Neither one of her parents hated her the way that Margot did, the way the rest of the villagers did. They simply didn’t want her to exist.
“You won’t come back?”
“Never,” said Rachelle. “I will die first. I promise.”
“Good.” Her mother opened her mouth, then shut it, and turned to stride away.
Rachelle’s chest hurt. She took a step after her.
“Mother,” she called out.
Her mother stopped. Without looking back, she said, “Yes?”
Rachelle didn’t know what she was going to say until the words formed in her mouth. “Thank you. For asking me to help.”
“I knew you lived,” her mother said after a moment. “Any daughter of mine would be ruthless enough.”
She found Armand sitting in the herb garden. The morning sunlight glowed through his hair; he looked at peace in a way she didn’t think he had anywhere in the Chateau.
“I like it here,” he said. “It’s quiet. Nobody knows who I am.”
And then she felt it again: the sudden, sharp awareness of wanting to touch him, of the space between them as an open wound, of her own body being jumbled and awkward and far too separate when she could be pressed against him, waist to waist and chin to shoulder and her fingers sliding into that pale brown hair—
Her face was hot. She took a step back, thinking, He isn’t yours. He will never be yours. He will never, ever want you.
“Even they will figure it out sooner or later,” she said. “When they get a look at you in daylight, for instance. Get up. We’re going.”
He stood. “Mademoiselle Dumont—what did she want to talk about?”
Aunt Léonie could have stopped the Devourer, and Rachelle had killed her, and now nobody would ever find Durendal.
Or maybe her forestborn had already found it and destroyed it. That must have been why he was sniffing around the village to begin with. Maybe if Rachelle had told Aunt Léonie when she first met him, they could have stopped him. They could have saved Durendal. They could have saved the world.
“Nothing important,” she said, and grabbed his arm. “Come on.” She started to drag him toward the edge of the trees.
“Is your family here?” asked Armand. “Aren’t you going to say good-bye to them?”
She didn’t know if the ache in her chest was grief or freedom. Maybe they were the same.
“I did,” said Rachelle.
ZISA CARRIED THE BONES TO A GREAT YEW TREE. Beneath its roots there was a cave, and in the cave there was a forge, and chained to the forge was a man with a smile like dried blood and glowing embers.
This was Volund, the crippled smith. He had once loved a forestborn maiden, and so much did he delight her that for seven years she stayed beside him. But one night she heard the hunting horns of her people and rose to follow them. Before she had taken three steps, he struck her dead.
In recompense, the forestborn hamstrung him, chained him, and made him undying as themselves, an everlasting slave to craft their swords and spears and arrows.
“Old man,” said Zisa, “I must have two swords made out of these bones.”
“Little girl,” said Volund, “I must obey the forestborn, but not you.”
“And when I am one of them, I will remember you said that,” she replied.
He laughed like a rusty hinge. “And much I have left for anyone to take from me. But you, I think, have the whole world to lose.” He looked her up and down. “I will make you a bargain. Give me the delights of your proud body twice, and I will make you two swords such as the world will never see again.”
There was nothing she would not do for her brother.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
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“Do you have a plan?” asked Armand as they walked into the woods. They were not in the Great Forest yet, but the shadows cast by the trees were a little longer and darker than they should be in the daytime.
“Yes,” said Rachelle.
Like a trickle of blood, the thread lay on the ground before her. If she followed it, then she should find her forestborn at the other end.
He wanted her to live. So if she gave him a choice between leading her back to the Chateau and watching her perish in the Great Forest, surely he would help her.
But if she told Armand that, he might ask her why she was so sure that her forestborn wanted her to live.
“Is the plan ‘walk into the Forest and hope to meet the Wild Hunt again’?” asked Armand. “Because I’m not sure how likely that is to work.”
“Well,” said Rachelle, thinking of the lindenworm, “maybe there will be a miracle to save us. Since those always happen for people who deserve them.”
“I already told you,” Armand said mildly, “I don’t believe that.”
He had, and she couldn’t stop a guilty glance at his hands.
“Then what do you believe?” she asked. “That we should all be martyrs?”