to laugh—though Isobel knew she wasn’t dealing with Pinfeathers anymore. She knew it the moment his right eye went empty, flickering out.
She swallowed hard, releasing him as, on the left, the other eye filled with a murky lens of black.
Isobel backpedaled and the Noc’s laughter continued, the lower voice taking over, growing stronger. A piranha’s grin, slow and devious, crawled its way up his face to reveal a double row of serrated teeth—half indigo, half red.
“Well, hello, stranger,” said Scrimshaw, running a blue-clawed hand through his coarse quill-and-feather hair, its color divided down the middle like his teeth. Like his face. “I knew Pin would find you for me. He can’t ever help himself. Pathetic, isn’t it? Oh, by the way, so sorry for dousing the glim on you in the attic like that—but, you see, we didn’t want to spoil our surprise. By the way, before we forget . . .” His grin widened, causing the cracks on the left side, his Scrimshaw side—to deepen. He spread his arms. “Surprise.”