“What happened to them?”
He shrugged. “Maybe God heard my prayers.”
“Tell me the truth or you stay in the chair. What happened?”
His lips thinned as he met her eyes; then he said quietly, “You felt it just now, didn’t you? The Great Forest? I made them see it. I can do that to people, whenever I please, and if they’re not strong enough to bear the sight . . .” He shrugged. “They’ll recover in time.”
She stared at his face—his bland, boring face—and it was more alien than the moon.
“So?” he said. “Are you going to tell d’Anjou I’m not as helpless as he thinks?”
“How can you do that?” Rachelle asked.
He stared at her for a long, suspicious moment; then he said, “Because I can see the Forest. Everywhere, all the time.”
“How?”
“That’s none of your business.”
She grabbed his shoulders. “How can you do that?”
He stared back at her, gray eyes calm. “You are not enough to frighten me, mademoiselle.”
He hadn’t been marked by a bloodbound. He could not have been marked. But then how could he sense the Forest?
Armand let out a little sigh that was almost a laugh and looked away. “It’s not a bad chair,” he said. “If you’ll read aloud to me, I don’t think I’ll mind staying.”
“I’m not going to leave you here,” she said.
“Taking me to d’Anjou after all?”
“No.” She drew her knife. He didn’t move—his eyes didn’t even flicker back at her—but his sudden, wary stillness sliced through her. She was sick of being the reason that people were wary.
“You said Prince Hugo found a door above the sun and below the moon. Do you think you could find it too?”
Then he did look at her. “Why? What do you want with it?”
“That is not your concern, monsieur. But if you refuse, I’ll tell Erec what you can do and that you need even closer watching. Good luck recruiting worshippers after that.”
But the threat seemed to make him relax. His shoulders loosened and he smiled at her as he tilted his head back and said, “Go ahead.”
11
Of course she didn’t tell Erec. She couldn’t, because if Erec knew that Armand had—whatever connection to the Forest it was that he had—then he would want to find a way to use it, either for the King or for himself. And then Rachelle would never get a chance to quietly drag away Armand and make him open the door for her.
She wasn’t getting a chance anyway.
“I’m going to kill you,” she told Armand that evening. “If you don’t help me, I will kill you.”
He waited a moment. And then smiled. “That’s not a good enough threat, you know.”
It wasn’t a threat at all. Rachelle had killed once in cold blood; she couldn’t do it again. Staring at Armand, she felt sure that he knew she couldn’t do it again.
Rachelle was the second-strongest bloodbound in service to the King and she had nothing to threaten with, nothing to bargain with. She could fight a whole pack of woodspawn by herself and win, but she couldn’t force one irritating courtier to do her will. All she could do was spend the night searching by herself, then trail after Armand, pretending to care if he lived or died.
Bloodbound didn’t need as much sleep as normal humans, but it had been days since she’d slept more than four hours. Her head wouldn’t stop aching. It didn’t help that there were no gaps in Armand’s schedule that day. He dragged her from one court function to another, where people tittered at rumors of failing crops and laughed at the suggestion of Endless Night.
By the time they ended up at the after-dinner party, where the nobles were all wagering at cards, Rachelle was starting to think that Endless Night might not be so bad. At least there would be no giggling. Screams and blood and dying, yes, but no polite little giggles.
The blood would flow across the parquet flooring and soak into the seams of the little wooden panels. The same way the blood had soaked into the floor of Aunt Léonie’s cottage.
Rachelle had been hoping that the forestborn would hurt the people around her the same way her own forestborn had once hurt Aunt Léonie. She’d imagined it happening and she had liked it. She felt sick.
They were standing near the table where the King played—very badly—with la Fontaine and a gaggle of other nobles. At last, after a round of particularly hideous losses, he flung down his cards with a rattling cough that everyone ignored.
“I’ve had my fill for the night,” he said. “A good game, cards. Trains the mind.” He rose and patted Armand on the shoulder; Rachelle suspected she was the only one who saw Armand’s wince, and for a moment she felt sorry for him.
“A battlefield of wits,” drawled a tall, muscular young man with long dark curls.
Rachelle recognized him: Vincent Angevin, one of the King’s nephews and very likely the person sending assassins after Armand. He was also likely the next heir to the throne, if his royal uncle ever got done pretending to be immortal.
“Such a pity you haven’t the wherewithal to join us,” Vincent went on, looking at Armand’s hands, and then ruffled his hair. “But it would hardly be proper for a saint to gamble, would it?”
Two of the ladies at the table giggled. La Fontaine snapped her fan open. Vincent chuckled and slapped Armand’s back. “Preach me a sermon when I’m done winning, cousin.” He grinned at the room: the lazy, mischievous grin of somebody who knew he could get away with being cruel.
Rachelle had known a boy who smiled like that, back in her village. For years he had charmed all the adults while beating the younger children bloody. Without meaning to, she edged closer to Armand. She was sure she was the only one who saw the very slight way that his chin raised and his shoulders set.
“I haven’t heard that card games are a sin,” he said. “I’ll play a round if Mademoiselle Brinon will hold my cards for me.”
“I don’t—” Rachelle started.
“Just do what I say.” Armand sat himself down at the table. “Well? Will you deal me a hand?”
Vincent smiled expansively. “I can’t deny you any consolation, dear cousin. Play with us, if it comforts you.”
La Fontaine dealt out the cards. Rachelle picked them up. She could read the numerals well enough, but they were decorated with various other symbols and figures that meant nothing to her.