She gasped.

  It was gone.

  Rose searched her entire room for her money. Someone had taken it while she’d lain asleep or in a faint. She paced, ill, half-delirious, outraged, and frightened. And yet, strangely hopeful. She had a way to bring in money now and Ombrine knew it. Perhaps at last her stepmother would value her. Even be kind to her.

  But Ombrine brought her no more potions. Nor did she bring her food. She completely ignored her. That was not what Rose would have expected.

  And yet, one morning, she found that the door was unlocked and felt well enough to go downstairs and forage in the larder. As she took the stairs slowly and carefully, she found Ombrine and Desirée eating breakfast and the smell of food made her stomach rumble.

  Desirée said, “Thank the gods you’re up! I swear I couldn’t cook another meal.” She grimaced at her plate of runny eggs and pushed it away. Rose was so hungry she had to force herself not to dart forward and grab it.

  “I’m glad to see you’ve recovered,” Ombrine told her, but irritation and frustration rose off her in waves. Ombrine wasn’t glad. She sat in stony silence while Rose seated herself and began nibbling at a piece of cheese and a bit of bread.

  “One needs a plate and cutlery,” Ombrine said tightly. “Unless one is a peasant.”

  Rose was too dizzy to move, so she swallowed down the last of the bread and cheese.

  “Well, then, we see what she is,” Desirée declared.

  Ombrine pushed back her chair.

  “Clean up,” she said as she swept out of the room.

  After Rose had cleared and washed the dishes, Ombrine glided into the kitchen with Rose’s gathering basket against her chest. She held it out to her and said, “We’re quite low on food. Go out into the woods and see what you can find. Some mushrooms, perhaps. Or berries.”

  As Rose took the basket, her fingers brushed against her stepmother’s stone-cold hand. In her mind’s eye, the forest shadows slithered together, forming the dark silhouette of a man. His eyes glowed red and he carried a knife.

  A knife meant for her.

  “Rose?” Ombrine snapped.

  “Oui, Stepmother,” Rose managed, with a curtsy. She began trembling from head to toe. Was she seeing her own future? Was it a warning?

  “Don’t come back until you have found something,” Ombrine told her.

  “Oui, Stepmother,” Rose said again.

  Shaking, she walked out of the château as calmly as she could. Then she ran to the stable to hop on Douce and gallop to the village. Or past the village. To leave the Forested Land, and find somewhere safe.

  But Ombrine’s stable boy was there, mucking out the stable of the dray mare. He gazed up at Rose through the grime on his face, then leaned saucily on his pitchfork as he looked her up and down.

  As steadily as she could manage it, she walked past him to Douce’s stall. It was empty. Her stomach clenched hard and she caught her balance by holding onto a post.

  “Where is my horse?” she asked.

  ‘Ain’t got one, ma’amselle,” he replied. “Mistress sold her at market last week.”

  Rose jerked as if she had been slapped.

  “Said you had no more need of her.”

  Tears welled in her eyes; bile rose in the back of her mouth. She kept her wits about her and bobbed her head at the stable boy, her knuckles white as she unpeeled her fingers off the post and clutched the basket with both hands.

  “Then I will take the dray mare,” she announced.

  “No one touches her but me and your lady,” he said, shaking his head. “If madame gives you her leave, you can do as you like.”

  “Very well,” she replied. “I—I shall go ask her.”

  Keeping to the shadows, she crept past the château.

  Then she hurried into her garden. In her mind’s eye, the lush, wondrous flower grotto rippled like a stained glass window over the brown-and-green vegetable vines and sturdy beanstalks. She could see again the statue of Artemis and the fountain and the silvery stream. Gone, but still cherished.

  She fell to her knees before the faceless scarecrow, where the goddess’s statue had stood.

  “Artemis,” she said aloud. “Please, help me now I believe I am at the door of death itself and I no longer wish to open it. Please, je vous en prie. I am yours, and I beg you to save me.”

  The blank-faced scarecrow stared down at her. Rose’s hands trembled hard. Just as she began to panic, a small voice whispered, “You are loved.”

  She looked down.

  Another tiny purple bud had pushed through the surface of the rows of cabbages.

  Little brown hooves moved into her field of vision; as she looked up, a small brown doe blinked its enormous eyes at her; then glowed with white light as its eyes turned blue. As Rose watched, it moved toward her. Then it carefully opened its mouth around the little bud, pulled it from the earth, and dropped it at Rose’s knees.

  Slowly Rose reached down and picked it up. The deer pawed the earth once, as if impatient to be off.

  “All right then,” Rose whispered as she cradled the flower in her palm. “Lead me. Tell me where to go.”

  The doe turned around, then looked back over its shoulder at her as it stepped forward, toward the forest.

  “Death waits for me there,” Rose protested.

  The doe took another step. A breeze whispered, “If you know true love, you shall not die.”

  “As you wish,” Rose whispered. She got to her feet, put the rosebud in her pocket, and followed.

  EIGHT

  In the Land Beyond...

  The court painter and his wife made haste to prepare their château for the return of His Majesty. Fully recovered from the assassination attempt during the hunt, King Jean-Marc wished to reward them for their hospitality, for he had been carried from the forest to their château and stayed with them for several days. It was a formal occasion and he arrived with his retinue of groomsmen and guards. His chief advisor, Monsieur Sabot, had arranged the occasion and rode beside the king in his glittering coach.

  The painter and his lady bowed deeply as Jean-Marc stepped regally onto their land. Jean-Marc knew madame, and his heart hurt a little at the sight of her. Claire had served Lucienne as a lady-in-waiting and married the painter after he came into the kings service. She carried a little bouquet of the most exquisite roses he had ever seen. They were a royal purple, velvet and jewellike.

  Upon his approach, she gazed up at him joyfully and cried, “Your Majesty, we bid you welcome. Oh sir, come and see! It is a miracle!”

  He looked from Claire to her husband. A tall, blond man, his name was Reginer Marchand, and he was from the Forested Land.

  Knitting his brows, Monsieur Sabot stepped forward. “What is this?” he asked Monsieur Marchand.

  Monsieur Marchand bowed even lower and said, “With all due respect and deference, Monsieur Sabot, this concerns . . . a situation . . . from a time before I came to court. And so, I must leave the matter to my wife.”

  Monsieur Sabot frowned. Jean-Marc raised a brow. Then Claire touched the petals of the purple roses and said, “I must prepare you, sire. There is a woman ... oh, come and see!”

  “Perhaps I should go first,” Monsieur Sabot said prudently.

  But Jean-Marc gave him a wave to signify his indulgence. Bemused, he allowed Claire to escort him through the lovely chateau. He smelled paint and turpentine.

  They went into a room Jean-Marc had not seen on his previous visit. A quick glance told him it was Monsieur Marchand’s art studio. Canvases and painting supplies lined the walls and drop cloths protected the floor.

  “Look,” Claire urged Jean-Marc, leading him around to face the canvas.

  It was a portrait of a delicate woman with hair of silvery-gold and eyes of starry midnight blue.

  She was the exact likeness of Lucienne, dead for more than two years.

  “By my father Zeus,” Jean-Marc blurted. And then his heart whispered, Artemis, Artemis, Artemis, three times in quick succession, in time with his thundering pulse.

  He staggered backward and would have fallen, but someone placed a chair behind him. He wasn’t certain that he was breathing. He could hear nothing, see nothing but the portrait, and the memory of his lost love. The wound of grief inside him gave him such pain that he gasped aloud. And yet, seeing the face of his beloved stabbed him through the heart with an equal measure of joy.

  It was Lucienne, down to her eyebrows and her small, straight nose. Down to the curve of her mouth.

  He forgot how to breathe. How to think. He was adrift, drowning. He could not see the surface of the river of his life. He didn’t want to. He wanted to see only ... her.

  Seeing the kings confusion, Claire said, “Your Majesty, this is a woman who sold some roses to my husband:”

  The lady was delicate and beautiful and wearing clothes of mourning. She held an armful of purple roses, identical to the ones Claire Marchand still carried.

  Then reason rushed into his mind as air rushed into his lungs. He was a fool if he dared to hope so. This was no phantom. This was coincidence and nothing more. “Refashioned by his artist’s eye into the very picture of the queen,” Jean-Marc said tightly. “To please me.”

  “Mais non,” Claire told the king. Her eyes were shining. “That is the miracle, Your Majesty. If you please, Reginer came into your court after the death of my lady. He has never seen her.” Jean-Marc himself had ordered all painting and sculptures of Lucienne to be put away, for he could not bear to look at them. No one but the priests and Jean-Marc himself were allowed to see her effigy.

  “Even so, sire,” Marchand told him. “I have never seen the likeness of Her Late Majesty. My wife informed me that this lady resembles the late queen, may she rest in peace, only after I completed the portrait. I swear that I have painted the woman of the roses exactly as she looks:”

  Jean-Marc’s lips parted. He looked from Marchand to the portrait and back again. He felt more than he had ever felt in his life—love, despair, and more love. It hit him all at once just how much he had missed Lucienne. It was as if, drowned in loss, his grief had muted all his emotions into gray. But he saw now that each one had a color. His grief was deep purple, and his love, a deep shade of pink. Rose-colored. The colors danced and shifted like the pieces of glass inside a kaleidoscope and it was dizzying. He thought he might faint.

  He was silent for a long time. He could hear the others waiting for him to continue. He knew they would willingly wait all day and night, if need be. He was the king.

  “Who is she?” he asked.

  “I know not,” Marchand informed him. “I found her in the graveyard in a village,”

  His scalp prickled as he gazed at the woman. “Graveyard? Is she a ghost then?”

  ‘No ghost, sir. She was tending the roses:’

  “What village?”

  “It’s near my father’s château,” he said. His face fell. “I had thought to visit him but I did not go:’ His forehead knit, and his shoulders drooped. “I lost heart, sir, and then when I met this young woman, I was moved to return at once and paint her.”

  The king stared at the painting. Monsieur Marchand’s dealings with his father were his own affair. But surely this woman was a gift from Artemis herself. Had she not promised him love, if he would only hope?

  “Take me to her. Let me see her for myself,” the king ordered.

  Monsieur Sabot cleared his throat. As the king glanced at him, his advisor reluctantly shook his head.

  “With all due respect, my liege, you know that I, among all your advisors, have pressed you to entertain matters of the heart. Every part of my soul rejoices in this miraculous appearance, for I, of course, knew the queen, may she rest in the arms of the gods, and I concur that this beauty is her twin. Nothing would please me more than that you should meet her:’ Monsieur Sabot hesitated.

  “And yet?” Jean-Marc said.

  “The mobs continue to gather at our gates. And you heard the reports of your spies. The Pretender has finished training his soldiers. Hell march any day. You must remain in the castle and prepare for an attack: He took a deep breath. “This may be a trick to lure you out.”

  Monsieur Marchand caught his breath. “Surely, monsieur, you do not accuse me of playing traitor to my liege lord.”

  “Indeed not,” Monsieur Sabot assured him. “It is just . . . perhaps a lady who resembles Her Majesty was put in your way.”

  “So that he would paint her?” Claire Marchand asked. “That makes no sense. Who could guarantee that my husband would be moved to do so? Besides, he never knew Her Majesty:

  “Perhaps I could search for her myself,” Monsieur Marchand suggested. “I used to live near that village.”

  “Hélas,” Claire Marchand murmured. “I fear for you, my husband, if war is coming.”

  Monsieur Sabot bowed over his leg and said, “Send me, milord. I knew your lady. Once I find this woman, I can bring her to the palace, if indeed she resembles Her Majesty so closely.”

  Jean-Marc stared at the portrait. “Go at once,” he said.

  Moving farther and farther away from Ombrine and the château, Rose followed the white doe into the forest that held such terror for her, now that she was convinced her stepmother meant to kill her. The trees swallowed up the sunlight, and the doe’s soft glow showed Rose the way among the thick roots and brambles. Thunder rumbled. They continued on. Thunder rumbled again.

  And strangely, the ground shook.

  The doe looked at her. The ground shook again and again; the thunder was so loud it buffeted her ears.

  Then she realized that it was not thunder she was hearing. It was the sound of drums.

  Her blood froze.

  “Soldiers,” she whispered.

  The doe lowered its head as if to say, Even so.

  On the slope below, footfalls pounded. A hundred. Two hundred. The trees shifted and weak sunlight filtered in. Endless rows of armed men in dark green shirts, metal breastplates, and helmets marched past. One soldier held a white pennant. It was emblazoned with an elaborate dark green P.

  The Pretender!

  The white doe turned brown again. A massive brown buck dashed from the forest and trotted up beside her. Another joined her. Then another. Soon half a dozen stalwart deer emerged from the shadows, keening beneath their breaths as they formed a protective circle around her. The doe gently butted her side, and all the deer began to walk up the slope. Rose climbed with them; then, when they reached level ground, the deer broke into a trot. Barefoot, Rose tried to keep up. They crashed through the undergrowth, flattening it for her. They bent back tree limbs so she could pass unharmed. The little doe bleated at her—whee, whee—as if urging her to hurry.

  They burst out of the forest, past Rose’s garden. Ahead, the outline of the chateau rose against a storm-tossed sky. The roof was ablaze. Flames licked the clouds and smoke boiled from the upper-story windows.

  “Au secours!” Rose screamed.

  The deer pressed her onward. Surrounded by a dozen soldiers on horseback, a glittering coach sat below the stony terraces. Six ebony horses with braided manes clacked their hooves on the pitted stones as they whinnied and reared. The coachman, straining to control them, did a double take when he saw Rose and the deer, and shot up straight to his feet.

  “Monsieur Sabot!” he shouted. He gestured to Rose. “Mademoiselle! To me! Come to me!”

  On the terrace above, the front door to the burning château burst open. Ombrine and Desirée emerged, laden down with hats and cloaks. Each staggered beneath an oversized bundle, coughing and waving smoke from her path.

  A tall, gray-headed man carrying a large black velvet hat and an ornate walking stick came after them. As he caught sight of Rose, he froze. He gaped at her, then gestured with his stick at the coach.

  “By Father Zeus!” he bellowed. “Alors! To the coach, mademoiselle!”

  The herd of deer wheeled off, hooves clattering on the gravel. Two of the riders galloped over to Rose and dismounted.

  “Pardon, je vous en prie,” the taller of the two said to Rose. He took Rose’s little basket in his gauntleted hand and passed it to his fellow. Then he gazed down at her feet, which were cut and bleeding, and lifted her up in her arms. He smelled of sweat and leather, and his breastplate was cold. Uncertainly, she put her arm around his neck; his heavy metal boots crunching the gravel as he carried her to the coach.

  The waiting footman yanked open the coach door, his face pale. “If you please, mademoiselle, quickly,” he said.

  Rose’s escort climbed up the two steps and deposited her carefully against the padded leather seat. Her elbow brushed a wooden chest placed between her and a window covered with black-and-gold velvet.

  “Mademoiselle,” the man added, passing her basket to her. Bewildered, she settled it in her lap.

  To her great alarm, Ombrine and Desiree tumbled in soon after with their large bundles. They reeked of smoke. The old man followed. Once all were inside, one of the soldiers slammed the door shut. After an instant, the coach took off as Rose lifted the velvet curtain. The château was blazing. She was cut to the quick and hot tears spilled down her cheeks.

  “I am so sorry,” the old man said. “It was put to the torch to prevent the Pretender from taking it. Such is war:”

  “Ah,” Rose said, weeping. Memories washed over her. She thought of her mother and Elise and, far more dimly, her father. And of the story of Ombrine and Desiree Severine. This was the second house they would lose to fire. Surely that would make them harder and meaner. But as for Rose herself, her grief softened her, and as she smelled the death of her house in the smoke, she wondered about the little creatures who must have lived in its walls and foraged in it gardens.

  Adieu, she bade the house, the gardens, as the coach pulled away and the image receded. Farewell, all.

  “I am sorry,” the man said again. She had no idea who he was and assumed he was a neighbor, come to save the Marchand women.

  The wheels clattered on the uneven stones, jostling Rose and her fellow passengers. Desiree was staring at Rose in shock, as if she had never seen her before. Shadows darkened Ombrine’s face. But her spine was ramrod straight and her knuckles were white.

 

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