A Red-Rose Chain

  “We have not spoken of this, mostly, I feel, because I did not wish it, and you did not force the matter. You know I was under her control; you know I would die before I would harm you of my own volition. The matter, such as it is, is closed for you. I have known this since the moment you embraced me in Queen Windermere’s hall, and please do not doubt that I am grateful. All I have ever wished is your good regard.”

  “That’s not true,” I protested. “You were alive for centuries before I was even born.” It was a stupid thing to say, but I needed to say something, and it was the only thing I could think of.

  Tybalt smiled. It didn’t chase the shadows from his eyes. “True enough, and I won’t pretend the life I lived before you was somehow the lesser for your absence. There was no hole waiting for you to come along and fill it. I loved often, if not always well. I fought, I fled, I ruled my people, and I thought myself content. But since you have returned to us—since the waters of the Tea Gardens gave you up, and gave you back to me—not a day has passed without my considering the fragility of your smile, or the color of your eyes. You insinuated yourself into my heart like a worm into an apple, and I am consumed by you.”

  I didn’t know what to say to that. I just blinked at him, struck silent by his words. Sometimes I could forget that Tybalt was a contemporary of Shakespeare, that his language wasn’t archaic because he was putting on airs, but because that was the way he’d learned to speak: all flourish and metaphor, and an anguished search for understanding.

  “When the false Queen sang, all I heard was her voice; all I knew were her orders,” he said, expression all but begging me to understand. “I could no more have denied her in those moments than I could deny you now. I felt no love for her, thankfully—if I had, I think I might have died on the spot, my heart torn in two by the depth of my betrayal.”

  “You did what you were compelled to do,” I said, finally feeling like I was back on solid ground in this conversation. “She was part Siren. You couldn’t help yourself.” She had been part Siren, then. She wasn’t anymore. I had ripped that part of her heritage away from her as cruelly as a battlefield surgeon hacking away a limb. I hadn’t felt bad about it then, and I couldn’t bring myself to feel bad about it now. She was the one who had chosen to use her fae gifts to turn my allies against me, and to try to hold a throne that she knew damn well wasn’t hers to have. She’d deserved what I did to her.

  “But I knew.” The bitterness in his voice stopped me cold. “I knew what I was doing, even as I could not help myself. I had been pushed into the wings of my own existence, and my understudy allowed to take the stage. Don’t you understand? I wasn’t controlled so completely that I didn’t see your face as it crumpled, as my claws came away red with your blood. I could have killed you. I would have killed you. And I would have lived the rest of my life knowing that I had destroyed the woman I loved. I have lived with that knowledge, October. It was a bitter pill to swallow when Anne died, all independent of my actions. I could not have lived with it a second time. So yes, I’m worried. I’m worried that we’re walking into a situation I cannot predict or control, orchestrated by a woman who has used me as a weapon against you once before. I’m worried that when I see her face, I won’t be able to stop myself from taking my revenge. And I am equally worried that were I to stand aside, were I to let you go without me, you would not come home again.”

  “Oh, oak and ash, Tybalt.” I crossed the distance between us in two long strides, putting my arms around him again. This time, I was the one to pull him tight, and he was the one who folded into me, pressing his face to my shoulder as he cried. I just held him, stroking his back with one hand and staring at the wall while I tried to sort through all the things I wanted to say—the ones I shouldn’t say, the ones I couldn’t say, and the ones that would have to be said eventually, but would do us no good in the here and now.

  Finally, I said, very softly, “I don’t blame you. I made the choice then not to blame you, and I stand by it. You would never have hurt me if she hadn’t forced it to happen, and I got better. I always get better. That’s the thing you have to remember, okay? No matter what happens to me, I will do my best to get better, and I will not leave you. I love you. I love you even when my blood is on your hands. And I’m not going anywhere, you got that? I am not going anywhere.”

  Tybalt didn’t say anything. He just stayed where he was, crying into my shoulder. I closed my eyes as I held him close, and hoped more than anything else in the world that I wasn’t lying to him.

  SIX

  I DIDN’T SLEEP LONG, BUT the sleep I got was sweet, tangled as I was in the welcome cage of Tybalt’s arms. The light of the afternoon was coming in around the edges of the blackout curtains when I finally opened my eyes and blinked, bewildered, at the dimly lit ceiling above me. “What time is it?”

  “Later than it could be, earlier than it should be,” said Tybalt. I turned to find him sprawled next to me, his head propped up on one hand. “Did you rest well?”

  “As well as can be expected, given what we’re about to go and do,” I said. His hair was artfully disarrayed, like it had been arranged by some supernatural stylist while he slept. Mine, on the other hand, was a bird’s nest of tangles, halfway blocking my eyes. I shoved it out of the way. It flopped right back down again. I sighed and gave up as I asked, “Do you need to go back to the Court of Cats for anything?”

  Tybalt shook his head. “No. I made my farewells and my arrangements before I came to you. There was a chance that Arden might have ordered you to leave at sunrise, giving me no time to double back. I’m all yours, both now and until you’ll no longer have me.”

  “Forever. Forever’s good.” I kissed him quickly before rolling away and out of the bed. There wasn’t time to get distracted; Walther needed to be picked up, which meant driving in the exact opposite direction from Muir Woods. We’d already kept Arden waiting. It wasn’t a good idea to do that more than we had to.

  I stretched, causing my muscles to grumble and groan. I recover fast from injuries, but there are still consequences for my actions. Thank Oberon for that. Without consequences, I’d probably be worse about plunging headlong into danger than I already am. “I would kill a man for another six hours of sleep,” I said.

  “And here I was assuming that beginning quests while exhausted had become perfectly normal,” said Tybalt, sliding into a sitting position. He was naked. I could see the ghosts of his cat-form’s stripes on his back, narrow bands of darker skin. They weren’t always there. Like all Cait Sidhe, Tybalt had some control over the places where his Sidhe and feline forms met. Unlike most, his control was absolute—he looked as Sidhe as any child of the Daoine when he wanted to, and the face he usually wore only had a few telltale feline elements, which he could have hidden if he’d ever wanted to. The fact that he was comfortable enough with me to let me see his stripes was a great honor, and it just made me more determined to do right by him.

  By both of us. “Did you bring a suitcase?” I asked. “Because much as I like this look, I don’t think it’s suitable for Court, and you can’t wear the same flannel shirt for three days.”

  Tybalt snorted, shooting me an amused look. “I appreciate that you felt the need to inform me of that. I might have been unaware.”

  I shrugged. “Just making sure.”

  “Yes, I packed a valise for this trip, and it contains all that I’m likely to need during the time we have available. I am fortunate to have been born a member of the sex whose fashion requires less space; had I the need for ball gowns and elaborate footwear, I am sure I would be traveling with a steamer trunk too heavy to shift on my own. I definitely would not smash them down to make more space in a single container.” He turned to smirk at my hard-shelled suitcase. “I have always been more interested in clothing than is perhaps ideal.”

  “Whereas I’m just happy when my ass isn’t cold.” I stretched again. “Okay. I’m going
to grab a quick shower, and then we can wake up May and Quentin and get on the road.”

  “I have a better idea,” said Tybalt. “While you shower, I will wake the others, as they may also wish to cleanse themselves before getting into the car. The more we can accomplish at once, the more quickly we will be able to depart.”

  “I wasn’t aware that you were in such a hurry to go,” I said.

  He leaned over and caught my hand, giving it a brief squeeze before releasing it. “I assure you that I’m not. I am in a deep hurry to return home, safe and sound and with all of this behind us. If this must be done—and it must—then it is best that it be done quickly.”

  “I love it when you misquote Shakespeare,” I said, earning myself a wry look before he grabbed his trousers off the floor, pulled them on, and prowled, bare-chested, out of the room. May was going to get a surprise.

  Ah, well. She could handle a few surprises. I took my bathrobe off the back of the door and made my way to the master bathroom.

  Showering only took about ten minutes. It wouldn’t have taken even that long if I hadn’t needed to wash my hair before going to visit hostile royalty. It seemed polite. Packing my toiletries and cosmetics—such as they were—took me even less time. I stepped out of the master bathroom to find that Tybalt had not yet returned. I dropped my cosmetics case into my backpack and was in the process of zipping it up when my eye caught on the bottom drawer of my dresser and I stopped, just looking at it, feeling my heart beating too hard against my ribs.

  There was a time, when I was more human than I am now, when I carried two knives everywhere I went. A silver knife, received from Dare before she died, and an iron knife, received from Acacia, otherwise known as the Mother of the Trees. The iron hadn’t burned me then, although I’d needed to handle it with care. Iron kills magic. It’s the only thing that can reliably be used to destroy the fae—all save for the Firstborn themselves, who must be killed with iron and silver together. It’s not forbidden, exactly, but it’s viewed as a cheater’s weapon.

  And I wanted to take it with me so badly that it hurt. I wanted the safety it would afford, even if I never took it out of its case. I couldn’t carry it in my bare hands anymore; it would blister my skin and poison my blood if I tried. The closest comparison in the human world was pure uranium.

  In the end, I turned away, and left the dresser drawer closed. There would be a time for iron. This was not that time.

  I dressed the way I always did: jeans, a tank top, and my leather jacket, which was the only armor I’d ever worn into battle, and sometimes felt like the only armor I would ever need. Then, with my hair still damp against the back of my neck, I picked up my suitcase and walked out to face my fate.

  May, Tybalt, and Quentin were already in the kitchen when I came downstairs. Quentin was at the breakfast table, his face pressed against the mat. May seemed slightly more alert, but only slightly. She was wearing jeans and a brown cable-knit sweater. At least one reason for her exhaustion was immediately evident: the streaks of color were gone from her hair, leaving it the plain, no-color brown that she’d inherited from me when she took my face and form. I blinked at her before raising an eyebrow.

  “What did you do to your hair?” I asked.

  “I figured anything I could do to not draw attention to my appearance would be a good thing,” she said, before smothering a yawn behind her hand. “I’m not going to lie about what I am, and there’s a good chance Nameless McBitchypants will tell the King of Silences that I’m a Fetch as soon as she realizes who I am. But if we can pass me off as a changeling member of your retinue for at least a little while, that’s what we should do.”

  I blinked at her again. “That’s . . . a really good idea,” I said finally. “Good thinking.”

  “I was up until an hour before he,” she jerked a thumb toward Tybalt, “came to pry me out of bed. This is a terrible plan. Why can’t we sleep until six? We can prevent the war after six happens.”

  “Arden wants us there before we’re expected,” I said brusquely, leaving my suitcase in the doorway as I walked to the fridge. I yanked the freezer door open and rummaged until I found my waffles. “This way we arrive while they’re all still getting ready for the day.”

  “And this won’t make them shoot us on the spot?”

  “That would be undiplomatic. Look, I figure they’re already going to be pissy and hard to deal with. Maybe if they’re pissy, hard to deal with, and exhausted, they’ll slip up.” I dropped my waffles into the toaster. “Or maybe we will. Hell, I don’t know. Do whatever you have to do to wake yourselves up. Swallow a bottle of No-Doze. Lick a bee. I have no useful suggestions here.”

  “Nor do you have any actual nutrition in your planned meal,” observed Tybalt.

  “Why mess with a good thing?” I threw the empty waffle box at the back of Quentin’s head. It hit him squarely. He sat bolt upright, twisting around to give me a betrayed look. “Up. It’s time for wakefulness and energy, not drooping like a wilted flower.”

  “I hate you,” he said.

  “Weren’t you enrolled in human high school at one point? They would have made you get up much earlier than this.”

  “I was going to bed earlier when I did that, and fewer things were trying to kill me on a nightly basis,” he said, before yawning enormously. “Can I sleep in the car?”

  “Until we get to Muir Woods, yes, you can sleep in the car,” I said. My waffles popped up, somehow managing to be soggy and burnt at the same time. I plucked them out of the toaster, juggling them from hand to hand as I waited for the hot parts to cool off and the frozen parts to warm up. “It’s not too late to back out, you know. You could stay here with Jazz. No one would blame you.”

  His sleepy expression hardened into narrow-eyed suspicion. “Are we leaving this early because you don’t want me coming with you?”

  “No, but it’s a good idea,” I said. I finally got both waffles settled in one hand, and walked to recover my suitcase. It was heavier than it looked. Spider-silk compacts small. It’s still heavy as hell. “My sword is in the car; this is all I need. Do the rest of you have all your things?”

  “Yes,” said May.

  “Yes,” said Tybalt.

  “I really hate you,” said Quentin.

  “Good. Get your stuff in the car.” I started for the door. Spike—having crept into the kitchen at some point when I wasn’t looking—followed, sticking close to my ankles and rattling its thorns like an angry maraca. It was almost soothing, in a weird sort of way. Here I was, diving back into the unknown, and my rose goblin was coming with me for the ride.

  Quentin was asleep almost as soon as his butt hit the backseat. He put his head against the window, mouth hanging open, and fell back into the deep, slow breathing that signified a body fully at rest. May slouched into the other side of the backseat, yawning, and slumped slowly over to rest her head against his ribs. I paused in the act of opening the driver’s side door, looking at the pair of them.

  “This is going to be a disaster,” I said.

  “Have faith,” said Tybalt, opening his own door. “Perhaps we will all return home with our limbs intact and our souls unbowed.”

  “Yeah, and maybe I’ll finally get that pony,” I said.

  Spike followed me as I slid into the car. First it scrambled into my lap, and then it leaped onto the dashboard, where it paced and rattled before settling down in a catlike curl. I wasn’t worried about any of the human drivers we shared the road with seeing it: the smaller creatures of Faerie are protected from mortal eyes by almost unconscious illusions, making them seem like shadows and tricks of the light, not impossible creatures. It was a nice trick.

  Sadly, it wasn’t a trick the rest of us shared. All four of us were roughly human, and could probably pass from a distance, but it wasn’t a good idea to push our luck. I reached up and grabbed a fistful of shadows and a
ir from the roof of the car.

  “I’ll do my illusion if you can put a don’t-look-here on the car,” I said to Tybalt, who nodded. He mimicked my gesture, and for a few seconds the car was filled with the mingled scents of our magic and the slightly disjointed sound of our chanting. We both chose Shakespeare: me, a passage from The Tempest, him, one of the sonnets. I couldn’t stop my own casting long enough to listen and figure out which one it was. That was a pity. Tybalt reciting Shakespeare was something that should have been savored, not ignored in favor of blunting the tips of my ears and shifting the color of my eyes to something that looked more blue, and less like the fog that hung in the early morning air.

  I shouldn’t have needed a separate human disguise—not with a good don’t-look-here over the rest of the car—but someone was going to need to go and collect Walther when we got to the college, and that someone might as well be me. It was my fault that he was getting involved in all of this, after all.

  My spell gathered and burst, followed by Tybalt’s a bare second later. I slid the key into the ignition and started the car, feeling it purr to life around me. Glancing at Tybalt, I asked, “So how much do you know about the Cu Sidhe?”

  “The dogs?” He wrinkled his nose. “As much as I must. They’re pleasant people, for the most part, if a bit simple. Not stupid, mind: just simple. I dislike their lack of complexity. It makes every interaction feel like a trick. Why do you ask?”

  “Tia,” I said. “I’ve never known one of them to get angry that fast.”

  “Ah.” His expression shifted, becoming almost melancholy. “There was a time when not many Cu Sidhe lived in this Kingdom, little fish. This was cat territory, and we mostly avoid one another, when we can. They lived in Silences.”