She thought, I need Joyeuse. I need it.
I need it.
There was a curious sensation, like weight shifting and finding its balance. The air went still in her lungs.
The charm was warm in her hands.
Without meaning to, Rachelle’s eyes snapped open and she stood in a single smooth motion. It felt like there was a string tied along the length of her spine, drawing her up, and now it was pulling her forward.
She walked toward the doorway. She felt like she was floating. She thought, Joyeuse.
But the sense of weight continued rolling, shifting, growing—
And as she stepped through the doorway into the Hall of Mirrors, her control broke. The charm seared her hands like fire, and her vision flashed white.
She knew she was falling.
Then she knew nothing.
She woke up in the Great Forest. There were flowers and vines sprouting all around her, and the sweet Forest wind caressed her face.
Then she blinked, and realized she was still in the Hall of Mirrors—but overshadowed by the Forest.
Impossible. The Forest didn’t appear in human homes unless something terrible called it forth, like a bloodbound turning into a forestborn. And she still felt human. She didn’t think Erec was ready to leave the court yet, either.
Rachelle knew she should be scared, but she was still too dazed by the charm’s destruction; her head felt cold and hollow. Slowly she sat up. The floor seemed to rock underneath her as she moved; she put a hand against the floor to steady herself, and gasped in pain. Her palms were raw and bloody.
One slow breath. Two. She looked around: the Hall of Mirrors was still standing, and the Forest was fading away from it as she watched. Everything was all right, despite what Aunt Léonie had said.
Then she noticed that the mirrors nearest to her were shattered.
She had to get out of the hall before she got in trouble.
Rachelle managed to stand, but she forgot and tried to steady herself with her hand again, which made her flinch and stagger away from the wall.
Somehow she got back to her room without anyone seeing her. She climbed into her bed and a moment later was asleep.
And she dreamed.
She was in a forest of dead black trees. The ground was covered in fine white dust; the sky was featureless gray. Ahead of her, through the trees, she could see a small cottage.
Everything was real: the cool wind blowing between her fingers, the dust shifting under her feet. The terrified breath rasping in her throat.
She walked forward. She couldn’t stop her feet from moving, though she tried desperately, because even a glimpse of the cottage’s flat walls and closed door—its roof thatched with bones—made her choke with terror. But she still took one step and then another. She knew that when she reached the door, she would be helpless to stop herself from opening it. She knew that what lay beyond the door would destroy her.
The scar on her right hand burned with a terrible cold fire, like a last warning. But she couldn’t stop.
One step forward.
Then another.
Rachelle woke gasping for breath, her body screaming at her to run. But there was nowhere to go: the nightmare was inside of her, part of her.
She’d had the dream before, over and over. All the bloodbound did. Sooner or later, they all reached the cottage and opened the door. And then they became forestborn.
Not tonight, she thought. Not tonight.
Now that her terror was fading, she realized that her head ached terribly. And then she remembered what she had been doing the night before. And that she had failed.
What had she been thinking? Why had she imagined that a bloodbound would be able to use a woodwife charm? She was one of the things that those charms were meant to kill.
She was one of the things that Joyeuse was meant to kill, too. Maybe that was why she couldn’t find it.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
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The next day, all anyone could talk about was the mysterious vandal who had attacked the Hall of Mirrors. Even Erec was—well, not worried, but he spent a good deal of the day talking to the guard about trying to find the culprit.
Rachelle’s hands had healed in the night—there were benefits to being bloodbound—but she still felt a fleeting, phantom ache where the charm had burst apart in her grasp. Her head ached too, whenever she moved too quickly or saw a sudden shaft of bright sunlight.
None of it mattered beside the useless fury of knowing that there was nothing more she could do. She’d tried and tried and done her best, and none of it had helped.
Maybe finding Joyeuse had been a fool’s dream all along. Maybe she should have spent the time preparing to fight her forestborn.