“That’s the first time you didn’t notice me walking into the room,” said Amélie.
“I was busy,” Rachelle said stiffly. Her fingers shook as she wound the last few loops in the pattern. Then she ripped the yarn from its skein, tied it off, and pulled the piece loose from Armand’s fingers. “There. All done.”
“Pretty,” said Armand, looking at the floor.
Amélie leaned in closer to look. “What’s it for?”
Rachelle’s heart thumped. “To keep Monsieur Vareilles safe,” she said, because if she told Amélie about the lindenworm then she’d have to tell her about the door and Joyeuse and the Devourer—and she wanted to keep her friend free of that darkness for just a little longer.
“It’s awfully big,” said Amélie. “Is he that much trouble?”
“You have no idea,” said Rachelle, and Amélie’s grin made the lie completely worth it.
“Well, then you deserve chocolate,” said Amélie, and handed her a cup.
“Do I deserve any?” asked Armand. “Even though I’m trouble?”
“I don’t know, does he?” Amélie looked at Rachelle.
Rachelle looked at him as she took a deep breath of the steam from her cup.
“Yes,” she said. “This time he deserves it. Yes.”
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
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The next day, Rachelle woke up and thought, Tonight we get Joyeuse. Or die.
The morning was busy with attending the King, and Rachelle found it harder than usual to pretend to be respectful. Armand, too, seemed tense. Finally, when the bells were tolling two o’clock, Rachelle turned to Armand and said, “I don’t care if we get in trouble. I can’t stand this a moment longer. If there’s a place you like in the gardens, tell me now, or I’ll just drag you out any which way.”
Armand smiled and said, “There is a spot, actually.”
Fifteen minutes later, she was following him on a narrow ghost of a path between hedges, wondering if this was an elaborate joke. Except Armand—unlike Erec—did not seem particularly interested in teasing her.
They rounded two little hills and went through a gate in a hedge—and then Rachelle stopped. Before them was a miniature lake, studded with lily pads; on the other side was a small country cottage, red tiles on the roof and dark wooden beams crisscrossing its white plaster walls. Roses cascaded over one side of the building; on the other was a low, open stable that housed no horses—but chickens wandered clucking in and out among the piles of straw. It looked like a house from her own village as described by la Fontaine; any moment, flounces would start to appear on Rachelle’s coat.
“What is that?” asked Rachelle.
“The Trebuchet,” said Armand. “Built by the King’s late father for his mistress Marie d’Astoir.”
“Why did he name it after a siege weapon?” she asked.
“He didn’t. But Marie d’Astoir only accepted him after he built it, and the Queen retaliated with an epic poem of rhymed couplets, describing the siege of Marie’s virtue and calling this cottage the trebuchet that brought down her walls. Marie was humiliated and swore never to associate with the Queen again. It was the great scandal of the day.”
“I can’t see why that would be scandalous,” said Rachelle. “Since apparently everyone does it.”
“Oh, it wasn’t her sleeping with the King that was a scandal, it was her fighting with the Queen. And yes, that doesn’t make a bit of sense, and no, the court hasn’t changed. Guess what the Bishop talked about in his sermon last Sunday.”
“Everyone in this court is mad,” Rachelle said, trying not to think about what else the Bishop might have said, or what Armand might have thought of it. But then she realized with a sudden, sick clarity that she did want to know. She was desperate to know what Armand was thinking.
They had come to the stable—if it could be called that, since on closer inspection it was clear that it had never been meant to house horses, but simply to have the same vague outline as a stable and provide a resting place for all the hay bales that were now infested with chickens. The cottage, too, was subtly different from the ones Rachelle had known—windows too large, hall too long. It was like the entire building had been sketched from somebody’s nostalgic, drunken memory of a farmhouse.
“What else did the Bishop talk about?” she asked.
“Oh, you know, the sins of the court and so forth.” Armand’s voice was light, his face slightly angled away so she couldn’t quite read his expression. “There has not been such hypocrisy since the Imperium, when they fed men to lions for amusement, yet called themselves righteous because of the sin-eaters they kept chained at their doors.”
“And let me guess,” Rachelle bit out, “I’m one of the sin-eaters.”
“You’ve said so yourself, haven’t you?” Without waiting for a reply, Armand strode forward into the shade of the not-stable and seated himself in a pile of straw.