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For three years, Rachelle sat obediently braiding chare She learned to ward off fever and keep rain, and to prevent woodspawn—the animals born in the Great Forest, suffused with its power—fro people But none of it mattered, because when the Devourer returned, no charh to protect anyone Aunt Léonie told her so again and again

“What can we do?” Rachelle always asked

Aunt Léonie would only shrug “So”

Zisa hadn’t abided Zisa had fought the Devourer and saved the whole world, but apparently ives weren’t supposed to save people anyes and braid insignificant char the world

Rachelle clenched her teeth and furiously dreae felt more like a prison

Until one day she alking ho had changed The shadows had grown deeper; the blue flowers by the side of the path had begun to glow The wind felt like fingertips tracing her neck Shadowy, phantoround; a deer made out of black cloud peered at her fro red

She blinked and it was gone, but her heart was thudding and her veins buzzing She had seen the Forest Not just the woods around her village—she had seen a glimpse of the Great Forest, the Wood Behind the Wood You could wander for days beneath the trees and never see it, because it was not part of the human world; it was a secret, hidden place that sat just a little to the side But soh the shadows of tree leaves or the hollows carved by tree roots and brought the mortal woods to uncanny life

Usually it could only be seen on solstice nights Aunt Léonie had told her that Butdown, like the bonds upon the Devourer

And then she heard a voice, like butter and burned honey: “Good afternoon, little girl”

She turned

Between two trees stood asun behind him She couldn’t see his face

Then he took a step forward, and she realized that he was not a man He had a huh cloak like any villager ht wear But she could sense the predatory, inhulanced away fro about his face except that it was lovely

She looked back, and his eyesand alien He was a forestborn: one of the humans who pleased the Devourer, accepted hi not quite human anymore

“Little girl,” he said, “where are you going?”

Her heart wasdesperate spasms, but Zisa hadn’t been afraid, or at any rate hadn’t let it stop her They said Zisa had learned from the forestborn themselves how to defeat the Devourer

Maybe Rachelle could do the sa

He was only a pace away from the path now, the path that was lined in little white stones to protect it

“Little girl,” he said, “what path are you taking?”

“The path of needles,” she whispered “Not the path of pins”

And she stepped toward him off the path Her mind was a white-hot blur She couldn’t even tell anymore if she was afraid She only knew that he was part of the shadow that had lain across her world all her life, and she wouldn’t run from him, she wouldn’t So she stared into his fathomless, inhuman eyes and said, “You can kill me, but you can’t hunt me”