“Enough chatter,” said la Fontaine. “It is time for stories. And in honor of our guest, I propose that we each tell a tale from the north.”
Soleil rose. “If you will excuse me, gracious goddess,” she said quietly, “I am not well enough for stories.” Then she bolted out of the room.
“Now you’ve made her cry,” said Erec. “Not so very saintly.”
“Now you’re talking when our hostess called for silence,” said Armand.
“Do you have a tale to share, my dear Fleur-du-Mal?” asked la Fontaine, her voice ringing across the room like a bell.
“No, my dear Fontaine,” said Erec.
La Fontaine nodded regally. “Then we shall proceed. You.” She nodded at the young man who had called Rachelle a “naughty girl.” He scrambled to his feet—he was trying to grin again, but now it just looked sickly—and started a rambling tale of three shepherdesses and a bumblebee who was a prince in disguise.
Rachelle didn’t pay much attention. She was too busy watching Armand and thinking. He should have been sitting in la Fontaine’s place at the center of the room, everyone wincing and smiling according to what he said. If he had really lied about meeting the forestborn, if he had simply decided to turn his injury into fame, then he would want fame. A liar might have too much pride to be hand-fed, but surely he would at least want a pretty girl to declare that he was marvelous and brave.
Unless he wasn’t a liar. But what else could he be? Once marked by the forestborn, there was no way to escape. You killed somebody or the mark killed you. There was no other way.
She hoped so much that there was no other way.
The young man stammered to a close. His tale had been nothing like the fireside stories that people told in Rachelle’s village, but she didn’t think that was why la Fontaine looked at him when he was finished and said, “Very charming.” He flinched and retired into a corner.
Then l’Étoile-Polaire sighed and stood like a weary flower. “I believe I can honor our guest,” she said. “Once upon a time, a prince and a princess lived in a silver tower with domes of gold and parapets of diamond. Every day they ate berries and cream, and their days were all delightful. . . .”
The story wound slowly on, with many digressions about the delights of the palace and the prince’s horse and the princess’s dresses. Eventually, the two children contrived to get themselves lost in the woods.
And that was when the Great Forest awoke in la Fontaine’s salon.
Or perhaps, the Forest dreamed about them. It certainly wasn’t a full manifestation; Rachelle hardly felt it at all, only saw it, fleetingly and from the corner of her eyes. It started with the murals: they acquired depth and shadows, the trees growing thicker, vines winding up the legs of the shepherds. Dim animal shapes stalked among the hills, and the shepherds’ singing mouths seemed to be screaming.
Until she looked straight at them, and then the murals were flat, and bright, and pretty again.
She might have thought she was imagining it. But as l’Étoile-Polaire told—with a great many flourishes—how the prince and princess stumbled upon a cottage where a mad old woman put the prince in the cage but adopted the princess and set her tasks, Rachelle started to see movement at the corner of her eyes. The potted plants swayed in a phantom breeze. Flowers blossomed on the tile floor. Translucent deer peeked through ghostly foliage, startled, and fled.
It was the strongest manifestation of the Forest that she had seen here yet, and her first thought was that the door must be here. She had only given the room a cursory examination when she went in. Now she scrutinized it slowly and carefully. There were no suns or moons anyway.
But then why was the Forest appearing? Had the protections on the Château simply grown that weak?
Insubstantial rose vines climbed down her shoulder. Rachelle startled at the same moment Armand drew a sharp breath beside her, and then they met each other’s eyes.
So he really did see the Great Forest. That was good to know.
He raised his eyebrows a fraction. She shrugged. It didn’t feel like the Forest was prepared to break through and menace them—there was no least presence of woodspawn—it was simply as if the Forest were thinking of them.
“—and then,” l’Étoile-Polaire went on, “the old woman believed that the princess loved her, and said