A Red-Rose Chain

It was getting hard to remember why I didn’t tell him about Quentin, or about Walther, or about anything that would make him stop hurting me.

“I hate that you make me be a monster for you,” said Rhys. He didn’t pull the spike from my belly, and his hands, as he pulled them away, were dripping with gore. “You see how hard I’m trying to be reasonable? I’m offering to make the pain as minimal as I can. I’m promising safe passage for your people. And all I need you to do is explain how I may help my lady. Why is that so hard for you? Can’t you just go along?”

“Let me have her,” said the false Queen, stepping up behind him. “I’m still part Banshee. I can make her hurt in ways that never break the skin.”

There was a threat I hadn’t considered, and didn’t really want to think about. I took a breath, feeling the motion tug on the spike now embedded in my stomach, and managed to speak. “What’s your name?”

She blinked at me, looking nonplussed. “What?”

“You must have a name. No one looks at a baby and says ‘fuck her, she’s so ugly that she doesn’t get a name.’ I don’t know what your name is. I’ve never known what it was. You were always a queen, so I couldn’t ask. What’s your name?”

Now her eyes narrowed, expression turning wary. It was more familiar a look for her than confusion. “Why do you want to know?”

“Because you’re going to be dead soon. Maybe I am, too, but I’d like to go to the night-haunts knowing who you were.” I smiled. It was one of the hardest things I’d done in a long time. “Call it a last request?”

“I am not going to be dead soon, you stupid little mongrel bitch,” she said, and sneered at me. “You’ve lost, October. You’ve finally, fully lost. I’m going to enjoy watching Rhys slice you so thin that you could be hung as ribbons from the trees, and I won’t mourn for you. And as for my name, you can’t have it, because I don’t own it anymore. I sold it years ago, in exchange for everything I’d ever wanted, and I have never regretted my decision. Not for a moment.”

“Now tell us what we need to know,” said Rhys. “My patience wears thin.”

“Your patience?” I demanded, lifting my head and shoulders away from the surface beneath me. It was all I could manage—even with the pain reduced, the chain of flowers still bound me tight. “Your patience? You’re not the one with a spike sticking out of your stomach! Oberon’s balls, you have some fucking nerve! Don’t you dare stand there and talk to me about your patience, you arrogant—”

Rhys’ hand caught me across the face, slamming my head back down against whatever was beneath me. I choked on a mouth that was suddenly full of blood, hot and sweet and exactly what I’d been hoping for. A man who likes to tell you about his plans is a man who can be goaded into lashing out. Years of dealing with villains and misguided despots has taught me that.

“See what you made me do?” He sighed. There was nothing soft or sorry in that sound. “Now answer my question, Sir Daye. Why didn’t it work?”

I swallowed. My mouth was still bleeding, and I swallowed again, unwilling to let any of the precious blood escape. Finally, as my mouth healed enough to make speech possible, I said, “It didn’t work because it can’t work. She has no Siren blood to restore. I took it all away from her. It’s like I told you before. My magic can’t create—it can only manipulate what’s already there.”