A Red-Rose Chain

“It’s time.” He held out a scalpel. Its edge glittered too softly to be stainless steel; it was silver, as sharp and pure as any fae dueling blade. “I don’t need much.”


“I’ve got plenty.” I took the scalpel from his hand, testing the weight of it before I brought it down across my arm, cutting lengthwise to get as much blood as possible before my body started to heal. He held out a chalice, and I bled into it, turning my face away. I still don’t like the sight of blood, despite how often I bleed. One more thing to thank my own mother for.

“That should be enough,” said Walther.

“Okay. Just tell me if you want more.” I turned back to face him, holding out the scalpel for him to take out of my hand. He did, and I wiped as much of the blood off my arm as I could. Problem: this left me with a blood-coated palm, which I promptly rubbed against my brand new jeans. The amount of time a piece of clothing could expect to be in my possession before being ruined was going down all the time. “What happens next?”

“You let me work, and we both pray that I got the recipe right,” he said. He turned back to his equipment, beginning to add blood—one drop at a time—to his mashed rose petals. He must have added a powder to the chalice that would keep my blood from clotting, because it seemed strangely liquid, even for as fresh as it was, and very, very bright.

The smell was overwhelming, a mixture of blood and roses that was so reminiscent of my mother that it sent shivers down my spine. I moved away, starting to walk a slow patrol around the edges of the dungeon.

Each of the biers was occupied, most by Tylwyth Teg who shared a faint familial resemblance with Walther. There were a few others—a Glastig, a Daoine Sidhe, even a Tuatha de Dannan whose glossy cherrywood hair made her look more like Etienne and Chelsea than Rhys or Arden—but the Tylwyth Teg were by far in the majority. This hadn’t just been a conquest: it had been a rout, and I wasn’t sure, even now, how it had been accomplished. The Mists had possessed the larger army, but Silences had been the aggressors. How could they have underestimated their position so dramatically?

“Walther, you remember the war,” I said, turning. “How did the Mists win?”

“No one knows,” he said, still working. “We were fighting, and it seemed like we had all the advantages. Then we just . . . started to lose. It was like people didn’t have the will to fight back. Entire parties were wiped out without raising a finger to defend themselves. We lost half the Cu Sidhe. The ones who didn’t die just vanished. They’re probably still asleep in a basement somewhere.”

“That’s not good.”

Walther chuckled humorlessly. “Tell me about it. Now hush, and let me work.”

I hushed. But I continued walking around the edges of the dungeon, marking the entrances, and the position of the biers. There wasn’t much here that could be used as cover. I was on my third circuit of the room when I heard a sound. It was faint, like a footstep on a distant, stony floor. It was loud enough to be a concern.

“Walther, hide yourself.”

“What?”

“You’re a good enough illusionist to hide yourself, and you share blood with most of the people in this room; even a Daoine Sidhe won’t be able to sniff you out. Now hide.” I kept my voice low, but my last word verged on a snarl.