Crimson Bound Page 6

  It didn’t sound much like the door that Aunt Léonie had described. But even that made a sort of sense. Suppose the door didn’t open directly on the Forest, but had some sort of . . . entryway. The power of the Forest would hide the power of Joyeuse from the ability of woodwives to sense it. That was exactly what someone hiding the sword from Mad King Louis would want, because he had used captive woodwives to hunt down and destroy charms and magical artifacts.

  It was a wild guess, a slim chance. But with the Devourer’s return so close, any chance was worth taking.

  “Why do you care?” asked Armand, something shifting in his voice. He sounded almost suspicious.

  “Because I like stories about fools who get eaten by the Great Forest,” she said.

  She needed someone of the royal line to open the door. But the less she told Armand, the less chance he’d have to scheme.

  “And mysterious doors,” said Armand.

  She grinned. “Maybe I’ll find it and throw you in.”

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Publishers

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  The apothecary’s shop always made Rachelle feel like a great lumbering wild animal. The walls were lined with shelves and cupboards full of tiny, gleaming jars. Little sprays of dried herbs hung by ribbons and swayed in the draft. Everywhere were tiny white labels written in Madame Guignon’s minuscule hand. Sometimes Rachelle felt that it would all shatter if she breathed.

  If she didn’t find Joyeuse, it would shatter before the year was out.

  “Good morning,” said Madame Guignon, barely looking up from the herbs that she was sorting into piles with swift, sure movements. She was a short, gaunt woman, but somehow she still managed to seem like the tower of a castle.

  “Good morning,” said Rachelle. “Is Amélie here?”

  “Upstairs.” Madame Guignon didn’t look at her again as she started another pile of herbs. She’d never forbidden Rachelle from visiting, but she didn’t encourage her, either.

  When Rachelle got to the top of the stairs and opened the door, Amélie was sitting at the table, fussing over a little bowl. Then her head snapped up. She was a small girl—eighteen years old like Rachelle—with mousy brown hair and a bony little face that turned beautiful when she smiled.

  “At last!” Amélie jumped up, hugged her, and planted two kisses on her cheeks. “It’s been weeks. I was starting to think you’d been eaten.”

  Rachelle patted her back awkwardly. They’d known each other for over two years, and it still felt wrong for this cheerful, purely human girl to embrace her so easily.

  “Sit down,” said Amélie, shoving her into a chair. “You’re just in time.”

  Rachelle looked down at the bowl Amélie had been stirring. It was full of white paste. “Bismuth?” she asked.

  Amélie made a face. “With chalk mixed in. It’s too expensive otherwise, to use for practice. Just a moment, and I’ll get my other brushes.” She whirled away.

  Rachelle’s stomach tightened. “Now? I don’t—”

  “You’re not in the middle of hunting, are you? The King hasn’t dispatched you on an urgent quest? Then you can sit here for ten minutes and let me practice painting your face.” With a clatter, Amélie set down a tray filled with brushes and little pots. She seized Rachelle’s head by the temples and adjusted the angle. “There. Don’t move.”

  Two years ago, Rachelle had saved Amélie from the woodspawn that killed her father. Another girl would have considered herself in debt and paid it off long ago. Amélie had simply decided that they were going to be friends, and kept insisting it no matter what anyone said.

  Every time Rachelle visited, she always thought, I should leave her. It felt like a betrayal to let someone so innocent like her. And it would surely be the ruin of Amélie someday; the way people were turning against the bloodbound, anyone known to be friends with them would be in trouble soon. But she had never been able to leave, because of what Amélie was doing now. She laid three fingers against Rachelle’s forehead to steady her and, biting her lip, began to spread the white paint over her face in swift, sure little strokes.

  Nobody touched Rachelle like this. Not since she became a bloodbound. Nobody touched her without trying to fight her, seduce her, or drag her somewhere. Nobody but Amélie.

  She thought, I am never going to see her again.

  If she found Joyeuse, she would fight the Devourer when he returned, and it didn’t seem likely she’d survive killing her master. If she couldn’t find it—

  She would still fight. And she would certainly die.

  “Look up at the ceiling,” said Amélie, and the brush tickled under Rachelle’s eyes.

  Amélie would die too. If the sun and moon were gone, if the forestborn hunted men through the woods like foxes hunting rabbits—Amélie would never lose her gentleness fast enough to become somebody who could survive in that world.

  So Rachelle could not fail.

  “I’m going to Château de Lune in three days,” she said.

  “Lucky,” Amélie sighed.

  “I’m not going there to dance at the parties,” said Rachelle. “I’m going as a bodyguard.”

  “For whom?” asked Amélie. Her tongue peeked out between her lips as it always did when she was painting a particularly tricky bit of Rachelle’s face.

  Rachelle shrugged, embararssed for reasons she couldn’t fathom. “Armand Vareilles,” she mumbled.

  Amélie’s brush stopped moving. She stared at her a moment, then let out a wild snort of laughter.

  “What?” Rachelle demanded.

  Amélie rolled her eyes. “You’re to guard the living martyr himself. And you say, ‘Oh, Armand Vareilles,’ as if he were last week’s laundry.”

  “I’d rather guard the laundry,” Rachelle muttered.

  Amélie’s forehead creased slightly. “Why?”

  He’s an arrogant fraud, Rachelle nearly said, but she didn’t know how Amélie felt about Armand Vareilles. They had never discussed him—or Bishop Guillaume, or the unrest in the city, or anything that had to do with what it meant for Rachelle to be bloodbound.

  “Every time I turn around, there are people bowing at his feet,” she said finally. “It’s very inconvenient.”

  With another strange lurch of embarrassment, she remembered Armand’s face as he said, I’d rather burn.

  “Hm,” said Amélie, leaning forward again. Her brush made tiny, feather-light strokes over Rachelle’s face. Then she sat back and studied her, pursing her lips. “Done,” she said finally.

  “Anyway,” said Rachelle, “I don’t know when I’ll see you again, so—”

  “I’m coming with you,” said Amélie.

  “What?” Rachelle stared at her.

  “I’m coming with you.” Amélie grinned. “You don’t get to look in the mirror till you say yes.”

  “I don’t care about the mirror,” said Rachelle. “But what do you think you’ll do at the Château? You aren’t a bodyguard.”

  “And you are, but you know you’ll still have to dance,” said Amélie. “Or at least stand in a corner at one of those grand parties, and that means you’ll have to wear a pretty dress, and you know you’ll look ridiculous if you don’t have someone apply cosmetics and do it well, and you couldn’t hire someone good if your life depended on it, so I, because I am your loyal friend, will help you.”

  She crossed her arms and nodded. Rachelle was about to tell her that no bodyguard who hoped to be effective would ever wear an elaborate court gown—but then she realized there was a nervous edge to Amélie’s grin. And she couldn’t bear to shatter it.

  “All right, I probably will have to dance,” she said, and realized it was true: Erec would find it hilarious, so he would make it happen. “But you don’t have to do this.”

  She wanted Amélie there with her. She was only this instant realizing how much she wanted to spend her last days with the on
ly person who looked at her with simple, undemanding affection. But they could be the last days of the whole daylight world. If Rachelle failed, Amélie would die alone, far away from her mother and surrounded by strangers. Rachelle might watch her die.

  She couldn’t let her do it.

  “I want to,” Amélie said softly, her smile melting away. “It’s my only chance. To do—this”—she waved at Rachelle’s face—“and have anyone see it.” Her voice grew even softer. “My mother could spare me for a week or two, but not . . . not longer. You know.”

  Rachelle knew. That was why Amélie had never practiced applying cosmetics on anyone but Rachelle: because after her husband died, Madame Guignon had taken over his business of making medicines as single-mindedly as if she meant to save all the sick people in the world, though there was no saving half of them, and Amélie had taken it upon herself to help her mother, though her mother’s quest would never be done.

  Two days ago, giving Amélie this chance would have been all Rachelle wanted in the world.

  “I can’t let you,” she said. “It’s too dangerous.”

  Amélie tilted her head. “Why?” she asked. “What do you expect? A palace coup? Open rebellion?”

  “Not if I have anything to say about it, but—”

  “Famine? Plague? Lightning from heaven?” Amélie leaned forward. “Or ravening woodspawn in the street? Because I might remind you, Château de Lune is the one place that doesn’t happen.”

  Rachelle’s hands slammed on the table. “I can’t tell you, it doesn’t matter, you just need to stay safe.”

  Amélie sat back in her chair, eyes wide and startled. She was probably wondering why her friend was going mad. Rachelle wished she had never come.

  “You’re really worried, aren’t you?” said Amélie. “That means it’s serious. But you’re not going to tell me why.”

  “No,” Rachelle whispered.

  “Well, I can’t let you go alone into danger,” said Amélie.

  “I go into danger all the time,” said Rachelle.

  “I’m in danger all the time, too, and worse every day.” Amélie’s voice dropped lower. “You know the light is dying. My mother won’t admit it. But you know.”

  The look she gave Rachelle was worried and solemn and Rachelle would have given anything to wipe it off her face. But there was no changing what was happening to the world, and now that she had failed to protect Amélie from knowing, there was no way to change that, either.

  “I don’t understand what’s happening with the darkness,” said Amélie. “But I don’t want to let you go alone. And I want to have this chance, whatever happens after. Please.”

  If Amélie was by her side, then Rachelle could protect her. That wasn’t too selfish, was it? And she could send her back in just a few weeks, before the solstice. There was hardly any chance the Devourer would return before then.

  “All right,” she said. “We’ll go together.”

  Amélie’s smile was as bright and beautiful as the sun. “Then you’re allowed to see your face,” she said, and held up the little hand mirror.

  A lady stared back at Rachelle.

  She had Rachelle’s black hair—slightly messed from the wind—her dark eyes, her narrow face. But this lady had no freckles; she had pale, flawless skin just half a shade lighter than could possibly be natural. Her cheeks flushed in two perfect triangles, and her lips glistened with rouge. One little round black beauty mark sat beneath her left eye.

  She looked like a hundred other court ladies Rachelle had seen. And though Rachelle had always found the court fashions rather silly, for a moment she wished that the illusion was real, that it actually was possible for her to paint on a new face and become a different person.

  “It’s beautiful,” she said.

  There was no way she could ever escape herself and become the lovely, innocent girl in the mirror. But that was for the best. Because lovely, innocent girls could not ever hope to fight the Devourer.

  Rachelle was going to fight him and win.

  Even when she was a little girl, living in the northern forest, Rachelle had heard about Château de Lune. Everyone had. It was the glory of Gévaudan: a shimmering, elegant wonderland. And when the carriage finally drew close, Rachelle saw that it was just as lovely as the stories had promised. The Château itself was a vast, sinuous building of pale stone, glittering glass windows, and gold. For nearly two miles around, it was surrounded by impeccably ordered gardens: fountains, lawns, rosebushes, and long lines of identically trimmed trees.

  But when the carriage finally drew to a halt on the wide gravel courtyard inside the main gate, when Rachelle stepped out and drew a breath of the sweet, warm air without the least trace of the city’s stink—as lovely as it was, all she could think about was finding the door.

  Above the sun, below the moon.

  “Beautiful, isn’t it?” said Erec.

  “Yes,” said Rachelle. “Beautiful.”

  The crimson thread trailed off her finger and wound across the ground, until it was lost among the feet of the servants and courtiers waiting to greet the King. Like a crack in the otherwise perfect surface of a painting.

  “Almost as delightful as last time,” said Armand, surveying the crowd of silk and wigs and feathered hats. Somebody was presenting the King with a monkey wearing a lace dress.

  Last time he was there, he had claimed to meet a forestborn, and he had definitely lost his hands. Rachelle glanced at him. He seemed to be squinting a little in the bright sunlight; she couldn’t read the expression on his face. Then Erec clapped a hand on his shoulder, and though his face didn’t change, she saw Armand flinch.

  “Let’s hope this visit is even better,” said Erec. “Monsieur, mademoiselle, come with me. I will show you to your rooms myself.”

  Armand squared his shoulders and marched after him.

  Inside the Château was another world. Vast hallways. Patterned marble stairways. Statues in the alcoves. Mirrors that gleamed in one shining piece from floor to ceiling. And everywhere, gold and silver painted and molded across walls, ceilings, and doors, in patterns of birds, flowers, horses, fruits, and naked women—but most of all, in the patterns of the sun and moon. On the mirrors, the ceilings, the statues, the floors.

  Everywhere was above the sun. Everywhere was below the moon.

  The whole Château was mocking her.

  Armand’s room was in the royal wing, not far from the King—“An honor no bastard has yet received,” said Erec—and it came furnished with not only silk-cushioned chairs and gilt-framed mirrors but also two bland-faced, obsequious valets who bustled out and started exclaiming over the state of Armand’s clothes, though Rachelle couldn’t see anything wrong with them beyond a few creases from sitting in a carriage all day.

  Erec’s hand pressed against the small of her back. “This way,” he said softly, pushing her toward the door that led farther into the suite.

  “I thought I was supposed to guard him,” said Rachelle.

  “You are, but his valets report to me and they can keep him out of trouble for the five minutes it will take me to show you your room.”

  So Armand could be left alone in his room sometimes? Rachelle would be happy to use that excuse to sneak out and search the Château as often as possible.

  “I’m staying in his suite?” she asked.

  “Not exactly. Through here.”

  The bedroom was dominated by the vast, gilded hulk of a canopied bed. Ignoring the entrance to the study at the opposite end of the room, Erec pushed aside one of the hangings to reveal a narrow door.

  “The reason he received this suite,” he said, “is so that he could have no secrets from you.”

  On the other side of the door was another bedroom, this one decorated in pale blue and silver. But Rachelle hardly noticed the luxury, because the far door stood open, and through it she could see Amélie kneeling in the dressing room amid an ocean of silk and lace.

  Amélie looked up
. “You’re here!” she exclaimed, and jumped up to grab Rachelle by the shoulders and kiss her cheeks.

  “Yes,” said Rachelle. The warm, comforting pressure of Amélie’s hands on her shoulders nearly stole her breath away. Then she looked around the room. Several trunks sat open on the floor, and their contents had exploded across the room in great waves of shimmering, many-colored fabric.

  “Where did that all come from?” she asked.

  “There are one or two things beyond my power,” said Erec, “but obtaining ladies’ dresses is not one of them. You’re going to be the loveliest lady in the court tonight.”

  Rachelle rolled her eyes. “Save the flattery for someone who’s in love with you.”

  “Very well.” He leaned close and breathed in her ear, “You will be the lady dearest and most dreadful.”

  For a moment, she almost felt the wind of the Great Forest in her hair.

  “That is not a compliment,” she said quietly.

  “At least it’s perfectly true.” He kissed her cheek. “Now I have duties to attend. Remember, you and your charge will be at the reception tonight.”

  Then he was gone. Rachelle could still feel the press of his lips against her cheek. She forced herself to look at Amélie, who had now seen her kissed and complimented by the most famous and unrepentant of all the bloodbound.

  Amélie pursed her lips. “So that’s Monsieur d’Anjou. I thought he’d be prettier.” She spoke with the same half-prim, half-laughing voice she used to describe her mother’s most troublesome customers. As if nothing had changed.

  Rachelle laughed shakily and said, “You should tell him that. It might be the first time he’s ever heard it.” She surveyed the chaos of the dresses. “Do you have any idea how I’m supposed to get these on?”