A Red-Rose Chain

The Shadow Roads were airless, black, and cold. They were also scentless, since taking a breath would have frozen my lungs solid in less time than it took to finish the inhale. I leaned against Tybalt, curling into as tight a ball as I could manage in order to reduce the drag. I could feel him tensing as he ran, covering the distance between the dining hall and our room in less than a third of the time it would have taken by more normal channels.

My lungs were aching when we plunged out of the dark and back into the startlingly bright light of our guest chambers. Tybalt all but threw me against the wall, where I fumbled for the lacings on my gown with half frozen fingers. He cut the process short by raking his claws down the ties, slicing them neatly in half. I immediately yanked the gown over my head, panting slightly as I leaned there in strapless bra and underpants.

The purple stain of the goblin fruit was on the bra, too, although it wasn’t as dark; that, and the handy flash-freeze effect of our trip through the Shadow Roads, allowed me to remove it without ripping the clasps. I flung it on the pile of fabric before collapsing backward on the bed, staring at the canopy.

“Are you well?” asked Tybalt.

“As well as can be expected,” I replied.

“Then I will see to this, and return.” He gathered my discarded clothing from the floor, carrying it with him as he walked into another shadow on the far side of the room. That alone told me how concerned he’d been, even if I had somehow managed to overlook everything else that had happened since the glass fell. Normally, he would never have left me by myself.

Not that I was completely by myself. I rolled off the bed and walked to Quentin’s door, feeling my legs shake with every step I took. I should probably have stopped to grab a shirt out of the wardrobe, but I felt shocky and unsure: I needed reassurance. So I banged my knuckles against the doorframe and waited, counting the seconds until the door opened and May appeared, her short hair spiky and disheveled. Her white linen nightshirt fell to her knees in a shapeless line, making her look younger than she was.

She blinked at me slowly, confusion written in her expression. “You’re not wearing a shirt,” she said, like this was somehow going to surprise me. “Or a bra. Toby, what’s—do I smell goblin fruit?” Her eyes widened. “Oh, sweet Titania, what happened?”

I laughed unsteadily. “The King of Silences serves goblin fruit juice with lunch. One of his cronies spilled it on me. I don’t . . . I can’t . . . I need to wash myself. Can you please come with me?”

I didn’t need to explain why, or detail my fears: that I would wipe the stickiness off my skin and start drinking the bathwater, looking for the faintest echo of the dreams the goblin fruit could bring. I’d managed to do the unthinkable when I beat the addiction, but that didn’t mean I was cured—I was still a changeling, and it would always be more tempting than anything the mortal world had to offer. It just meant that I’d survived a brush with something that should have destroyed me, and while survival may have made me stronger, it had also left its scars.

“Of course,” said May, putting an arm around my shoulder and steering me across the room toward what I presumed was the door to the bathroom. “Just let me grab something for you to wear, all right? I think Quentin would drop dead on the spot if he realized you had nipples under there.”

My laughter was a little less strained this time, although it still had a tight, flat edge to it that I didn’t like. “I’m pretty sure he knows I’m a girl by this point, May.”