A Red-Rose Chain

“Queen Windermere, in her brilliance, has decided that I would be the ideal diplomatic ambassador from the Mists. I leave tomorrow to try and make this war not happen. The Luidaeg says I need to take someone who actually knows Silences with me. She suggested you.”


Walther didn’t say anything.

“Please.”

“Do you understand what you’re asking me to do?” His voice was lower now, almost pained. “If the Luidaeg told you I was from Silences, she must have told you that I never wanted to go back there again. I can’t do this.”

“Why not?”

“Why not?” He laughed unsteadily. “Because they came for my family, Toby. They killed or arrested everyone I had ever given a damn about, and they did it because they didn’t like the way we thought. I barely got away. I haven’t spoken to my sister or to any of my cousins in years. I don’t even know if they made it out, and I can’t go looking. It’s not safe for me to talk to people from Silences, not with that murderous bastard on the throne. You’re asking me to walk right back onto the killing fields.”

“I’m asking you to help me keep the killing fields from coming here. Please, Walther. The old Queen—the one whose rulings about changelings started the first war, the war you’re talking about now—she’s there, with their current King, and she’s the one who wants us to start killing each other again. She wants her throne back. I don’t think that would be good for anybody, but I get the feeling it would be especially bad for people who have known connections to me.”

There was a long pause before Walther said, in a soft voice, “That’s low. You know that, don’t you?”

“I do.” Sometimes the high ground is reserved for the people who think honor is more important than living. “I’m sorry, if that helps at all.”

“It doesn’t.”

“I didn’t think it would.” I stopped talking, waiting for him to break the silence between us.

It stretched out for long enough that I began to think he wasn’t going to. Finally, he said, “Pick me up from my office before you go. I need time to get my kit together.”

“Okay,” I said. I felt bad about pushing him this way, but it was going to have to wait. He was going to come. My diplomatic team, such as it was, was nearly complete. “We’ll see you then. Open roads, Walther.”

“We’re going to need a lot more than open roads,” he said, and hung up.

“That could have gone better,” I said, lowering my phone and looking at it like it should have somehow warned me. Then I sighed and tucked it back into my pocket as I stood. Walther was coming with us. Ruthless as it might seem, I was willing to upset him if it meant he was going to play native guide to the ins and outs of the Court of Silences. Everyone’s lives might depend on his temporary unhappiness . . . and as I had come to learn over the past few years, sometimes ripping away the bandages was what allowed the soul to finally heal. He might come out of this stronger than he had ever imagined.

Assuming he—and we—came out of it at all.

Quentin was in the kitchen making more sandwiches when I came back downstairs. I paused in the doorway, arching an eyebrow upward. “Well?” I asked.

“My father says I should go with you, because this is important stuff for me to know and understand,” he said dutifully, looking over his shoulder at me. I kept my eyebrow raised until he sighed and added, “He also says I should be prepared to run if it’s necessary to save my own life, because he needs an heir more than I need an education.”

“Great,” I said. “I’ll ask Arden for some blood before we leave.”