A Red-Rose Chain

Arden laughed. “Well, since you put it that way—” she began.

A commotion from the entryway cut her off. Arden turned, amusement giving way to confusion and then alarm. The rest of us turned to follow the direction of her gaze. Lowri and the other guard from the entryway staggered into view, bent under the weight of the big red-and-white–haired figure they held between them. Madden was limp, his feet dragging behind him like a dead man’s.

“Madden!” cried Arden, shoving me out of the way as she flung herself across the throne room to reach her seneschal. She grabbed his head, lifting it so that she could stare into his face. His eyes were closed, and if he felt her hands against his skin, he didn’t react to them. He didn’t react at all. “Madden? Wake up!”

“He was dropped through a portal into the clearing, Highness,” said Lowri. Her voice shook as she spoke, her accent growing stronger in her dismay. “Whoever left him for us, their magic came and went too quickly. We didn’t have time to recognize it.”

“Why won’t he wake up?” moaned Arden. She didn’t look like a Queen in that moment: she looked like an ordinary woman, on the verge of a breakdown over the thought that her best and oldest friend had been hurt. “Madden, please. Please wake up, Madden, please.”

“He won’t,” said Tybalt. He strode over to Arden, pushing her aside as he bent to pull Madden’s jacket open. Quentin and I followed him, although we didn’t touch Arden. He could get away with a certain amount of manhandling the Queen, since she had no authority over him. Quentin and I weren’t so lucky. Arden was our friend and all, but that wouldn’t stop her from getting pissed if we touched her while she was already distraught.

Tybalt felt around inside Madden’s jacket, Arden looking on in wide-eyed dismay, until he hissed with displeasure and pulled out a short, almost stubby-looking arrow. The tip was damp with blood, but only the tip; the arrow had done little more than scratch Madden’s skin, based on how much blood was there. The smell of it hit me as I was walking toward him. I gasped, clapping a hand over my mouth.

Blood knows everything. Blood is where memory is stored, and where magic lives . . . and when someone is poisoned or enchanted, the blood knows that, too.

“As I suspected,” said Tybalt sadly. He turned the arrow in his hand, careful to avoid the point. The shaft was fletched in deep pine green and silver—the same shade of silver that appeared on the arms of the Kingdom of the Mists, in fact. That was odd. There are only so many colors in the world. Some duplication is unavoidable, but people mostly try to avoid using the colors that have been claimed by neighboring Kingdoms when they can possibly help it. There’s just too much chance of winding up with an angry monarch on your tail, questioning your fashion choices.

“Elf-shot,” I said, voice muffled by my fingers.

Arden’s face, which had been teetering on the edge of despair, crumbled. It was like watching a bottomless pit open in what had been a perfectly happy woman. “What?” she asked, eyes flicking to me. “No. It can’t be elf-shot. No. I’m . . . I am the queen. I became queen so that my people would be safe. Madden is my people. He’s my best people. I mean, he’s my best friend. He can’t be elf-shot. I won’t allow it.” Her voice broke on the last word, and my heart felt like it broke a little too, in sympathy.

Elf-shot is either one of Faerie’s crueler weapons or one of Faerie’s kinder weapons, depending on how you look at it, and how you feel about hundred-year naps. It allows the purebloods to wage war without killing each other, since killing a pureblood is a violation of Oberon’s Law. Killing changelings doesn’t violate the Law, naturally, and just as naturally, elf-shot is fatal to us, because who cares if some mongrel foot soldier dies on the battlefield?