A Red-Rose Chain

“She says she used a countersurveillance charm, and since I know nothing about that sort of magic, I put it to all of you: do we trust that it worked? April says we can talk freely in this room for the next day.”


“I think that if we’re being spied on—which we almost certainly are—then King Rhys will be smart enough not to let us know right away,” said Walther slowly. “Coming in here to recast his charms would be a giveaway.”

“I trust April,” said Quentin, cautiously pushing his door open and sticking his head into the room. “She does stuff no one else does, mostly because we’re all made of meat, so we don’t think the way she does. I know she’s paranoid about security, and if she says the charm works, the charm works.”

“May? Tybalt?”

“I trust her,” said May.

“I’m playing the game of your politics for the sake of peace and nothing more,” said Tybalt. “If there’s any challenge that could cause us harm, I’ll have the lot of us onto the Shadow Roads before a single blow can strike home.”

“Then we’re trusting her. All right.” I turned to Walther. “What do you mean, she’s your sister?”

May, who hadn’t seen the note, looked confused. Walther just sighed. “I mean exactly what I said. Marlis is my older sister. We have the same parents. My father’s brother married the old Queen of Silences when she was still the Princess, and their son, Torsten, was heir to the throne when the war happened. Marlis and I were never in the line of succession—if anything happened to Torsten or his mother, the throne would have either gone to his mother’s brother, or back to his grandmother, who had stepped down after her daughter came of age. I knew Marlis hadn’t made it out of Silences after the war, but I thought she’d been elf-shot, not pressed into service for the new King. The fact that she’s his seneschal is . . . worrisome. He shouldn’t trust her this much.”

“Wait, you never looked for her?” May turned, looking at Walther like she was seeing him for the first time. “She’s your sister. You should have tried to find out where she was.”

“I spent the first twenty years after the war running, hiding, and making sure no one could find me,” said Walther wearily. “Marlis and I agreed when we split up that we wouldn’t look for each other, because it would be too dangerous. If either of us had been caught, we didn’t want to be able to give the other away.”

“Looks like she never ran,” I said.

Walther shook his head. “That’s the problem. I know she ran.”

I frowned. “Okay. Explain to me why this means we need to be on guard.”

“Because if she’s here, working for the man who took our aunt’s throne, and if he trusts her enough to make her seneschal, something is compelling her loyalty.” Walther shook his head again, harder this time. “I’m going to refine one of the potions I brought with me. You need to sprinkle it over everything you eat and add it to everything you drink. It’s the only way to be safe.”

It took me a moment, but I caught his meaning. “You think she’s drugged.”

“I think a Queen with Siren powers put a Baron in charge of a Kingdom of alchemists,” said Walther grimly. “Mind control is hard, even for the best of us, but suggestibility is easy, and so is memory suppression. Scramble things in someone’s head enough, and keep dosing them regularly, and you can bend even the strongest will to your hand.”

“Memory suppression would explain why she didn’t seem to recognize you,” I said. “How long before that potion is ready?”

“Not long,” said Walther, with an odd grimace. “It was one of the potions I was using the dawn to finish. I just need to boil off the excess liquid, flash-freeze, and powder the results. Say an hour? That should be long enough to make a supply for all of us.”