Crimson Bound
Page 14

When Rachelle looked at him, he met her eyes. He seemed more curious than anything, as if he genuinely didn’t know why she was so interested in a single turn of phrase.
It was too convenient. The moment she was assigned to watch over him—the moment she needed Joyeuse more than anything—he dangled her lost hope in front of her? It had to be a trick.
But nobody among the bloodbound or the court had ever heard her question people about the door—she knew that, because if somebody had, Erec would have found out and teased her. Armand couldn’t possibly know what this story meant to her.
And it actually seemed plausible. She had never been to Château de Lune, the country palace that lay twenty miles outside Rocamadour. But while now it was a glittering garden of delights for the nobility, once it had been a hunting lodge from which the kings of old would ride out to destroy woodspawn. Ancient charms protected the spot, but it was not impossible that the Château might also have a hidden door into the Forest. And it made sense that such a door would only open to members of the royal house, who had inherited Tyr’s power against the Great Forest.
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.”
6
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 short 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, but 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 a desperate 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 never come back. 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 stay away, 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.