A Red-Rose Chain

“You know I’m mad at you, right?”


“Yes. I intend to apologize, but in this case, I had reasons for bringing you to my old friend without telling you how I believed the discussion would unspool. I—”

“Stop right there. I didn’t ask you to start explaining yourself, I asked if you knew that I was mad.”

Tybalt sighed. “Yes. I knew you would be angry.”

“Okay. So did you take me to Willy Wonka’s donut factory because you were hoping to distract me so much with laughter that I wouldn’t yell at you?” I stabbed a finger at one of the donuts. “Captain Crunch, Tybalt. This donut is covered in Captain Crunch cereal.”

“I admit it was a small hope of mine, that sugar might lessen your anger,” said Tybalt. “But no, I did not expect to escape your wrath entire. Would not want to, in fact. That was a mean trick I pulled, and I am sorry.”

I looked around. There were people, human people, strolling past with their own pink boxes, or sitting on the benches nearby, enjoying their donuts. A man was feeding a cruller to a large red macaw, which struck me as probably being unhealthy for the bird. No one was paying attention to us, and why should they? We had replaced our human disguises before we left the Court of Cats. Tybalt was still a handsome man, but his human form lacked the irresistible attraction of his true face, and I was just another brunette in tank top and jeans. We blended.

It was an odd feeling. I wasn’t used to fitting in. Still, I kept my voice low as I leaned closer and said, “You know I would have agreed to help your friend anyway. Why did we need to go with the whole cloak-and-dagger routine? It wasn’t necessary. It made me feel like you thought of me as something to use. Like a tool.”

The stricken look that flooded his face was too real to have been forced, starting with his eyes and moving outward until every inch of him was washed in regret. “Oh, October. I’m so sorry. I didn’t intend—I knew he would, given time, find his way to that topic. I knew what your answer would be. I also knew that, for him to take that answer as sincere, he had to reach it on his own, and I feared that if I were to prime you for meeting him, you would have done what you do best, and simply offered.”

“Which would have been too blunt, and left him looking for the catch,” I said slowly.

Tybalt nodded. “Yes. He’s been here, in this political situation, for a long time. Longer than you or I can imagine—my response to such things has always been to leave, to find another place to be, but he has put down roots and done his best to thrive despite adversity. Such a thing makes a man pleasant to talk to, and wary of things which seem too good to be true.”

I looked at Tybalt for a moment before reaching into the pink box and pulling out the maple-bacon bar. I offered him the box, as a peace offering, and he took out a chocolate cake donut crowned with a thick layer of Cocoa Puffs.

“I understand your reasoning, but I don’t appreciate it,” I said, putting the box next to me on the bench. “Please don’t do that again, or if we’re in a situation like this, where it’s genuinely important that I react without prejudice, warn me somehow. Okay? That’s enough to keep me from feeling like I’m being used.”

“I will do my absolute best,” said Tybalt. “Again, you have my deepest apologies.”

“It’s okay. We just have to keep doing better, that’s all. Everything is about doing better.” I took a bite of my donut, giving the crowd another look. Most of the people I’d noticed before had moved on, except for the man with the macaw, which was now holding the cruller in one claw and feeding itself. Still, I kept looking. Tybalt and I had been remarkably circumspect in our conversation, saying nothing that violated the provisions against revealing Faerie’s existence, and yet I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong.