A Red-Rose Chain

“I was a Queen for more than a century. Any patience I might have learned, I forgot long ago. Now is it ready?”


“Almost.” There was a soft clatter as he put the knife down, and Rhys began to chant. He spoke in a language I didn’t know, full of rolling vowels and muted consonants. The smell of meadowsweet and wine vinegar began to grow in the air, itching where it touched my skin. I could almost see his magic, if I didn’t focus my eyes, if I kept the smell of the blood in mind. It swirled around me, colorless and cruel.

Then it burst, and the false Queen laughed, high and delighted and utterly pleased with the world. “It’s beautiful! You’ve done it!”

“For you, my sweet,” said Rhys. Then: “Marlis, move her head. She should see the sort of wonders she’ll be enabling me to perform.”

“Yes, Your Highness,” said Marlis. She stepped closer, and stumbled, catching herself on the edge of my temporary bed before putting her hands on the sides of my head and turning me to face the King. Her thumb grazed my lips, and I realized the reason for her stumble.

Where she touched me, she left blood behind.

It wasn’t much—just a smear, presumably wiped from the knife that Rhys had set aside—but it was so much more than I had had only a few seconds before. I forced my tongue to move, licking the blood away before she withdrew her hands. The taste of it exploded in my mouth like everything that was good in the world. In that moment, I felt like I could unmake any spell, overcome any obstacle, and do it all without getting a scratch on me.

The trouble with feeling invulnerable is that it’s never true. When Marlis moved, she revealed Rhys and the former Queen of the Mists standing a few feet away. The false Queen had a jeweled chalice in her hands, so tacky and crusted with filigree that I had no doubt that it was real. Things like that are either plastic or platinum, with nothing in between. She looked at me, smirked, and raised the chalice to her lips, drinking deeply.

The smell of my magic filled the room, overlaid with a sharp, vinegary note that was acrid enough to bring fresh tears to my eyes. I recognized it objectively as the stamp of Rhys’ magic marking his alchemy, but the rest of me raged against it. How dare he put his magic over mine? How dare he steal something that was so deeply and intrinsically my own, that was supposed to be unique in all of Faerie?

“Look for what’s missing, and call it back,” said Rhys, in the low, encouraging tone of someone who was trying to coach a recalcitrant pupil. “You have her power, you should be able to heal yourself.”

And just like that, I knew what he was doing—what the false Queen had asked him to do. She wanted her Siren blood back. She was stealing my magic because she wanted to restore what I had taken away from her. There was just one problem.

She couldn’t.

Dóchas Sidhe can do things no one else in Faerie can do. That’s true of every race descended from Oberon or his wives. But we can’t create what isn’t there. We can’t make a pureblood mixed, or turn a human into a changeling—and that means that when we remove something from the blood, it’s gone forever. The false Queen wasn’t going to be able to restore her Siren blood, because it was no longer there to be restored. I had taken it away. It was gone.

The smell of my magic began to fade. She lowered the chalice, looking disbelievingly at Rhys. “It didn’t work,” she said. “Why didn’t it work? You told me this would work!”

“We must be missing something,” he said soothingly . . . but when he turned to me, there was nothing soothing in his face. “What are we missing, Sir Daye? How may I restore my lady? Speak, or be sorry that you stayed silent.”