Free Crimson Bound by Rosamund Hodge

don’t want to let you go alone. And I want to have this chance, whatever happens after. Please.”
    If Amélie was by her side, then Rachelle could protect her. That wasn’t too selfish, was it? And she could send her back in just a few weeks, before the solstice. There was hardly any chance the Devourer would return before then.
    “All right,” she said. “We’ll go together.”
    Amélie’s smile was as bright and beautiful as the sun. “Then you’re allowed to see your face,” she said, and held up the little hand mirror.
    A lady stared back at Rachelle.
    She had Rachelle’s black hair—slightly messed from the wind—her dark eyes, her narrow face. But this lady had no freckles; she had pale, flawless skin just half a shadelighter than could possibly be natural. Her cheeks flushed in two perfect triangles, and her lips glistened with rouge. One little round black beauty mark sat beneath her left eye.
    She looked like a hundred other court ladies Rachelle had seen. And though Rachelle had always found the court fashions rather silly, for a moment she wished that the illusion was real, that it actually was possible for her to paint on a new face and become a different person.
    “It’s beautiful,” she said.
    There was no way she could ever escape herself and become the lovely, innocent girl in the mirror. But that was for the best. Because lovely, innocent girls could not ever hope to fight the Devourer.
    Rachelle was going to fight him and win.
    Even when she was a little girl, living in the northern forest, Rachelle had heard about Château de Lune. Everyone had. It was the glory of Gévaudan: a shimmering, elegant wonderland. And when the carriage finally drew close, Rachelle saw that it was just as lovely as the stories had promised. The Château itself was a vast, sinuous building of pale stone, glittering glass windows, and gold. For nearly two miles around, it was surrounded by impeccably ordered gardens: fountains, lawns, rosebushes, and long lines of identically trimmed trees.
    But when the carriage finally drew to a halt on the wide gravel courtyard inside the main gate, when Rachelle stepped out and drew a breath of the sweet, warm air without the least trace of the city’s stink—as lovely as it was, all she could think about was finding the door.
    Above the sun, below the moon.
    “Beautiful, isn’t it?” said Erec.
    “Yes,” said Rachelle. “Beautiful.”
    The crimson thread trailed off her finger and wound across the ground, until it was lost among the feet of the servants and courtiers waiting to greet the King. Like a crack in the otherwise perfect surface of a painting.
    “Almost as delightful as last time,” said Armand, surveying the crowd of silk and wigs and feathered hats. Somebody was presenting the King with a monkey wearing a lace dress.
    Last time he was there, he had claimed to meet a forestborn, and he had definitely lost his hands. Rachelle glanced at him. He seemed to be squinting a little in the brightsunlight; she couldn’t read the expression on his face. Then Erec clapped a hand on his shoulder, and though his face didn’t change, she saw Armand flinch.
    “Let’s hope this visit is even better,” said Erec. “Monsieur, mademoiselle, come with me. I will show you to your rooms myself.”
    Armand squared his shoulders and marched after him.
    Inside the Château was another world. Vast hallways. Patterned marble stairways. Statues in the alcoves. Mirrors that gleamed in one shining piece from floor to ceiling. And everywhere, gold and silver painted and molded across walls, ceilings, and doors, in patterns of birds, flowers, horses, fruits, and naked women—but most of all, in the patterns of the sun and moon. On the mirrors, the ceilings, the statues, the floors.
    Everywhere was above the sun. Everywhere was below the moon.
    The whole Château was mocking her.
    Armand’s room was in the royal wing, not far from the King—“An honor no bastard has yet