A Red-Rose Chain

by Seanan McGuire

  “Well?” he asked. “Time is short, and sleep is precious. I should like to think you’d be allowing the first to expedite the second.”

  “Sorry.” I kicked my own shoes off, and squirmed out of my leather jacket, draping it over the bedside table. Only then did I roll over, still effectively clothed, to snuggle against him. The smell of pennyroyal and musk was comforting, and I pressed my face to his chest, breathing it in.

  Tybalt chuckled, although he sounded less amused than relieved. “Times are hard, and this is a battle unlike any you have fought before. Take comfort in knowing that you do not fight alone, and allow yourself to rest.”

  “I’m trying.” I tilted my head back, looking at him. “I’m not equipped for this. I’m going to screw it up.”

  “My dear, your entire life has been a succession of things you were not equipped for, and while you may have, as you so charmingly say, ‘screwed some of them up,’ you have, in the main, come through spectacularly well. You are surrounded by allies, and each of us is, in our own way, uniquely suited to the challenges ahead—as are you, or you wouldn’t be here. Trust Arden to know her people. Trust us to know your needs. Trust yourself to protect your Kingdom.” He kissed my forehead. “And sleep, I beg of you. You were bad enough when you were still drowning yourself in coffee. Now, when you become overtired, you are positively unlivable.”

  “I love you, too,” I said, and leaned up to kiss him.

  It wasn’t the most romantic kiss. I was fully clothed, he was still wearing trousers, and we were in what was effectively the fanciest guest room bed I had ever seen, with my squire just one thin door away. But his lips were warm and tasted like pennyroyal, and I could feel the purr vibrating through his chest. Sometimes romance is of less importance than the feeling of being absolutely safe: of knowing that nothing and no one can hurt you, because the person who loves you most in all the world will destroy them if they try.

  I put my head down on his arm, closed my eyes, and let the world go away for a while. If I dreamt at all, I dreamt only shallowly, and there was nothing there that could hurt me.

  Tybalt pulling his arm from under my head rocked me back into wakefulness. I opened my eyes, blinking first at the canopy above me, and then, as I shifted positions enough to look at the rest of the room, at the open doorway. May was standing there, arms folded, a concerned look on her face. She was wearing a dress I’d never seen before, a sedate concoction in gray silk with blue accents, like something out of a Waterhouse painting. I sat up, blinking again.

  “Are you awake?” she asked. Her voice was flat, devoid of anything that would tell me how she was feeling.

  Tybalt, who had been sitting up and rubbing his face in an effort to wipe his own weariness away, stiffened. I felt him changing positions on the bed next to me, and knew he was moving into a position from which he could maneuver better.

  “Yes,” I said cautiously.

  “Good. I’ve prepared milady’s dress for the meal. May I enter?”

  “Yes,” I said again, even more cautiously this time.

  “You are gracious,” said May, and stepped into the room, pulling the door closed behind her. Her posture and expression instantly changed, going limp with relief. “Oberon’s ass, I thought I was going to pull something. It’s worse than we thought out there, and it’s a damn good thing you both got some sleep, because I don’t know when that’s going to happen again.”

  “What?” I rubbed my eyes with the heels of my hands, trying to chase the sleep away. It wasn’t happening fast enough. “What’s going on?”

  “Quentin needs to get up.” May strode across the room, her new gown snapping at her ankles, and pounded on Quentin’s door with the heel of her hand before shouting, “Yo! Get your ass up! We have forty-five minutes!”

  Her tone did what all the eye-rubbing in the world wouldn’t have been able to do, rocketing me from groggy wakefulness into full alertness in an instant. I hadn’t heard my Fetch sound that panicked since before we’d been separated. Once—and only once—she’d thought I was about to die, taking her with me. She’d sounded like this then.

  “May?” I slid off the bed, standing. “Seriously, what’s going on?”

  “What’s going on is that this Kingdom is fucked up, and it’s our fault.” She rounded on me, eyes brimming with unshed tears. “We knew, Toby. We knew Silences was a puppet government, and we knew the current king got the throne because he was willing to be an asshole to changelings. We knew that meant things here were probably bad. And we ignored it. It was inconvenient, and we ignored it.”

  “May, honey.” I reached out and grabbed her hands. Behind her, the door to Quentin’s temporary room swung open and my squire stepped into the room, blinking blearily underneath the tangled fringe of his hair. I ignored him, focusing on her. “You still haven’t told us what you’re talking about. We want to help, but you have to explain.”

  “Almost all the staff here are changelings, Toby,” she said. There was something dull, nearly broken, about her voice. May was a pureblood, but unlike most purebloods, she had never enjoyed the privilege of that position. As a night-haunt, she had been exiled to the edges of Faerie, denied the glitter and pageantry of the courts. And when she had finally become a Fetch, she had done so with the memories of two changelings—myself, and Dare—fresh in her mind. Despite her centuries of living, she remembered growing up as a changeling more vividly than she remembered anything else about her youth.

  Slow comprehension was dawning at the back of my mind, hampered by an unwillingness to accept what she was saying. But understanding is a cruel beast: it will have its hour, no matter how painful.

  “No changeling would voluntarily stay in Silences,” I said. “Being part human doesn’t make you stupid.”

  “No. But being born to be put into service makes you afraid to run away.” May shook her head, a tear escaping to run down her cheek, before she stalked over to the wardrobe where I’d stowed my gowns. She wrenched it open, continuing to talk. “Most of them, their parents are on the staff. They were born in the Summerlands. They never had the Choice, because Faerie was all they knew. Service is all they’ve ever known. They think . . . they said . . .” She stopped.

  Quentin was staring at her, his face pale and his eyes wide. He’d been my squire for years, and most of his early ideas about changelings had faded in the face of knowing us. It’s hard to reduce people to stereotypes after actually meeting them. But in some ways, I think going from a relatively sheltered boyhood to Shadowed Hills, to me, hadn’t done him any real favors, because he’d never been forced to see the way changelings were treated in the rest of the world—and that included places like Silences, which were part of his father’s greater Kingdom, and would one day be his.

  “What did they say?” I asked, stepping over to May and taking the dress gently from her hands.

  She sighed, a long, shuddering sound, and said, “They said you were incredibly generous, letting me run around unsupervised when we’d just shown up here, since there was a chance I could offend someone in your absence. Then they explained what that would mean. They beat their servants, Toby. Like this was the middle ages or something. There are children working in the kitchen. Children. They’ve never seen the mortal world. They’ve never been to school. And they flinch if any adult raises their hands above shoulder level, because they’ve been here since they were born, and they know what a raised hand means.”

  I stared at her. Then I threw my dress on the bed and put my arms around her, pulling her close. She pressed her face into my shoulder and sobbed.

  Growing up as a changeling in the Mists was hard. I had never considered that other Kingdoms might have it even worse.

  Tybalt’s hand landed on my free shoulder. I twisted to look at him. His mouth was set in a thin, disapproving line, and I was reminded—not for the first time—that part of the conflict between the
Court of Cats and the Divided Courts was the way that we treated our changelings. Cait Sidhe didn’t care so much about blood purity. They cared about strength, and how effectively you knew how to use it. Everything else was secondary.

  “I won’t claim to be as angry as I know you must be. That frightens me, because I’m furious, and I can’t stop worrying about what you may choose to do next,” he said. “You must dress. We cannot insult this king at our first meal in his home.”

  “I’d like to do more than insult him,” I said. May pulled away, and I let her, turning to face Tybalt instead. “If things here are as bad as May says, something has to be done.”

  Tybalt nodded solemnly. “Yes. And yet, nothing will be done if we begin by offending the king. No.” He raised his hand as I was inhaling to object. “I am sorry, but no. This is, for once, a situation that cannot be resolved with blunt force, cannot be reconciled through bullheadedness or refusal to participate. We are here to play their game, to go through the dance steps that define the political waltz of the Divided Courts. We cannot refuse. You must put your dress on. You must dry your eyes. And you must ride to battle of a different sort.”

  I looked at him. I turned to look at May, who was still crying, and at Quentin, standing white-faced and silent in his doorway. I couldn’t let them down, no matter how much I wanted to.

  “All right,” I said. “Let’s get ready to meet the locals.”

  NINE

  WE WALKED ALONG THE deserted hall like prisoners on our way to our own execution. Tybalt had his arm locked into place, held out and bent just so, allowing me to rest my hand on the inside of his elbow. Walther and Quentin walked three feet behind us, as was appropriate for servants attending on a diplomatic mission—at least according to Quentin, and I had no reason to argue with him.

  May had decided to skip lunch in favor of staying back at the room. She was already approaching the point of total exhaustion, and she needed to sleep more than she needed to eat. The last I’d seen, she’d been crawling into the bed in Quentin’s room, where she could sleep without fear of the door opening and someone trying to drag her back to the servants’ quarters. I had the feeling Quentin was going to wind up sleeping on the floor for at least part of our stay. I didn’t think he was going to object.

  “You are digging your fingers into my flesh, little fish,” said Tybalt mildly. He was wearing a rough silk shirt and brown leather vest that wouldn’t have looked out of place in a Pirates of the Caribbean movie. For once, his trousers weren’t leather, but brown cotton, and tight enough that they would have been indecent if not for the length of his vest. It was a shame I was too tense to really admire the view.

  “Sorry,” I said, and didn’t relax my hand.

  Quentin and Walther were wearing generic jerkin and trousers combinations in shades of blue and gray similar to the ones that May had been wearing. I suspected some minor illusions had been used to change the color of their clothes, since the last time I’d looked in Quentin’s wardrobe, he hadn’t owned that much that coordinated with the banner of the Mists. I was in a long gray silk gown so pale that it would have looked white if not for the braided red belt that rode low on my hips. It wasn’t the belt that had come with the dress—that one had been bright, bloody red, unrelenting and almost gaudy. This one was new, made by May, and it alternated arterial red with a darker, quieter shade, the color of blood allowed to dry on a marble floor.

  Matching ribbons were twined through my hair, pulling it up and back into a complicated crown braid that I was going to be wearing until someone else took it down. My makeup was understated enough that I was unlikely to destroy it by mistake, but it played up the human roundness of my features more than the fae sharpness that had been overtaking it in recent years. It was May’s subtle way of making sure no one could look at me and forget what I really was, and I loved her for it.

  We stopped outside the closed doors to the banquet hall, waiting to be allowed inside. A muffled voice spoke from the other side of the doors. I couldn’t hear the words, but I could make out the tone, and it was the loud, measured cadence of a herald announcing an arrival. I straightened, tightening my grip on Tybalt’s arm. To his credit, he didn’t say anything.

  The doors swung open. We stepped inside.

  The banquet hall was as austere as the rest of the knowe, all plain wood and stone floors, like something from a movie full of knights and wizards and dragons to be slain. The nobility of his court looked almost laughably out of place in their silks, velvets, and other fine fabrics, perching on the long benches that ran along either side of the equally long banquet tables. Servants in the livery of Silences circulated with trays of sliced meat, eggs, baked goods, and juices.

  All of the people in silk and velvet were purebloods. Daoine Sidhe, Tuatha de Dannan, Tylwyth Teg, and Ellyllon. All of the staff were changelings.

  There was a smaller table positioned on a low dais at the head of the room, presumably for the king and his companions. There were two chairs there, and an assortment of foodstuffs had already been set out, waiting for Rhys to arrive. I narrowed my eyes, glancing back to the banquet tables. The nobles already seated there were watching us, expressions calculating, taking our measure. None of them had touched their food. This was a “no one eats before the king does” court, then; good to know.

  There was a space open at the end of one bench on the banquet table nearest the dais. Tybalt and I walked over and sat, with Quentin and Walther waiting to see that we were settled. Walther leaned forward, in the guise of straightening my skirt, and pressed a small vial of silver-blue powder into my hand.

  “Everything you eat or drink,” he murmured. “Don’t forget.”

  I nodded. He retreated, along with Quentin, to a table at the back of the room.

  We had barely settled ourselves when the herald posted by the door announced, in that same loud, ringing tone, “His Majesty, by Grace of Oberon, King Rhys of Silences, and his honored guest, the rightful Queen of the Mists.”

  The nobles around us stood. Tybalt stood, the narrowing of his pupils betraying his unhappiness. A heartbeat later, I followed the rest to my feet, gathering my skirts in my hands in an effort to keep myself from shaking. I didn’t expect it to work, but at least it was something I could do, however small, however useless.

  A door I hadn’t seen before opened in the wall at the back of the dais, and King Rhys appeared. He had his arm held out at his side, just the way Tybalt always held his when he was escorting me. And there, walking next to him, calm and cool and serene as ever, was the former Queen of the Mists.

  She was a mixed-blood, part Sea Wight and part Banshee, and her heritage showed in everything she was. Her skin was the color of a dead, waterlogged sailor’s flesh, and her hair was the color of sea foam, long and fine and perfectly straight, even as it fell past her feet to trail along the floor. Her eyes were like moonlight shining off the sea, blank and cold and halfway mad. She was smaller than she used to be, thin and frail and fragile-looking. That was my fault. She’d been part Siren, once, and when I’d taken that part of her heritage away from her, I had taken more than a foot of height and all the color she had once possessed.

  I should have felt bad about that. I had changed her body without her consent, and it wasn’t the sort of thing that could be taken back: so far as I knew, not even my mother could have restored the old Queen’s Siren blood. I couldn’t bring myself to feel anything more than faintly triumphant. She had tried to kill me. She had tried to destroy the people I loved. All I’d done was what I’d had to do.

  King Rhys looked across the assemblage with a mild, content smile on his face, like this was exactly the way the world ought to be. The false Queen looked at me, and only me, and her eyes burned with hatred. She’d destroy me, if she could, and nothing I or anyone else could say was going to make her stop wanting my head on a platter.

  On the plus side, I could probabl
y make her want it more, if I was willing to really work. It’s always nice to have goals.

  The King’s smile broadened when he saw me standing there in my Court finery. He didn’t say anything. He just sank down onto his own seat. The false Queen sat a few seconds later, gracefully settling herself beside him. Then, and only then, did the rest of the nobles retake their seats, doing it with an ease that told me this was the normal way of things around here. The servants began circulating faster, getting food onto empty plates and pouring liquid into empty glasses.

  I was at the end of our bench, putting Tybalt between me and the nobility of Silences. I was grateful for that, and still trying to regain my equilibrium, when a familiar smell assaulted my nostrils. I reeled, barely grabbing the table in time to keep myself from falling off the bench. Tybalt’s hand clamped down on my leg, adding additional stability, even as it served as a warning of a sort. He was telling me not to react.

  He could have skipped it. I was so shocked by what was happening that I couldn’t have reacted if I’d wanted to—not beyond slowly turning my head and staring at the man on the other side of Tybalt, who was picking up a crystal mimosa flute filled with dark purple, almost black juice. He sniffed it appreciatively before taking a long sip and extending it back out toward the changeling server, who dutifully topped off the glass from the pitcher she was holding. She wasn’t wearing a mask over her mouth and nose, and her eyes were filled with a clutching, clawing need.

  I understood how she felt. For changelings, just the smell of goblin fruit was enough to awaken an undying hunger that would gnaw at our bones until it was fulfilled. Even with Tybalt between me and the man who held the glass, it was all I could do to stop myself from reaching over and snatching it out of his hand, claiming it as my own. For the girl holding the pitcher, the temptation must have been unbearable.