“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 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.
Beside her, Armand let out a short, sharp little breath, as if