All of her sins, gone like that. She didn’t feel relieved or joyful; she felt dizzy and confused, and the Forest still hummed in her veins. She had groveled and begged and told the most horrible truths. And nothing had happened, except that a man who once hated her had said she was forgiven.
She opened her eyes and climbed to her feet. The Bishop was still watching her, his shoulders tense, and she realized that he still was not entirely sure she wouldn’t attack him.
And yet he had absolved her.
“Thank you,” she said.
He regarded her another moment. “I believe Mademoiselle Leblanc was right about you.” He knocked on the door, and Justine slipped back in.
“Well?” said Justine. “Reconsidered your ways?”
“The King has made an alliance with the forestborn,” Rachelle blurted out, “of whom Erec d’Anjou is one. Tonight, they’re going to awaken the Devourer by offering Armand Vareilles as a sacrifice to be possessed. I’ll try to stop them, but I don’t know if I can. Joyeuse can kill the Devourer once he’s possessing a human body again, so you have to get it out of here. If I can’t stop the sacrifice—I don’t know what they’ll do to the Château—Joyeuse has to be out of their grasp so someone can try to kill Armand. When he’s the Devourer. Did I mention, you have to get out? Also, Raoul Courtavel is locked up somewhere in the Château as a hostage against Armand Vareilles.”
The two of them stared at her a moment.
Then the Bishop said, “The Devourer is just a heathen—”
“He’s real. I’m a forestborn, I know. And he’s coming back tonight unless we stop him.” She squashed a sudden impulse to say, I had a vision and the Lady of Snows told me so. “Listen, you know what Erec d’Anjou is like. Even if you don’t believe that the Devourer is returning, believe that Erec thinks he can summon him back, and that he’ll destroy anyone who stands in his way.”
The Bishop looked at Justine. “That is something I would wager on,” she said.
“You believed in my sins,” said Rachelle. “Please. Believe me in this.”
The Bishop stared at her for a long moment. At last he said, “Very well.”
30
Rachelle strode down the halls of the palace. She cupped her hands, and thought, Armand. Find him. Mounds of tiny blue flowers glimmered in her hands; she blew on them and they spiraled up into the air where they drifted for a moment before eddying to the left.
She followed them. And she realized that she had known exactly how to use the power of the Forest to find someone. A little chill went down her spine, but she kept walking.
She had half expected some sort of dank dungeon, but the flowers led her to the east wing, where the less important nobles were housed; the hallways were narrower, and the rooms ranged from small to barely larger than a cupboard.
And then she saw the forestborn with the plump fingers standing outside a door. Again Rachelle thought, Sleep, and again the large, dark flowers blossomed in her hands. She took a step toward him—and he turned, his human appearance falling away as he drew his sword. The face that remained behind was human in shape, but filled with a horrible, beautiful power.
Rachelle ducked and rolled just barely in time to avoid the blade slicing off her head. I should have known he’d sense it, she thought, ripping her sword out of its sheath. He lunged at her again.
It felt like lightning seared down her spine. Her whole body lashed out, so fast that she didn’t even see her sword cut into his neck. But she saw the blood spurt. It seemed to take forever, and though her body was now as sluggish as cold honey, she made it arc out of the way. Blood spattered against the floor.
Then time was normal again, and she was standing by herself in the hallway, a beheaded man at her feet. She’d dodged the blood while it was flying, but now it was pooling around her boots.
Rachelle sucked in a strangled breath. Her body was shaking, but she didn’t feel afraid or disgusted; her mind was wrapped in the cold, dark calm of the Forest. She imagined that cold wrapping around her body, stilling it, and then she tried the door. It was locked, so she kicked it open and strode inside.
The room was small and completely bare except for the once gaudy, now fading red wallpaper. At the center stood Armand. And beside him, holding a knife to his throat, stood Erec.
“Good afternoon, my lady,” said Erec. “I was starting to hope you would never come.”
“What are you doing?” asked Rachelle. She couldn’t look away from the glinting metal pressed against Armand’s throat. Such a tiny weapon, and it would take such a tiny motion to slice through the skin and let the blood come pouring out. The Forest’s dark calm couldn’t stop her from shaking anymore, because this was what the Forest did: it made her watch the people she loved die.
“You need to get better at lying,” said Erec. “I could tell you were still clinging to your human heart, and I knew you would come here to rescue him. Or are you going to claim you’re here to serve the Devourer?”
“I—”
“Don’t bother. I can see you’re tracking our kinsman’s blood into the room,” said Erec. “You’re not truly one of us yet.”
“Isn’t killing kin a forestborn specialty?” said Armand. “Shouldn’t that make her—”
Erec seized a handful of Armand’s hair and yanked his head to the side. “As for you,” he said, his voice low and deadly calm, “had I known what you would do to my lady, I would have cut out those pretty eyes weeks ago and sliced that clever tongue in two.”
“Stop it,” Rachelle snapped. “Stop hiding behind him and face me. Or are you afraid I’ll beat you again?”
“It’s flattering when you have eyes only for me,” said Erec, “but please take note that you’re in no position to demand anything.”
A hand dropped onto her shoulder, burning cold. Rachelle whirled—but her arm had already gone numb, and the sword dropped from her fingers. Behind her stood three forestborn, hooded and cloaked in blue, and behind them, the painted wall had begun to fade into the Forest.
Her knees gave out. The nearest forestborn—the one who had touched her—caught her by the shoulders. The hood fell back from the forestborn’s face: it was a tall, dark-haired woman as lovely and lifeless as the moon.
“My son is intemperately fond of you,” she said, “but I am not.”