A Red-Rose Chain

“Unhand me,” she said, and her voice was frozen anger and Arctic command. It was the voice of a Queen.

“If you’re running away, you’re not the Queen in the Mists anymore,” I said. “I don’t have to listen to some random bookstore clerk who doesn’t want to do her thrice-damned job because it turns out that being in charge is sometimes difficult. If you’re not running away, then yeah, I’m probably going to get punished for touching you without permission. I’m cool with that. Do whatever. But don’t run, Arden. Don’t do this to your people, and don’t do it to yourself. We deserve better. You deserve better. The Mists deserve better.”

Arden stared at me for a moment, eyes wide and shocked. Then, weakly, she tugged against my hands, and said, “You can let go now.” The commanding tone was gone, replaced by resignation and shame.

“You won’t run?” I asked.

“I won’t run.”

I let go.

Arden took a step back, wrapping her arms around herself so that her hands were pinned against her body, where I couldn’t grab them again. That was all right. I had never seen her open a teleport gate without using her hands. I knew she was capable of it—I had borrowed her magic once, to save both of our lives—but most people fall into patterns with their spells and find it difficult to deviate. By hiding her hands, Arden was promising she wasn’t going to run.

“I can’t do this, Toby,” she said, looking down at the floor. Her shoulders slumped, making her the perfect picture of defeat. “When you told me I had to . . . that I had to come and be Queen, I thought you were kidding at first, and then I thought maybe I could do it. Maybe I could finally live up to my father. I know he has to be disappointed in me. So I tried. Isn’t that enough?”

“Maybe in the mortal world,” I said. “That isn’t how things work for us, and you know it. You’re Queen in the Mists. The High King accepted you. The knowe of your father opened for you. You’re stuck with the job, Arden. It’s yours until you die, or you have kids to pass it off to. That’s how this works.”

“What’s more, you knew that when you accepted the crown,” said Tybalt, voice pitched low. “None of us who are raised in the halls of power can come to adulthood ignorant of what we will one day be expected to become. You were not an innocent. You were not tricked. You were a princess born, and have aged into what you were always meant to be.”

I noticed that he didn’t use the word “grown.” Arden still hadn’t grown fully into her position—if she had, we wouldn’t have been standing in the basement of a human business, trying to convince her to come home. She was still growing. I just hoped we’d all survive long enough for her to finish the process. “We don’t have anyone else,” I said. “The false Queen was a vindictive bitch before we knocked her off your father’s throne and put you in her place. If she gets this Kingdom back, everyone who moved against her is going to be in a lot of trouble. And the changelings . . . oak and ash, the changelings. She never defended us. She never raised a hand to welcome us into Faerie. But at least for most of us, she never stood against us the way she did right after she took the throne. Power mellowed her. We were allowed to exist. You really think she’s going to stay that understanding after the way I helped you take your throne?”