A Red-Rose Chain

I blinked at her, nonplussed. Apparently, growing up surrounded by Firstborn didn’t instill the same dislike for saying “thank you.”


Ceres wasn’t done. She stooped to pick up one of the rose goblins that crowded the path, glanced in the direction of the distant castle, and said, “Come. I would sit with you. I would share tea and stories with my family’s savior, and with her friends.” She kissed the rose goblin’s head, making no effort to avoid the angle of its thorns. If I’d done that, I would have sliced my mouth open, but she barely seemed to notice. The goblin made a low purring sound. “As for you, my little spy, go tell the king I have found his wayward diplomats. Paint the picture of a woman greatly troubled, overcome with the duties of her position. The better your portrait, the better your rewards shall be. Do you understand?”

The goblin made a trilling noise. Ceres smiled.

“Excellent. You are very dear.” She set the goblin back on the ground. It took off like a shot, vanishing into the brush as Ceres straightened. Making a beckoning gesture, she started down the path. “Come,” she said again.

Tybalt and I exchanged a glance. Walther was already following her. It was my experience that he was a pretty good judge of character, and once we knew where we were going, I could always ask Tybalt to go back and tell Quentin and May what was going on. I shrugged and, together, we followed.

Ceres led us along the pine-choked path for about a hundred yards before she turned and stepped onto a narrow dirt trail winding through the forest. As before, Walther followed her, and so Tybalt and I followed him, trusting that whatever their relationship was, it wouldn’t cause him to lead us to our certain doom. Maybe that was overly optimistic of me, but I felt like I had earned a little optimism after the day that I’d had.

The trees closed around us like a curtain. The trail was covered in pine needles, and we couldn’t avoid stepping on them, causing the rich, syrupy scent of pine to become even stronger, until it was like we were walking through the distilled essence of Christmas. I’ve always liked that smell, which is a good thing; if I hadn’t, I would have been sneezing and cursing my life choices before we were halfway through the wood.

Rose goblins flickered through the underbrush, their thorny faces seeming to bloom like strange flowers as they peeked back at us. None of them stayed long enough for me to pick out individual features—just thorns and bright, floral colors, and those vivid, staring eyes. Ceres moved through the wood like it had been designed for her private use, and in a way, it had. Her mother, Acacia, was the Firstborn of both the Dryads and the Blodynbryd. When she spoke to the forest, the forest responded. Ceres might not have quite such a close connection to the trees, but she was a relative, however distant, and they seemed to respect her.

I wasn’t so lucky, and I was walking through a pine forest in a formal gown. At first I tried to keep my skirt from dragging on the ground, but I gave it up as a bad idea before we’d gone very far. Either the palace laundry would be able to save it or they wouldn’t. I didn’t give much of a damn either way. Although I was going to miss those jeans.

Tybalt shot me an amused look after the third time I had to wrestle one of my sleeves back from a tree. “You know, in all my years, I’ve never known a woman with such talent for wearing unsuitable finery into the wilderness.”

“Really?” I eyed him dubiously. “You’re going to tell me no Cait Sidhe woman has ever wound up in the woods while she was dressed for Court?”

“No. But if you were a Cait Sidhe woman, you would have removed your gown by now.”

I didn’t have an answer for that. Tybalt laughed as my cheeks flared red.