AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She risked a quick glance behind her.
The tomb door stood at a distance of mere yards, still open—waiting, it seemed, for her to make the decision to enter. And Isobel knew that this doorway was really what she had come for. Not for retribution. Not to punish Reynolds or even to try to understand who he was or all that he had done. The only thing that mattered, the only thing that had ever mattered, she knew, was getting to Varen.
“Out of the way,” she heard someone shout from the gates. “Security! Everybody, move!”
Isobel released her hold on Reynolds’s scarf. It puddled at her feet, blending into the white snow. If she ran now, she thought, she could make it. She was close enough that he wouldn’t be able to stop her.
“You cannot reach him,” he said as though he’d somehow been able to read her thoughts. “Not that way.”
In the distance, the gates rattled, followed by the sound of chains being pulled free.
“Do you seriously expect me to believe anything you say?” Isobel asked him.
“I told you what I had to,” he said. “To protect this world. Your world.”
“Did you?” Isobel took a step back and then another. The speed of her heart, already racing, tripled when she saw him match her movements. “Is that what happened with Edgar, too?” she continued, her eyes darting to the hilt of one of his swords as it flashed silver within the shadowy folds of his cloak. “Did you do what you had to when he was calling out for you, begging for your help?”
He stopped midstep, though his expression remained unchanged.
“You said he was your friend,” she went on. “And I guess now you’re going to try to tell me that wasn’t a lie either? I saw what happened in the hospital. I know what you did.” She continued to move as she spoke, putting more and more distance between them. She kept her eyes level on him. “Whatever you are . . . whatever monster it is you’ve become . . . you should know that it is everything you deserve to be.”
With that, Isobel turned, rushing headlong for the open tomb.
Somewhere far off, getting closer, she heard the wail of sirens. People yelling. Iron hinges groaning.
“Stop!” Reynolds shouted.
She ran toward the tomb, the ground racing beneath her feet. She felt as if she was rushing straight into her own grave, about to catapult herself into the yawning jaws of death itself.
“Isobel!”
She could sense him just behind her—inches away.
On the ground, she saw his shadow gaining on hers, then falling away the moment before something fast and strong—a hand—caught her around the ankle. She tripped forward and fell flat onto her stomach, the air bursting out of her lungs as the frozen snow soaked through her clothes.
Isobel groped for the archway, for anything to grab hold of. Her fingernails scraped over the stone threshold as she felt herself being drawn backward.
“No!” she shouted.
Twisting onto her side, Isobel saw him behind her, on his knees in the snow, one hand fixed like a manacle around her ankle. She pulled up the knee of her free leg, preparing to kick him, but missed when he yanked her toward him. Cringing, she cried out, gritting her teeth as the hardened, gravel-coated earth grated against her side. Then, as though she were nothing more than a rag doll, Reynolds drew her to her knees before him, bringing her to face him.
He held her by her shoulders and, shaking her once, forced her eyes to meet with his.
“Listen to me,” he said. “If you cross that barrier, you will die! And if you die while bodily within that realm, you will become like the rest of us. The same soulless class of monster you have so ardently accused me of being!”
She only half heard these words, her attention drawn to the sudden movement that came from behind Poe’s old grave marker. A familiar figure, visible over one of Reynolds’s black-clad shoulders, rose up from behind the monument, her face luminous as a ghost’s.
Gwen.
“Heed my words, Isobel—”
Isobel looked quickly back to Reynolds as Gwen made her approach, hurrying toward them. Stooping, she gathered the hem of his cloak and then, just as he turned to look, Gwen pulled the fabric taut, tossing it over his head as though bagging a live rabbit.
“Heed this!” she growled as she locked her twiggy arms around Reynolds’s neck in a choke hold, clamping the cloak into place over his head.
Reynolds released Isobel at once and his hands rushed to grip Gwen’s arms. Gwen did her best to hold fast, clutching him tighter. Her eyes met with Isobel’s, glasses knocked askew.
“Go!” she yelled.
