Crimson Bound by Rosamund Hodge Page B

had never managed it, and Aunt Léonie had kept snatching the charm away from her before it went too wrong.
    She’d been angry at that. She’d wanted to master the charm so she could use it against the forestborn she was meeting in the woods.
    Now she wondered, What if I used it to find Joyeuse?
    She had seen woodwife charms a few times since becoming a bloodbound, and she had been able to sense the power woven into them. She had guessed that meant she would be able to awaken a charm. But making a charm . . . that was different. In three years, Rachelle had never once tried to; she’d simply assumed it was impossible, now that she was one of the things those charms repelled.
    But she had nothing to lose by trying.
    Amélie was puzzled, but she gave Rachelle a length of yarn from her knitting basket easily enough. That night Rachelle didn’t go out wandering but sat up in her bed, twisting the yarn around and around in her fingers.
    Even after three years, her hands still remembered how to move, but they were clumsy, as if they weren’t quite attached to her.
    Slowly, she began to form the charm: three loops twining around each other, with a knot in the center. She thought it was right. She was almost certain that it was the right shape, and as she stared at it, she thought she felt a slight flicker of power.
    If it is not awakened properly, it can be very destructive , Aunt Léonie had said.
    Rachelle slipped out of the bedroom. She went nearly all the way back to the Hall of Mirrors, but she stopped in a darkened corridor just short of it, because she didn’t want to unleash anything very destructive around so many mirrors.
    She looked down at the charm in her hand: three little loops, and two tails drooping down toward the floor.
    Her pulse quickened. This could be the night that she found Joyeuse. She wouldn’t have to stand in attendance on a fake saint anymore; she wouldn’t have to help him deceive people into making him king. She could be free.
    Or this could be the night that she finally did something stupid enough to kill herself. And then she would still be free.
    She let out a short, quick breath and sat down cross-legged on the floor. She cupped her hands around the charm. She tried to clear her mind of distractions, the way AuntLéonie had taught her.
    She thought, I need Joyeuse. I need it.
    I need it.
    There was a curious sensation, like weight shifting and finding its balance. The air went still in her lungs.
    The charm was warm in her hands.
    Without meaning to, Rachelle’s eyes snapped open and she stood in a single smooth motion. It felt like there was a string tied along the length of her spine, drawing her up, and now it was pulling her forward.
    She walked toward the doorway. She felt like she was floating. She thought, Joyeuse.
    But the sense of weight continued rolling, shifting, growing—
    And as she stepped through the doorway into the Hall of Mirrors, her control broke. The charm seared her hands like fire, and her vision flashed white.
    She knew she was falling.
    Then she knew nothing.
    She woke up in the Great Forest. There were flowers and vines sprouting all around her, and the sweet Forest wind caressed her face.
    Then she blinked, and realized she was still in the Hall of Mirrors—but overshadowed by the Forest.
    Impossible. The Forest didn’t appear in human homes unless something terrible called it forth, like a bloodbound turning into a forestborn. And she still felt human. She didn’t think Erec was ready to leave the court yet, either.
    Rachelle knew she should be scared, but she was still too dazed by the charm’s destruction; her head felt cold and hollow. Slowly she sat up. The floor seemed to rock underneath her as she moved; she put a hand against the floor to steady herself, and gasped in pain. Her palms were raw and bloody.
    One slow breath. Two. She looked around: the Hall of Mirrors was still standing, and the Forest was fading away from it as she watched.