“That’s good,” said Armand, “because I still don’t forgive you for it.” Abruptly his lips pressed together in a flat line. After a moment he went, his voice expressionless, “But that doesn’t matter anymore. If you feel like you owe me something . . . you don’t. You can leave.”
She’d expected the words, but they still hit her like a kick to the chest. Armand wasn’t looking at her anymore; he’d started to angle his body away, his head bent down to stare at the grass. As if he didn’t want to be any closer to her than he had to be.
Then she realized how utterly lonely he looked.
“What are you doing now?” she asked.
He did look up at her then, and smiled faintly. “Do you know, I haven’t the faintest idea. For six months, I was a dead man walking. I don’t remember what it was like to have a future.”
“I don’t either,” said Rachelle.
There was another moment of silence, but this one wasn’t quite so awkward. Then Armand drew a breath. “Rachelle,” he said. “I know—what was between us—we were about to die. We didn’t make any promises. If you want to leave, you have every right. And I have no idea what I’m going to do with myself now. But I would like you to be there while I find out.”
The words were exactly what she’d wanted to hear him say, ever since she’d woken up in his arms. And yet now—
“The Forest’s still alive,” she said. “I saw it, just now.”
Armand didn’t even blink at the change of subject. “I know.”
“Do you still see it all the time?” She was horrified to realize that she hadn’t even thought about him.
He shook his head. “Just sometimes. But enough.” He paused. “It’s different now. I almost don’t hate it.”
“Oh.” She stared at the water. “I saw it for a moment today. I missed it so much. And then I cried for Erec.”
Armand was silent. She didn’t dare look at him.
“I haven’t told anyone else this, but I think you deserve to know.” Rachelle drew a breath. “Erec isn’t just dead. He’s worse than dead. He went with me into the stomach of the Devourer, and he chose to stay there for all eternity.” She paused. “I tried to save him. I am sorry for all I did with him, you have no idea how much—and you have no idea how much I hate him, either—but I did want to save him. I still wish I could have.”
“I guessed as much,” said Armand after a moment.
She finally looked at him. “You’re not angry?”
He gave her a wry smile. “Well, I did ask you not to kill him.”
“That’s not an answer.”
He sighed. “For the last six months, every moment of every day, I could feel the Devourer sleeping in the back of my mind. There were some mornings I woke up and I could barely breathe for his hunger and despair. I know what fate d’Anjou chose. I can’t wish that on anyone. Other, very painful fates, maybe. But not that one.”
“I wished it on myself, sometimes,” she said. “It doesn’t seem fair that I was spared.”
“It seems perfectly fair to me,” he said. “Mind you, I am biased.”
“What I’m trying to tell you,” said Rachelle, “is that I’m not . . . I haven’t stopped being . . . I don’t know what I am.”
“I wake up some mornings and for a moment I can’t tell if I’m the only one inside my head,” said Armand. “I don’t think either of us knows what we are.”
Rachelle looked at him. She knew she could leave. She could go back to Rocamadour and live with Amélie and maybe find some peace.
She had never, in her whole life, been satisfied with peace.
The back of his neck was warm under her fingers as she pulled him into a kiss.
“Yes,” she said. “I’ll stay. As long as you hold on to me. Yes.”
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
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Acknowledgments
There are a lot of ways that this book was nearly never finished, and so there are a lot of people to thank for its existence.
My agent, Hannah Bowman, has been an unfailing source of support from the first moment I said, “Wouldn’t it be cool to combine Little Red Riding Hood and The Girl With No Hands?” It’s difficult to imagine what this book would have been like without her. Thank you!
I would also like to thank my two editors: Sara Sargent, who worked with me on the difficult early stages, and Kristin Daly Rens, who helped bring the project to completion. The entire HarperCollins team has continued to be great, and once again, thanks to Erin Fitzsimmons for an astounding cover.
Bethany Powell, Natalie Parker, Brendan Hodge, and Marieke Nijkamp all read various drafts of the novel and provided valuable feedback.