“This one,” said Armand, halting in front of a door.
The guards broke it down on his command. And on the other side—there was Raoul Courtavel. Rachelle might not have recognized the tall man with the ragged beard. But when he pulled Armand into a desperate, wordless embrace, there was no mistaking him.
This was why Armand had led an armed rebellion. This was what Rachelle had killed to stop him from achieving.
She turned away, feeling sick. She found la Fontaine looking at her, no pride or courtly polish left anywhere in her face.
“Thank you,” said la Fontaine, looking straight into her eyes, and the words sounded more sincere than anything la Fontaine had ever said to her.
Rachelle knew she didn’t deserve them.
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For the next two days, Rachelle was beside Armand almost every moment. And she barely said a word to him.
She knew why he kept her close, and she was desperately, stupidly thankful. Everyone knew her as one of the King’s bloodbound, as the friend—or mistress—of Erec d’Anjou. By making sure that everyone saw her as his trusted bodyguard, Armand was freeing her of suspicion. Nobody knew exactly what she had done the night of the summer solstice—neither she nor Armand had provided many details—but everyone knew that she had helped the saint to vanquish his foes.
Unlike all the other bloodbound, she would be loved forever after. It was a debt she could never repay.
One of the many, many debts.
Something held Armand back from speaking to her during the few, scattered moments when they were alone together. Rachelle didn’t speak either, because she didn’t have the right.
She’d had his love, if it had really been love. He had kissed her and said that he loved her, but he had thought he would be dead within days. It had been impossible for him to have any intention of sharing his life with her. And since then, she had thrown him away, killed his followers, slept with the man who had maimed him—and saved his life and mattered enough to be used as a hostage against him, but that wasn’t love. Exactly. Maybe.
Now Armand was not only going to live, he was the favorite half brother of the new king. He could have anything that he wanted, and if he didn’t want Rachelle . . . after the way she had treated him, it was only fair.
A lot of things were fair: the strange, uneasy looks that she got from most people in the Chateau, who didn’t know whether to fear or honor her. The dull heaviness and infuriating weakness of her body, now that she was fully human again. The loneliness of standing next to Armand and saying nothing.
Just because things were fair, didn’t make them easy.
Amélie went home on the second day. Rachelle wanted to beg her to stay, but she couldn’t, because she had held Amélie when she woke up sobbing the night before. She deserved a chance to go home to her mother.
“I am not leaving you forever and ever,” said Amélie, glowering as she fussed with the clothes in her trunk. “Even if you try to leave me. I will hunt you down and find you.” She snapped the lid of the trunk down. “I can do it. You’re not so much stronger than me, now. So stop looking that way.”
Rachelle choked on a laugh. “You were always stronger.”
“You,” said Amélie, “were always foolish enough to think that mattered.” For a few moments, she studied Rachelle, her mouth puckered. “Don’t leave me,” she said quietly. “Promise you’ll come visit.”
Rachelle let out a shaky breath. Amélie’s determination was like solid ground beneath her feet after she’d spent days falling.
“All right,” she said. “I’ll come, I promise.”
Amélie grinned and pulled her into an embrace.
“I wouldn’t be here without you,” Rachelle said when Amélie released her. “You know that, don’t you? I would have given up and lost myself to the Forest years ago.”
“I think you’re underestimating yourself,” said Amélie.
“No,” said Rachelle. “I’m not. That night we met—when I was too late to save your father, I thought that at least I got to save you. But it was really you who saved me.”
Amélie smiled at her. She looked fragile and beautiful and terribly strong. “Thank you,” she said.
The evening after Amélie left, Rachelle went out running in the gardens. The Chateau’s bells had just finished ringing nine o’clock, and yet the sun was still lingering at the horizon. Rachelle had never imagined the world could be so full of light.
She had never imagined, either, what it would be like to run as a human.