A Red-Rose Chain

Quentin was the Crown Prince of North America. One day, he would control the continent. And I hadn’t known that when he became my squire. He’d been sent to Shadowed Hills on a blind fosterage, which meant that no one other than Sylvester had known who his parents were, and that none of the rest of us were allowed to try to find out. For a long time, I’d assumed he was minor nobility at best, since his parents seemed perfectly cool with letting him become a changeling’s squire and run around the Mists getting shot at and hanging out with the sea witch. It had been . . . well, a shock to discover that actually, his parents thought spending time with me would make him a better King one day.

“I’ve tried really hard not to treat you any differently,” I said carefully. “It’s been difficult sometimes. But you still have to do the dishes when it’s your turn, and I took you to fight the big black dogs without going ‘oh no, I could hurt the Crown Prince.’ Honestly, I would have wanted you to stay behind even before I knew—I would probably have insisted. It’s only the fact that you’re going to be High King someday that makes me think this is something you should see.”

“It still feels like I’m being punished for being a prince,” he said.

“Let me ask you something. If this had come up while you were still concealing your identity from me, and if I had been temporarily out of my senses enough to ask you to come along, would you have been willing to just grab your things and follow me to Silences? Or would you have called home and asked your parents if they’d mind?”

His silence was answer enough. He would have checked in. That was reassuring—it meant I hadn’t completely converted him to my particular school of “go ahead, rush straight into danger, it’s fun.” It also put a lot of past events into a new perspective. If he’d been checking in all along, the High King and Queen must have really believed in the idea of preparing their heir for anything.

“So see? The only thing that’s changed is that now I ask you to call them, rather than you having to sneak around and do it behind my back. I’ve never been happy about hauling you into danger, and I’ve never pretended to be.” I flashed him a quick smile. “I think this is a good thing. I like it when we’re not keeping as many secrets.”

Quentin smiled hesitantly back. “I guess so.” He paused before asking, “So why is Arden making you go to Silences? I mean, it’s not like you have any ambassadorial experience.”

“Funny thing: I don’t think anyone in the current nobility does,” I said grimly. “Sylvester is busy in Shadowed Hills, and he’s our most experienced hero. If we actually go to war, Arden is going to need him here to organize the troops. Li Qin is a scholar. April is . . . April is April. Even if she could travel that far, she’s more likely to accidentally start a war than intentionally prevent one. We could ask Saltmist to loan us someone, but they don’t really do diplomacy, unless you count Dianda going ‘stop hitting yourself’ over and over again. There may be some diplomats in Wild Strawberries or Deep Mists or someplace, but none of them will have seen any action since the War of Silences, when they were working for the woman who’s now trying to declare war on the rest of us.” Simon Torquill had been a diplomat, once upon a time: that was part of why he had a title but no lands. As the less martial of the brothers Torquill, it was his job to solve problems before they got out of hand and required Sylvester to come along with an army. Unfortunately, Simon was asleep, and was going to stay that way for a century. He wasn’t going to help us with this war.

Sometimes I think Faerie goes to war as much because we can’t find anyone who’d rather talk things out as for any other reason. Diplomacy is not a valued skill among the Courts. Most of our nobles would prefer to do the dance of manners and then slide a knife between someone’s ribs. It’s more fun than actually discussing trade sanctions and why it’s rude to kill your neighbors.

“Okay, I guess, but why you?” asked Quentin. “You’re . . . not really that diplomatic.”