She dared to look at him then. Armand looked steadily back at her, his eyes solemn, and said nothing.
“Well?” she demanded. “What are you going to say? It’s all right because at least I tried to resist? Everyone tries to be good until it stops being convenient!”
“No—”
“Or are you going to tell me it was a kindness to kill her? That it wasn’t so bad, because at least I ended her suffering? I was there. I know exactly how bad it was, and not all the suffering in the world could make it right.”
She realized her eyes were stinging, and she scraped at them with the back of her hand.
“No,” said Armand after a moment. “It’s not all right. You should have died first.”
She had been dreading those words. She had expected they would break her. But instead, she only choked on a laugh as her hand clenched around the scar. “If I ever want to be driven to despair, I’ll go straight to you.”
“If I’d said you’d done right, you would have throttled me,” he said.
“I thought you didn’t have any talent for survival.”
“Maybe you’re teaching me.”
“And what do you want to teach me?” she asked wearily. “I already know I ought to be dead.”
“No, you shouldn’t,” said Armand. “What good would that do?”
“At least then I’d get what I deserved. Like your precious Bishop says.”
“You know,” said Armand, “my mother used to say that if we all got what we deserved, we’d all be dead. And yet somehow God refrains from smiting us. Whatever you ought to have done then, dying won’t undo it now. And I’m glad I got to meet you.”
“You,” said Rachelle, “are insane.”
“You,” he said, “are not the first one to tell me that. And one more thing. I don’t believe you’re damned.”
“Then what am I?”
He let out a breath. “I think . . . you are not content. You have power and beauty and strength that others could only dream of. You could be immortal. But you are never content. Not when you’re at the center of the court and not when you’re riding with the Wild Hunt and not when you’re cutting down your enemies with a sword. So you cannot be damned.”
Her throat tightened. It was unfair—it was absolutely unfair that his voice could make her heart beat with jagged, idiotic hope.
“Pretty words,” she said. “But a bit heretical. I don’t recall hearing that any of the damned were content.”
“They’re content to stay in their sins.” He grinned at her, and it felt like there was no space or barrier at all between them, like his smile was happening inside her heart. Without meaning to at all, she smiled back.
They were both fools, perhaps.
23
As soon as the sun set, they slipped back down to the wine cellar. Rachelle laid her hands on the floor, and the door appeared before them.
Armand got to his feet. “So how do we use the charm?”
“Normally we’d hang it over somebody’s bed.” She pulled out the charm, which had been hung like a scarf around her neck. “Or we would if this were a regular sleep charm. I suppose instead we throw it over the lindenworm’s coils.”
“That sounds strangely easy,” said Armand.
“Well . . . this sort of charm needs to be awakened.”
“And that means?”
“A lot of things that I spent years learning. But what it comes down to is that I have to hold the charm in place and concentrate for a moment.” And now that she was saying it out loud, her heart was finally starting to pick up speed.
“While the two heads try to bite you?” Armand asked dubiously.
“Last time it took a moment to wake up. As long as I awaken the charm faster, we’ll be all right.” Rachelle hoped that the words didn’t sound as stupid to him as they did to her.
Armand shrugged. “Well, I don’t suppose it will be the craziest thing I’ve ever done.” He pulled back his sleeve with his teeth and lifted his arm to the door. Rachelle shifted the charm to her left hand and drew her sword.
The door swung in. Darkness fell.
Instantly Rachelle lunged forward, flinging the charm while clinging to one end. She let herself feel the soft fibers against her skin, and inside her mind she reached as she tried to awaken the charm. For one moment she had it—she could feel the power humming through the charm—
Then she remembered the way Aunt Léonie had smiled at her the first time she managed it, and the way she had shuddered when Rachelle laid the knife against her throat, and the power was gone.
Four eyes opened.
There was no time to think, only move. Rachelle drew her sword and slashed, cutting off the nearest head, then dodged to the side and tried to cut off the other. But she moved at the wrong angle; her sword only got halfway into the creature’s neck and then stuck. The lindenworm screamed and reared up, tearing the sword from her hands—and then the other head was already grown back and surging toward her.
Rachelle ducked just in time. At least she still had a hold on the sleep charm.
“Armand!” she shouted. “Distract it!”
She didn’t notice if he did or not; all her attention was on the lindenworm’s two swaying heads—and her sword, stuck in its neck. When the head with the sword lunged at her, she was ready. She rolled to the side, grabbed the sword, and wrenched it free. The next moment, she had sliced off the head, but the other was hurtling toward her—
Armand flung himself at the other head, hitting it right where the neck began and throwing his arms around it. “Do it!” he yelled.
Rachelle grabbed the charm, ducked as the head lunged at her, slammed her sword into the neck and down, pinning it to the floor. The lindenworm bucked and writhed beneath her, but she was pressing the charm against its neck and trying, trying, trying to awaken it—
And the charm sang in her mind, and the lindenworm went slack beneath her. Its eyes were still open, but the glow had dimmed; when she looked closer, she saw that the pale film of its inner eyelids had slid across its eyes.
It looked like the creature could still see her. But when she waved her hands in front of its nose, it didn’t move. She kicked it lightly in the head, and all that happened was that its scaled outer eyelids finally shut.
Rachelle’s breath shuddered out of her. She thought, I really did it. I’m still alive.
Then she remembered what Armand had done. She looked up.