A Red-Rose Chain

Marlis was still bleeding. That made things harder: I’d become so attuned to blood that forcing my way past it was virtually impossible. But Quentin was next to me, and he was Daoine Sidhe. I’ve spent most of my life in the company of the Daoine Sidhe, often while trying to convince myself I was one of them, and I could find that bloodline through anything. Once I had him, it was easy to find Tybalt, and to breathe deeper, confirming that no other bloodlines or magical signatures appeared in the hall. I opened my eyes.

“We’re alone,” I said.

“Good,” said Marlis, and turned to press her bloody hand against the gold plate. The metal seemed to pulse, drinking in her blood as fast as it smeared against the door. Marlis pulled her hand away. There were no traces of blood remaining on the gold plate.

“Nice trick,” I said.

“This one’s better,” said Marlis, and blew on the door. It opened, seeming as insubstantial as a feather, even though I could see that the wood was thick and sturdy, and probably weighed at least fifty pounds. She flashed us a quick, satisfied smile, and I saw Walther in the bones of her face. Until that moment, the fact that she was his sister had been somewhat academic, but now I could see it, and see the woman she would have been if her Kingdom hadn’t been taken over by someone who was determined to grind her and her family beneath his heel.

“Come on,” said Marlis, and stepped through the now-open door, leaving the rest of us with no choice but to follow if we wanted to keep her in sight. And I very much wanted to keep her in sight. I needed to know why she’d risked herself to bring us here, and what she was hoping to achieve.

Although it wasn’t like losing sight of her would have meant actually losing her. I could have followed the smell of her blood for a hundred miles, and always known exactly where she was. That was a little bit disturbing, if I allowed myself to think about it too hard, and so I tried not to think. I just followed, with Quentin and Tybalt close behind me.

The light didn’t reach past the door. I heard Quentin mutter something, and the smell of heather and steel briefly overwhelmed the smell of Marlis’ blood. Then a small ball of light drifted over my head to hover in front of me, bobbing in the air a few inches below the ceiling, which looked rough and rocky, like it had been carved from the body of the earth. I glanced back at Quentin, slanting him the briefest of smiles. He smiled back, although the expression did nothing to remove the tight lines around his eyes. He was worried. That was good. Failure to be worried when following a strange woman down a dark tunnel would have shown a deep and catastrophic lack of self-preservation, and I wanted to keep him around for a little longer.

Marlis was visible up ahead of us. I focused on walking, silently cursing her for grabbing us while we were in transit from the King’s company, and not waiting until after we had reached our quarters and had the chance to change our clothes. My shoes were sensible, but my dress was ridiculous. Formal gowns were not designed to be worn in underground tunnels—and I was becoming increasingly sure that when we had stepped through that door, we had transitioned from the stately, manicured halls of Silences to something older and rougher, probably intended as an escape route if things went poorly.

Marlis stopped. When we reached her, she was standing next to another door, this one made entirely of rose brambles. It was clearly Ceres’ work, and Marlis was just as clearly unhappy about the idea of opening it. There was no doorknob or keyhole.

I’d seen doors like that one before. Blind Michael—Ceres’ father—had used them in his stables, probably courtesy of his wife, Acacia, who was the Firstborn of both the Dryads and the Blodynbryd. “Does it need your blood, specifically, or will any blood do to open it?” I asked.

Marlis jumped, like she had forgotten that we were there. “Any blood will do,” she said. She was speaking in a normal conversational tone now: apparently, we had moved outside the sphere of the King’s surveillance. That, or we had moved deep enough into his trap that she no longer needed to pretend to be quiet. “Only a member of our family can open the door to the tunnel, but Aunt Ceres’ roses are less picky. They don’t care who bleeds for them.”