The Nothing: A Book of the Between (19 page)

Keeping an eye on the raven, which clicked its beak at her and ruffled its feathers, Isobel knelt down in the grass. She’d never been a very maternal woman. One of her regrets was that she had been unable to give the sort of easy, automatic love to her daughter that she had seen from other women. The unthinking caress, the hug. This child must be in shock, must need comfort, but instinctively she realized that caresses would be unwelcome, and that snatching her up and carrying her away from the danger would be the wrong action.

“Who is Ella?”

The child’s curls tumbled into her eyes. Isobel wanted to smooth them, to wash away the tear stains. An unexpected warmth made her chest tighten.

“Ella gave us a ride. And then the Nothing took her. And Weston.”

“And who is Weston?”

“He brought me here.”

The child’s right hand clutched something on a chain around her neck, so tightly that her knuckles were white.

“From where?” Isobel asked, carefully.

“The police. I was frightened of the Nothing. He made a door. He said we would be safe here, but he lied.”

Isobel glanced behind the child and shivered. “Not a lie, I think. Here, you are safe. He was not quite fast enough. Can you show me what you have there?”

The child’s eyes searched hers, not quite trusting. “You’re a stranger.”

Gods. She was not equipped for this. “Not precisely,” she said after a moment. “My name is Isobel. My father was a Dreamshifter and I am a princess. Who are you?”

A long hesitation. “Lyssa,” the child said, finally. “Do you know the lady?”

“What lady, child?”

“The lady with the pendant. Like this but with a penguin.” Opening her fist, the child revealed a pendant shaped like a raven in a dream web. Isobel put her hand to her heart, feeling it lurch and flutter.

“Vivian,” she murmured. “Where is she, Lyssa? Tell me what you know.”

The little girl shrugged. “I saw her in all the dreams before the Nothing came. Weston said she was going to fix it.”

“And did Weston say where she was?”

Lyssa shook her head. “He told the policeman that she was in the Between somewhere, and he didn’t know how to find her.”

“And then he brought you here? Where’s your mother?”

The child clamped her lips tight shut and shook her head, but her eyes brimmed with tears and her chin began to quiver.

Isobel glanced up at the empty black vacuum so very near and held out her hand. “Will you come with me?”

“I’m not supposed to go with strangers.”

“I’m not a stranger. I’m Isobel, remember? Wasn’t Weston a stranger?”

Emphatic shake of the head
no
. “The policeman said I should talk to him.”

“Well, and if I tell you I’m Vivian’s mother, and that I know all about her pendant, does that make it different?”

“How do I know you’re telling the truth?”

A good question. Isobel found a sharp stick and used it to help her gouge a circle of grass down to black earth. She drew a quick dream web and then the shape of a penguin. “My father gave it to her when she was still a little girl, just about your age.”

“What did she do?”

“She tried to hide it from me.”

“But you saw it?”

“I saw it.” Saw it, and ignored it, and was wildly jealous of it. She’d never talked to her daughter about what it was she carried, or what it might mean, or told her any of the dark secrets that might have saved her so much heartache, might even have prevented this current disaster.

“I wasn’t a very good mother, I think. Now, will you come away with me, before that blackness sucks us in?”

The child continued to look up at her, assessing, judging, and Isobel had begun to think she was going to have to pick her up and drag her away screaming and kicking when the raven stretched its wings, poked its beak into the child’s hair, then fluttered over to Isobel’s shoulder. She felt the claws tighten, smelled a faint dusty smell of feathers.

Lyssa got up and held out her hand. “I guess. If Bob thinks you’re okay.”

“Bob is the raven?”

The little girl nodded. The raven
kronk
ed in affirmation. Well, there were stranger things. Isobel took the extended hand and clasped it in her own. She couldn’t remember ever walking so with Vivian, the small hand warm and confiding in hers. So many chances missed. So many mistakes.

A
T
THE
door to the castle, the Sorcieri girl turned to wait for them. Her long hair was a wild dark cloud, her eyes bright, cheeks flushed. She had an ethereal quality, like starlight or quicksilver, that made Vivian feel common and heavy. She caught herself watching Zee’s face to see how he reacted, all the while berating herself internally for the pettiness of jealousy.

Zee remained impassive, his eyes watchful.

“Give us your name,” he said. His voice was flat and final.

Vivian caught her breath, recognizing the tone and knowing it meant trouble. She was about to try to tell him what names meant here in this place, the power they bestowed, and then took another look at his face and realized he was fully aware of that.

“You don’t need my name to do whatever you will,” he said. “I have no power to harm you. But you hold great power over us and we have no reason to trust you.”

“Perhaps you have no power,” the girl said, looking up at him from under long lashes. “But she does. If I whisper my name to you, do you promise to hold it secret?”

Vivian held her breath. So much depended on this moment. Nothing this girl did was by accident.

“Can’t make that promise,” Zee said. “We have no secrets between us.”

“Very well. And I will not answer for the consequences of your choice. Forget not that I offered to tell you.” She turned and murmured a word in a language Vivian didn’t understand. The heavy doors, carved from solid slabs of oak and bound with iron, swung silently inward.

Solemn now, with a curtsy worthy of a Disney princess, the girl intoned, “I bid you welcome to Sorcerer’s Stone.”

Carrying the griffyn cub, she slipped through the open doors and vanished, leaving them looking into the castle, hesitant to enter despite the invitation. Sorcerer’s Stone was dark, dank, and seemingly empty of all but spiders and swallows. A few wooden torches smoked and sputtered in holders along the wall, illuminating stone walls slick with green slime. Puddles of greasy water covered the floor and it stank of decay.

Illusion. Vivian could sense it but was unable to see through it to what was really waiting for them. The edges of the spell flickered at the edges of her consciousness, just out of the reach of thought. There was a hiss of steel on leather as Zee drew his sword. She heard it as if from a distance. Saw him step across the threshold, Poe right on his heels.
Don’t
, she wanted to say.
Danger.
But she would have to step away from the spell weaving to find access to speech, and she was so close.

Godzilla hesitated in the doorway, snuffling in the air and snorting smoke out of his nostrils. He took a step forward and the weaving tightened. Vivian could feel it as pain in her head, as if with each step the dragon took invisible strings yanked at her brain.

Danger.

“Godzilla, wait!”

Too late. A length of vine detached itself from the door and reared up like a snake. The dragon flapped its wings and scrambled to accelerate, feet sliding on the damp, slippery stone. The vine snapped upward at the trailing wing, embedding a spike into the flesh. Godzilla flapped his good wing and skidded forward, dragging the vine with him.

Vivian, head pounding now in earnest, took a step toward the door. Another length of vine reared up, weaving back and forth like a cobra. It wanted to keep her out; that much she understood. Something hardened in her will. Fear vanished. The pain eased. It was as if a knot somewhere within her, always tied tight, suddenly eased.

She pointed a finger at the writhing vine and commanded, “You will let me pass.”

The thing stopped, vibrating but holding its position.

Without taking any care to skirt it, Vivian walked past, head held high. “Release the dragon,” she ordered, and the vine fell away.

Godzilla scrambled and slid forward to butt up against Zee, very nearly knocking him over. Vivian followed more slowly, a quiet glow of anger lending force to her will. The vines had been triggered by a premade spell, magic that called to magic. But there was a power behind the illusion, and it was waiting for her to declare herself.

“I’ve come to speak with the Master!” she called out, surprised by the level of command in her voice. “I know this room is not empty. Drop the spell. We have traveled far to meet with you, and our business is urgent.”

Silence, but it was a listening silence.

“Were it not for me, your daughter would lie dead down in the grove. Does she hold so little value to you that you cannot even extend the courtesy to hear me?”

A ripple of thought passed through the silence, beyond her ability to read. And then, like a sunrise, came the light, one slow ray at a time, tinged with pink and gold. No more spiders and slime. They stood in a high-vaulted room with an impossibly large chandelier overhead bearing at least a thousand candles, each shining through a crystal prism. As the light grew, the room turned to rainbows, playing over a floor inlaid with intricate designs that tricked the eye, seeming to create patterns that vanished and spun.

Vivian tore her eyes away. Zee stood staring down, lips parted, eyes moving as if following the lines, mesmerized.

“Hey.”

He didn’t move, didn’t respond. She tried again, louder. “Zee. Close your eyes.”

Still, he didn’t move.

“Nicely done, Master,” she said, looking up, searching through the moving rainbow world for the mind that was controlling all of this. Still not real. “Now, enough of games. Show yourself.”

With a burst of alarm, she realized she’d let the Voice of Command slip into her words. Excellent. Nothing like threatening a man who was powerful enough to crush her like a bug without lifting a finger.

The rainbow light swirled around her, laying itself out in a path across the floor. Nudging Zee one last time to see if she could shift him yielded no results. “You coming?” she said to Poe and the dragon.

Poe hopped over to her, bright-eyed and unruffled, and she wondered whether the magic affected him at all. Godzilla looked anxious and unhappy. He nudged up against Zee. A faint burst of static came through the dragon channel from her inner dragon, so terribly weak but still alive. Anxiety, loyalty, an offer of protection.

“Fine. Take care of him,” she said aloud, and set off to follow the path laid out for her.

Light swirled and shifted at her feet, moving across the hall and into a narrow passageway. For a moment, Vivian hesitated, looking back at Zee, who stood as she had left him, oblivious. He was going to be furious that she’d gone off on her own, but there was little he could do to help her here, and nothing she could do for him until she managed this confrontation. Godzilla might offer him some slight shielding from the magic, possibly even protection.

For now, the best she could do was to go on.

Taking a deep breath, she followed the light. The passage was so narrow, she could brush the walls with the fingers of both hands if she lifted them only slightly, low enough that Zee would have to crouch. Godzilla would never fit. Which meant she was fully on her own, with no help.

Except for Poe, who hopped along in front of her. He had saved her a time or two, she reminded herself. And he definitely saw things to which she was blind.

The passageway itself could easily be just another illusion, but she didn’t think so. It felt familiar, one of the labyrinths she’d walked in so many nights of dreams before she came into her own as Dreamshifter. In fact, she might have mistaken it for one of the winding paths of the Between if she wasn’t fully certain that she was on the Sorcerer's Island.

And then the light went out, leaving her in pitch darkness.

Not the first time.
The dungeons of Castle Surmise had been completely dark. That journey seemed so long in the past, so far away, as if she’d been years younger. Only a matter of weeks, in reality. And so much had changed since then. Jehenna was from this place, she reminded herself. Would have grown up here, although the idea of the sorceress as a child stretched her imagination to the limit. Patterns would likely be repeated.

She wasn’t frightened, she realized. Her hands were steady, her heartbeat only a little fast. And a rusty, little-used part of her brain itched in an almost physical way, as if it wanted to be stretched and made use of. The fingers of her right hand tingled in sympathy. If she could connect the itch with the tingle, what would happen?

Caution dictated that it was best not to know, but curiosity and a physical need, as compelling as a sneeze or a cough, drove her to make the test. There was a sensation of something joining, completing, and then the fingers of her right hand began to glow with a soft blue light.

Testing, she tried to undo what had been done, to turn off the light. It only glowed brighter. Perfect. Practicing magic without any sort of instruction was bound to lead to trouble. At the same time, a joyful little buzz filled her chest, a sense of something done that had needed to be done, of completeness.