A Red-Rose Chain

by Seanan McGuire

  “I’m still working on them.” Walther turned to look at me, expression grave. “I have five different rose strains that fit your description. One of them might be the answer, or none of them might be. I’m not going to stop, but I can’t make it happen any faster.”

  “Try.” I stood, looking at the broken arrow shaft in my hand. “We came here to prevent a war, not to get picked off one by one by an asshole with an ax to grind. I need to talk to the King.”

  “I will come with you,” said Tybalt.

  “No.” The word was out before I was even fully aware that I was thinking it. I turned to find Tybalt staring at me. “I want you there. I want you there more than anything. But you can’t be. Having the monarch of a political structure completely outside our own standing next to me is actually a political weakness. It implies that I can’t take care of myself. I’m taking Quentin, because he reinforces my place in this political structure, and because I want witnesses. But I can’t take you. I’m sorry.”

  Tybalt looked at me flatly for several seconds. Then, seemingly against his will, he smiled. It wasn’t a big thing: his lips barely moved, and while the smile touched his eyes, they remained sad, too dark with all the troubles of the past few days to ever lighten. “You are learning, and I can’t fault you for that,” he said. “If anything, it will keep you with me longer. But be careful, and don’t be afraid to run. Do you understand? If your safety is threatened, run. I refuse to wait a hundred years to be married.”

  “You won’t have to,” I said. I looked down at my tank top and jeans, and shook my head. Rhys no longer got to make me dress up for him, and if the false Queen wanted to transform my clothes again, she could go right ahead. Every spell she cast sapped a little of her power. Let her exhaust herself on things that didn’t matter.

  But only on the things that didn’t matter. I shrugged out of my leather jacket, draping it over the foot of the bed. “I’ll be back. Quentin, you’re with me.”

  I didn’t wait to see what Tybalt would say to that. I just turned and stalked toward the exit, Quentin dogging my heels like he was afraid letting me out of his sight for a second would mean letting me out of his sight forever. I didn’t blame him for feeling that way. I sort of shared the sentiment.

  Leaving Tybalt behind to protect Walther and strengthen my own position might have been the smart thing to do, but as we stalked along the empty, echoing halls, I felt the hairs on the back of my neck rising and my muscles tensing, every inch of me preparing for an attack. There was a time when all my grand confrontations involved me and me alone. That time was in the past. I had grown accustomed to having backup when I went to bait my metaphorical dragons, people who would fight with me, rather than against me. I still had Quentin, but that was almost worse, because even if he tried to jump between me and someone’s sword, I wouldn’t let him. I could never let him. He was my squire. He was my friend. He was my semi-adopted son, and I loved him too much to be the cause of his suffering.

  Almost as if he could read my thoughts, Quentin said quietly, “You can order me to go back if you want, but I’m not going to listen.” I shot him a surprised look. He shook his head. “I know you. This is about where you start realizing you left your big guns behind, and start thinking I’d be better off if I was somewhere safer. That usually means you’re forgetting that I’m your squire.”

  “I never forget that,” I protested.

  “No, you never forget that you’re my knight, and that it’s your responsibility to protect me and stuff,” said Quentin. “But me being your squire means it’s also my responsibility to protect you. I’ll never be a knight if I let you run off and get yourself killed without at least trying to keep you in one piece.”

  “I’m hard to kill,” I said.

  “So am I,” said Quentin, in a voice that made it clear he didn’t want to argue about this anymore.

  I still considered it. Getting the Crown Prince of the Westlands elf-shot because I didn’t want to talk to the King of Silences alone struck me as a bad plan. At the same time, Quentin’s parents had known the risks when they had agreed to let him try for his knighthood—something that wasn’t required for him to become King one day. And they did have a backup heir if I got this one put to sleep for a century.

  “I hate my life sometimes,” I muttered, and kept walking.

  The doors to the receiving room were closed, flanked by two guards in the livery of Silences. They moved to block me as I started for the door. I marched straight up to the closer of them, making no effort whatsoever to conceal my fury.

  “You will not fuck with me right now, do you understand?” I snapped. “I am here as a diplomatic emissary, and you are going to start respecting that title if I have to punch every single one of you assholes in the throat. Now I am going to talk to your King, and he is going to give me some answers, or I’m going back to Arden and kick-starting this war all by myself. Do I make myself perfectly clear?”

  The guards stared at me. Quentin smirked.

  “She’s using human profanity,” he said. “She learned that from her close personal friend, the Luidaeg. Just in case you were wondering if you needed to be concerned right now. I would be, if she was talking to me like that.”

  The guards exchanged a look. Then they stepped back, allowing me open access to the doors. I paused, looking at them. “You should get out of here, you know. Things are about to get ugly.” Before they could react, I shoved the doors open and marched inside, Quentin once again at my heels.

  There were people in the receiving room, men and women dressed for Court and milling around the edges. Going by the time, they were probably getting ready for dinner. Meals seemed to be the focus of all the action around here, maybe because there was nothing else anyone could do that didn’t run the risk of the King stepping in with an elf-shot arrow and an admonition about bad behavior. Some of those same people gasped when they saw me, pointing at my outlandish human world attire and covering their mouths like they had never seen anything more shocking in their lives. Quentin, who was dressed similarly, walked beside me with his head held up, every inch the prince he had been born to be. If their stares concerned him, he didn’t show it.

  I couldn’t have cared less about the petty concerns of a bunch of fops, courtiers, and political leeches. All my attention was on the man at the head of the room, King Rhys, sitting on his throne and smirking—yes, smirking—as he watched me approach. The seat reserved for the false Queen was currently empty, which explained how we were able to make it all the way to the foot of the dais without someone turning my jeans into a ball gown.

  Rhys composed his expression as we drew closer, but it was a hollow gesture: he knew we had seen his true face, and he didn’t care. We were of no more concern to him than the rose goblins in his gardens, and he wanted us to know it.

  Oh, I knew it. And I was going to make him pay for it. I held up the broken arrow, showing him the feathers.

  “Does the hospitality of your halls always extend to pursuing visitors into the streets of Portland—into the mortal world—and leaving them in alleyways with elf-shot inches from their hearts? Because where I come from, that is neither showing respect to your guests nor to the rules which keep us safely hidden.” My voice was cold as ice, and I was actually proud of myself for that: until I’d started speaking, I’d been afraid that I would scream. Raising my voice to the King of Silences might be the last thing I’d do for a hundred years.

  “I assume you refer to your ‘lady’s maid,’ the Fetch,” said King Rhys. His voice was calm, even reasonable, like he was negotiating side dishes for the meal to come. “You did not inform me when you arrived in my lands that you traveled with an oddity never before seen in Faerie. A Fetch with no living tether? It seemed impossible to me. But my lady insisted that this woman who accompanied you was no changeling, no distaff sister; that she was, instead, something entirely different and hence p
otentially dangerous.”

  “May is my sister, named and accepted by the Firstborn of my line,” I said. It was stretching the truth a bit, but not so much as to break it. “The fact that she started out as my Fetch is irrelevant. In what world is an elf-shot arrow to the body a part of proper hospitality? You break the laws that we all live by, and you do it without remorse.”

  “I broke no laws,” said Rhys. He waved his hand carelessly, as if he was brushing away my petty, uninformed concerned. “Portland is my city, the crown jewel of my Kingdom, even as San Francisco is under my lady’s right and proper rule. I am allowed—no, I am required—to protect it as I do my own lands, my own halls. When my guard saw a strange woman carrying a mysterious bag in a dark alley, they acted according to their orders, and they subdued her before she could do any damages. Imagine my surprise when they came back to me and reported that they had silenced your maidservant.”

  “Oh, I’m imagining it,” I said darkly. “This is an act of aggression during a time when we are supposedly under your protection. As to the bag she carried, I’d like it back, please.”

  “Is it really an act of aggression?” He leaned forward. “She walked my streets under a mask that hid her true face, after failing to divulge her nature upon her arrival. She carried such contraband as could fuel an army of alchemists. Is this an act of aggression on my part, or an act of treason on hers? Be glad I am an honorable man, Sir Daye, or I could have the lot of you arrested—and this time, there would be no argument to free you from my chains.” He didn’t mention my laundry.

  “Everyone fae wears a mask when they go out into the mortal world,” I said, through gritted teeth. “If you don’t, you run the risk of attracting human aggression. She’s not plotting treason against the crown. Not yours. Not anyone’s.”

  “We’ll ask her, when she wakes up,” said Rhys. “If you would like to have her kept here, to prevent the need to set up a room for her slumbers, we would be glad to discuss this with you. We have well-established bedding and care for our sleepers.”

  I stiffened, mouth opening as I prepared to rip into him for his treatment of those “sleepers.” Then I stopped.

  We only knew about his harvesting alchemical supplies from the sleeping members of the royal family because Marlis had told us. Marlis would never have said anything if Walther hadn’t broken the spell of obedience that had been placed on her. If I said anything to indicate that I knew what he was doing to them, I would be outing Marlis as free of his control, and more, I would be revealing an actual act of treason. If he was willing to interpret carrying my laundry as hostile alchemy, how would he take Walther using alchemy to free his sister from enspellment?

  My mouth was already open: I had to say something. “What did you do with my laundry?”

  “Oh, is that what the Fetch was carrying? It has been destroyed. We don’t allow dangerous alchemical materials to be left lying around where anyone could get to them.” Rhys looked at me, challenging me to call him a liar.

  He was a liar. I knew that, as sure as I knew that I couldn’t prove it. There was no way he’d been handed a bag of my blood and decided that it should just be thrown away—not when he’d been so eager to get his hands on it. Maybe it would be better straight from the source, but that didn’t make my blood-soaked clothing worthless.

  “I see,” I said. I looked at him. He looked back, utterly calm. The bastard was practically smirking, he was so delighted to have the upper hand. And there was nothing I could do about it. “I will see to my own people’s comfort, and my sister will be returning to the Mists with us when this is done. If you will excuse me, I must prepare my remaining retinue for dinner.”

  “You will tell me before you venture back into the city, will you not, Sir Daye?” Rhys’ voice was mild, but not so mild that I couldn’t recognize the command it contained. “I would hate for this to happen again. Your King of Cats, of course, is free to come and go as he wishes—I wouldn’t want to restrict another monarch in his movements—but it’s safer for the rest of you if you make sure I am aware of your movements.”

  “Yes, Sire,” I said. I bowed, as shallowly as I could without giving offense. “May we go?”

  “Yes,” said Rhys. This time, he didn’t bother hiding his smile. He had won. He knew it, and so did I.

  I turned, Quentin close behind me, and left the receiving room as quickly as I dared without seeming to run from the presence of a sitting King. The false Queen did not reappear. The courtiers tittered and pointed after us, their laughter following our exit, until the doors had slammed on our heels and we were alone in the hallway. Mostly alone: Rhys’ men were still there, flanking the door and watching us with narrow, wary eyes.

  “Come on,” I said, unable to stem the growing feeling of dread in my stomach. “Let’s go.”

  “Go where?” asked Quentin.

  I had to force my next words out. Each one was a rock against my teeth. “We have to get ready for dinner.” I’m sorry, May, I thought. We still have to play his game. I’m so sorry.

  Quentin looked at me and nodded. Together, we walked back down the hall toward the stairs that would take us to our room. We were in deep trouble, and getting deeper all the time—and, Oberon help me, I had no idea how I was going to get us out of this one.

  I had no idea at all.

  SEVENTEEN

  WITHOUT MAY, GETTING ME ready for dinner was a much simpler, much less elegant process. I pulled a dress from the wardrobe, checked to make sure it didn’t have any visible bloodstains, and retreated to the bathroom to put it on. Tybalt had seen me naked often enough not to care, but I didn’t feel like stripping down in front of Walther and Quentin. I emerged from the bathroom as Quentin was vanishing into his own room to put a clean vest on, and blinked at the sight of Tybalt, already in a clean jerkin, shirt, and black leather trousers, sitting on the bed next to May’s unmoving form.

  “How the hell did you get changed faster than me?” I demanded. “Those pants look painted on.”

  “I will never reveal my secrets, save to remind you that I have been an actor in my day, and sometimes the turns between scenes are very tight.” Tybalt’s voice was forcedly light, like he was trying to sound like his old, unconcerned self.

  “Right.” I walked over to where he was sitting and leaned over to place a kiss on the top of his head, between the black stripes that marked his otherwise brown hair. “Walther, what’s the situation with you? Are you coming to dinner?”

  He shook his head. “No. I figure most of Rhys’ men will be there, so I’m going to sneak out to see Aunt Ceres, see if she can’t help me get those roses. Once I can start testing them against the elf-shot that was used on May, we’ll be able to find out pretty quickly whether or not I’m going to be able to come up with a counter.”

  “You will,” I said. “I know you will.” I wasn’t as sure as I was trying to sound. I couldn’t imagine a world where Walther failed. May was . . .

  May was my sister. She was a part of our family, and there was no way we were going to leave her asleep for the next hundred years. Even if I could justify it to myself, there was no way I could explain the situation to Jazz. “Sorry I took your girlfriend off and got her elf-shot” wasn’t a conversation I had ever wanted to have.

  “Here’s hoping,” said Walther. He leaned back and offered me a wry smile. “You look lovely. Finally, we know what it takes to get you into a dress several times in a row.”

  “This is just reinforcing my belief that dresses are a form of torture,” I said flatly. I was wearing the silver spider-silk gown that I had previously worn to Arden’s Yule Ball, back before there had been any whisper of the possibility of war. That hadn’t been a perfect night—they so rarely were—but it had been a better one than this.

  “It is difficult to believe we’ve been here for such a short period of time,” said Tybalt. He slid off the bed, offering me hi
s arm. I took it automatically, moving more on autopilot than anything else. He smiled, just a little. “Indeed, if we can bring about a kingdom’s downfall in less than a week, I feel sure Arden will give you some sort of reward.”

  “Yeah, like a plane ticket to someplace really far away from the Mists,” said Quentin, emerging from his room. “Maybe a nice tropical island.”

  “With our luck, the nice tropical island would be filled with dinosaurs,” I said dryly.

  “Still less annoying than what we’re dealing with here,” said Quentin.

  “Sad but true.” I paused, pulling my hand away from Tybalt’s arm. “We need to walk to the dining room. Arriving through the shadows makes us look too dependent on Tybalt to do everything for us.”

  “Twice you reject me, in quick succession,” said Tybalt. “Truly, my heart is broken.”

  “Don’t break so fast. I need you to do me a favor.”

  Tybalt raised an eyebrow. “Do tell.”

  “The route from here to the dining room is pretty straightforward. Quentin and I aren’t going to get lost if we start walking on our own. Can you take Walther to Ceres? It’s not that I don’t trust you to sneak out, Walther,” I hastened to add. “It’s that Rhys has eyes everywhere, and I’d rather be safe than sorry right now.”

  Walther nodded. “That’s actually a good idea. We’ll have to leave May here, but if Tybalt wards the door from the outside, opening it becomes an act of aggression against the Court of Cats. I think we can trust Rhys not to be that stupid—yet. He may get worse once he’s backed into a corner.”

  “So we make sure we don’t do that until we’re ready to go in for the kill,” I said, as reasonably as I could manage.

  Tybalt sighed. “You are bound and determined to get yourselves killed. Yes, I will take Walther to his aunt, but only if you promise to be careful in walking out without my company to protect you. If you reach the dining hall before I return, you must not go in. That is what I will ask of you, in exchange for my forbearance in this matter. Are we in agreement?”