This time they didn’t have to spin a story to get past anyone. Rachelle stole the keys from their hook and they slipped down together into the chill, silent darkness of the tunnels.
“Do you see anything?” asked Rachelle, as soon as they had stepped off the bottom stair.
Armand paused. “No, just— Wait. Gold.”
A cold shiver slid down her spine. “Where?”
“All over the walls and floors,” said Armand. “Like traces of an old mosaic. I think it gets stronger up ahead.” He strode forward more quickly, and Rachelle followed him.
Please, she thought, and she hadn’t dared pray in years, but now she almost did. Please, let us find it. Please.
They came into a wide room lined with wine racks. Armand strode right to the center of the room, stopped, and stared down at the floor a moment.
“Here,” he said. “There’s a great big sun on the floor.”
To Rachelle, the floor looked like the same dreary gray stone as the rest of the wine cellar. But Armand sounded absolutely certain. Heart beating very quickly, she knelt and pressed her hand to the cold floor.
She closed her eyes and reached to awaken the charm.
Nothing happened.
“Am I touching it?” she asked.
“Yes,” said Armand. “Right at the center.”
She tried again. Nothing happened, except that her head began to ache.
“Are you—” Armand started.
“It’s not working,” she said harshly.
Of course it wasn’t working. Why had she thought that anything would start going right for her now? Why had she thought that she might possibly be able to work a woodwife charm? She was bloodbound. Nothing could change that and nothing could make it better.
She still gave it one final effort. Black speckled the edges of her vision, but nothing happened. With a sigh, she staggered to her feet.
“It’s no use,” she said.
“Wait,” Armand said breathlessly. Then he closed his eyes.
The air changed. The simple chill of the wine cellar became the sweet cold of the Great Forest. Rachelle’s heart pounded, but she couldn’t move.
She saw the Forest. Tree roots wove among the wine bottles. Moss and bloodred flowers with teeth swarmed over the walls. Tiny bright blue butterflies—no bigger than her thumbnails—fluttered through the air.
And beneath her feet, she saw the worn, glittering pattern of a great golden sun inlaid on the floor, its rays flowing out to the edges of the room.
Armand shuddered and let out a breath. The Forest was abruptly gone, but the golden sun still lingered on the floor.
The strength ran out of Rachelle’s legs. She sank to the floor. Her fingers touched gold.
She didn’t have to awaken the charm. It awakened to her, blossoming warmth under her hands. She didn’t even realize it had happened until Armand took a quick breath, and she looked up.
Before them stood two slender birch trees, their branches reaching toward each other and intertwining to form a door frame. The door that hung within it was made of polished gold; in the branches above the door hung a silver crescent moon.
Rachelle stood slowly, barely able to believe what she was seeing.
“Do you see a door?” asked Armand, sounding a little dazed. “Because I do.”
“Yes.” Rachelle’s voice was tiny and wavering, but she didn’t care. She finally had a chance. Everything she had done and suffered might finally be worth it. “I see it. Yes.”
She pressed her hand against the golden door. She had expected the metal to be cold, but it was as warm as a cat’s back, and humming with a vibration not unlike a cat’s purr.
They had found it. They had actually found it, the door that had lain hidden for centuries. Just behind this door waited Joyeuse, and once she had it in her hand, all the horror of her life would be worthwhile.
But it didn’t open for her.
“I think this door is for you,” she said, stepping back.
Armand raised his arm and pressed it gently against the door. It started to swing inward.
And everything went dark, as if shadow had spilled out of the doorway as blindingly as light spilled in a door opened onto summer noon.
In a heartbeat, she had reached for Armand, seized his arm, and shoved him behind her.
But there was no danger she could see. Because she could see nothing—only a darkness so intense it pounded at her eyes. She could hear nothing except her short, quick breaths and Armand’s. She could sense nothing except her own pounding heartbeat.
“Do you see anything?” she whispered.
“Yes,” said Armand, and as if in response, four glowing lights appeared, dim and greenish-white but blinding after the darkness.
Then she realized the lights were eyes.
Snake eyes.
She could see now. They were in a copy of the Hall of Mirrors, perfect down to the last curlicue on the picture frames, except that it was all carved out of red-brown rock. In front of them and all around them lay coil upon coil of two vast, dark snakes whose bodies were almost as wide as her own arm span.
No, she realized with numb terror as she met the pale double stare. It was only one creature. A lindenworm: the legendary snake with a head on both ends of its body, whose endless hunger would stir it to unimaginable greed and make it guard treasure with a ferocity beyond imagining.
It had to be guarding Joyeuse. It would never let her take it.
Beside her, Armand let out a short, sharp little breath, as if to say, So this is how I die.
Rachelle hadn’t been able to die for love of her aunt. She didn’t intend to die for a snake, even a lindenworm.
As the nearer head lunged toward her, Rachelle leaped up, sword swinging. With bloodbound strength behind the thrust, her sword sliced through the neck and vertebrae as if they were no more than celery coated in butter. Blood gushed. The remaining head spasmed and shrieked—
As another head grew out of its severed neck.
A coil slammed into her chest and sent her flying. She hoped Armand had run.
But there was no time for disappointment or fear, because now both heads were lunging for her. All she could do was dodge and slash, and Rachelle was fighting better than she ever had in her life, but this time it wasn’t enough. Every wound healed in moments.
Teeth sank into her right shoulder. For a heartbeat it just felt like a burn too hot to hurt. Then the lindenworm shook her, and she screamed. She could feel its venom seeping into the bite, and it was like molten iron.
Then it started lifting her up, coiling a lower section of its body around her legs. Darkness speckled her vision, but with her free hand she managed to pull out another knife. She stabbed blindly at its head, once, twice, and then felt the knife slide into the jelly of the eye. Thick, hot ooze seeped across her hand.