A Red-Rose Chain

“That’s something I can do.” I looked toward Tybalt and Quentin, who were standing quietly a few feet away. Neither of them looked happy with our situation. Neither of them was telling me not to help. I think we all knew that ship had sailed long ago, and not one of us had been on board.

“Good. It’ll be a few minutes.” Walther opened his kit, beginning to unpack it one piece at a time on the edge of his mother’s bier. Some of the things were familiar—mortar and pestle, little jars of assorted herbs, syringe. Other pieces were strange to me, weights and presses and oddly-shaped vessels that didn’t hold anything but potential. The rest of the world seemed to drop away from him as he bent over his work.

I turned and walked back to Tybalt and Quentin. “I don’t know how long this is going to take, and I’m not comfortable being unarmed, or leaving May by herself,” I said. “Tybalt, do you think you can get Quentin back to our room, and come back here with my knife?”

Tybalt scowled. “No good ever comes from sending me away.”

Quentin looked resigned, and a little relieved, like this was the answer he’d been hoping for but hadn’t quite dared to suggest. “She’s right. Someone should be with May, and if things go wrong here, I probably shouldn’t be caught where the alchemy is happening. My parents would be pissed if I wound up getting elf-shot.”

“You’ve left me on my own several times since we got here, and I’ve been fine,” I said, leaning up to kiss Tybalt on the cheek. “Just trust me, okay? I need my knife, and May needs someone to protect her. I can take care of myself in the nice, empty dungeon until you make it back.”

“You tell me you no longer yearn for death, but sometimes, you do things that make it difficult to believe you,” said Tybalt. He had the resigned tone that meant he was going to do what I was asking, thank Maeve. Quentin was looking more uncomfortable by the minute, and the threat of discovery was making me twitchy. I didn’t want to get the Crown Prince of the Westlands busted for treason if I could help it.

When I first found out Quentin was going to be High King someday, I had promised him I wouldn’t let the knowledge make me treat him differently. For the most part, I’d kept my word. But there were certain things that had made me unhappy when he was just my untitled squire, and now that I knew who he really was, they were unbearable. Situations like this made the list.

“I love you, too,” I said. “Quentin, stay with May; don’t let anyone in.”

“Got it,” he said. “Don’t do anything completely stupid, okay?”

“I’ll do my best,” I said. Quentin smiled tightly as Tybalt took him by the arm. Then my boyfriend and my squire stepped backward into the shadows, and they were gone, leaving only the faint scent of musk and pennyroyal hanging in the air.

I walked back to the bier where Walther was working, standing silently off to one side and watching as he mixed powders and liquids, ground rose petals in a mortar, and generally worked his own quiet brand of magic. There are races in Faerie that are uniquely well suited to the art of alchemy—Tylwyth Teg, Kitsune, Huldra—but anyone can learn it, if they’re willing to put in the time, and even the races with a natural talent require years of training and practice before they can really claim to be skilled alchemists. Walther had been practicing for more than a century. He had reshaped his body with his art, and he was a living testament to what kind of alchemist he had become.

At the same time, he was trying to unmake a spell first woven by one of the Firstborn, a spell that had been used throughout Faerie for millennia without being broken or undone. He was going to need every bit of skill he possessed, and then some, if he wanted to make this work.

“Toby?”

The sound of his voice snapped me out of my thoughts. I looked up. “Yeah?”