“No,” she said, staring into the darkness.
The string had no physical substance. She had seen people walk through it, time and again. Yet now it felt as it were going taut, as if he were tugging at the phantom, unbreakable bond that tied them together.
“I grow impatient, little girl.”
“Then learn to wait,” she bit out, but she was shaking. She had sworn that the next time she saw him, she would take revenge for Aunt Léonie. So many nights, it had been her only comfort, the only way she could let herself sleep. Now she finally stood before him, and she was still the terrified, bloodstained little girl she had been three years ago. All she could think was that he was going to kill her and she did not want to die.
Or he was going to give that thread one more pull, and all her strength would unravel and she would walk into his arms and forget how to be human.
“I don’t have to.” She heard him stepping closer. “Behold, I bring you good news of great joy. Our lord is almost ready to return.”
“I know that.” Her heartbeat was jagged in her throat.
His breath was hot against the back of her neck. “Did you know how soon? Before the summer sun makes its last valiant gasp, our lord will smile and awaken and eat the light from the sky.”
Rachelle felt sick. Before the end of summer. It was one thing to know that the Devourer would return sometime soon; it was another to realize that it was starting now.
Then she shuddered as the forestborn’s lips pressed against her neck in a kiss. “No pleading?” he asked.
It took all her strength to answer steadily, “I don’t see the point.”
“Or praying?” His voice had an extra mocking edge, and she remembered the whimpering babble that had spilled out of Aunt Léonie’s lips, desperate pleas to the Dayspring and the Holy Virgin that had never been answered.
Fury hit her like a wall of flame, and her fear went up in smoke. She whirled, sword coming up—
But he was gone. There was only darkness, and the Forest, and then both wavered and blew away like smoke.
She was in a dingy little room, lit by a single lamp. In front of her, a woman was chained to the wall. Her head lolled forward; her whole chest was soaked with blood. So much blood. The floor seemed to rock under her feet and Rachelle wobbled back a step. Strong hands caught her shoulders, and she flinched before she realized it was Erec.
“Congratulations,” he said.
“Shut up,” muttered Rachelle. None of the woman’s blood had fallen on her, but she still felt the hot, sticky mess all over her hands and arms.
She forced herself to look away from the corpse to the tray piled with cracked chicken bones, the gouges clawed into the wall. The woman must have been up here for at least a month, teetering on the edge of madness, only iron chains and the last scraps of will keeping her something like human.
It was a mercy, she told herself, but that was no comfort.
“All right downstairs?” she asked.
“Let’s see,” said Erec. “Half of them are missing bits of their faces due to woodspawn. The rest are unconscious or stabbed, due to me. So everything’s quite all right.”
Behind them, somebody gasped. She turned, pulling free of Erec’s grasp, and there was the scrawny girl from downstairs.
“Mama,” the girl whispered, and burst into tears.
Behind the girl stood her father, his face pale. “Murderer,” he said.
“No,” said Erec. “Executioner. Your wife was the murderer. You know, don’t you, the penalty for concealing a bloodbound from the King?”
The man spat. “If you’d ever loved someone, you’d understand.”
Rachelle didn’t realize she was moving until she had grabbed him by the shoulders and slammed him against the wall. “Do you know what I understand? There have been five woodspawn attacks in this neighborhood in the past two weeks. That’s two people dead and one who will never walk again, all because your wife was sitting here, calling down the power of the Forest. If we hadn’t put her down, she would have broken those chains when she finished transforming, and then she would have started killing everyone she could find.”
“She would never—”
“Let me guess. The Bishop promised that if you just prayed hard enough, she would stay human.”
The man’s mouth tightened, but he didn’t say anything.
Bishop Guillaume helped people hide bloodbound from the King’s justice. She and Erec knew it, they just hadn’t been able to prove it yet. Rachelle still wasn’t sure if the Bishop had some fantasy of building his own bloodbound army, or if he was just that deluded about the chances that bloodbound could stay sane and human. Either way, he was a hypocrite for also preaching death and judgment against them every Sunday.
“It’s a lie,” said Rachelle. “Nobody escapes the Forest. But if you’d given her to us, we’d have executed her before she hurt more people.”