A Red-Rose Chain

Walther didn’t argue. The scent of yarrow flared in the air and then was gone. I looked over my shoulder, and I didn’t see him, or the array of alchemical supplies that he had been using to prepare his counterpotion. Good. There were more powerful people than I was in Faerie, and some of them might have been able to spot him, but only if they were looking. With this many Tylwyth Teg in one room, they hopefully wouldn’t be looking.

That just left me. I grabbed a handful of shadows out of the air, weaving a blur as fast as I could. Anger usually made my illusions easier to cast. I didn’t have anger, but I had the burgeoning seeds of panic. I threw it into the magic, spinning and twisting the spell as fast as I could. I wanted to chant—spoken spells have always helped me to focus my magic and make it obey me more quickly—but I didn’t know how close company was. The last thing I wanted to do was conceal myself magically and give myself away through mundane means.

The spell rose, solidified, and burst around me. I pressed myself to the wall and tried not to move more than I had to. Blur spells don’t make you invisible, but they make you damn hard to see, like those little brown lizards that infest the mortal park outside of Shadowed Hills. As long as I was perfectly still and didn’t make a sound, there was a good chance I’d be overlooked.

Seconds ticked by. I was starting to think that I had been overly-cautious when the footsteps started up again, moving closer. I stopped breathing.

Tia stepped into the dungeon.

Madden’s sister had changed since I’d last seen her, in Arden’s Court, demanding strident justice for her brother. The pigtails and peasant blouse were gone, replaced by unbound waves of red-and-white hair and a long silver-gray gown that hugged her curves and erased any traces of the hippie girl she had seemed to be when she stood before the Queen. Her amber, distinctly canine eyes were narrowed, and she was sniffing the air with every step she took. Two of Rhys’ men were behind her . . . and behind them was Rhys himself, still wearing his Court finery, his hands folded behind his back like he was afraid he would touch something and dirty himself.

Tia’s nose wrinkled as she took in the biers. “You kept them?” she demanded. She turned to Rhys. “You told me they’d been killed, all of them, even down to the suckling babes. You promised me.”

“I told you they had been disposed of,” said Rhys. “What could be worse than an eternity of sleep at the hands of one who bears you no good will? They’ve woken once, and we put them down again. They’ll sleep forever, and each time they wake, they’ll find more of themselves missing, carved away for purposes they will never know. I have made their lives a processional of nightmares and horrors. Would you really rather that they were dead?”

“I suppose not,” sniffed Tia. “Whatever you give them, they deserve. Bastards, all of them.”

“I’ve kept my word to you otherwise,” said Rhys. “I even started with your brother when it came time to declare war on the Mists. Now keep your word to me. Find my enemies.”

“I gave you the opportunity to put an arrow in Madden. I’m not sure you can claim that was a favor to me; you’d have done it for free if I’d promised you there would be no retaliation.”

“And yet I did it because you asked me to, which makes it a favor. All I ask is that you do the same favor for me. Do what I’ve asked.”

I didn’t dare breathe. I had been expecting treachery, treason, all sorts of terrible things, but I hadn’t been expecting Rhys to walk into the room with a Cu Sidhe by his side—not when his Court was so blatantly devoid of fae with animal traits. I’d only been thinking about Daoine Sidhe reading the air for the heritage of those present, or Gwragen looking for the cobweb sheen of illusions. I hadn’t considered the fact that they might just look for the physical.

Tia sniffed the air, her nostrils flaring in a way that was subtly, anatomically inhuman. “Blood, and magic,” she said. “They were here.”