Rosemary and Rue

“You can talk,” he said, expression radiating utter calm. “Your illusions are intact. You aren’t panicking or in pain. Can you really say that was worse than standing through the dawn?”


I hesitated, actually looking around me. The sun was up. I could taste the ashes of the previous night’s magic in the air . . . and Tybalt was right. My own magic, small as it was, was still entirely intact. I was chilled, but that had been, in its strange and alien way, easier than the sunrise. I stood carefully, testing my balance as I watched him.

“You could have asked me.”

“What would you have said?” I hesitated, and he smiled, looking satisfied. “You see? You would be uselessly gasping for air, and not only would I still not know why you came here, but I would have missed the amusement of watching your expression when I pulled you into the shadows. Now. Since I’ve spared you the dawn, you can honor me with an answer to my question. Why are you here?”

There was no nice way to say what needed to be said. I didn’t even try. “Evening Winterrose is dead.” Tybalt recoiled, eyes going wide. I continued, “You knew Evening. You know what she could do. She used the old forms when she died, and she bound me. She wrapped me in a chain so tight that it’s choking me, and you’re the only person that can help me.”

Tybalt’s eyes remained wide as he frowned. “Me? Why me?” His expression was pained. He and Evening were never friends—they never even cared enough to be enemies—but they’d been in the same city a long, long time. Some ties run deeper than friendship. The news of her death had him off-kilter.

“Because I’m still in her service, and that means I have to keep going, even if it kills me. I need somebody to back me up if things . . . if things don’t go as well as they might.”

He flinched, and demanded, “Why in the hell would she choose you? You couldn’t even find a living woman. How are you planning to avenge a dead one?”

For once, the reminder didn’t sting. Yes, I’d failed, but that didn’t mean I’d fail again. Not this time. “Please, Tybalt. I need you.” I bowed my head in a calculated gesture of submission. A lot of purebloods still say we owe that sort of thing to our “betters.” The world has changed, but they don’t care; time can’t get much of a foothold in fealty. “My skills have limits.” I was laying it on pretty thick. I didn’t think he’d object.

“What do you want from me?” His voice was flat. I glanced up to find him standing at attention, shoulders tense, glaring. I’d handed him a full measure of grief and then asked for favors; if I was lucky, he’d let me finish talking before he ripped me open and left me for the night-haunts.

“I want you to guard this.” I pulled the garbage bag off the hope chest, holding it up for him to see. The touch of the wood against my skin set my hands tingling again, sending bolts of heat up my arms.

Tybalt froze, confusion washing across his face. “Is that . . . ?”

“Yes.”

“But they don’t exist.”

“Guess we were wrong about that, huh? It’s real. Evening had it. She hid a clue with the autumn sprites and told them to bring it to me.” I paused before saying the words I’d been hoping to avoid: “I think she got killed for it.”

“I don’t understand. They’re not . . . the hope chests aren’t real.”

I shook my head. “I know that. I also know that at least one of them exists, and this is it, because I can feel it, Tybalt, I can feel it singing to me. I don’t know how true the stories about hope chests and changelings are, but I know enough to know that I can’t trust myself with it. I can’t trust any changeling with it. It has to be in pureblood hands, at least until I find out who killed Evening.” Please, I added silently. I don’t know how long I can hold out.

The burning was getting strong again, faster than it had before. The hope chest knew who I was now, and whatever it had been designed to do, it was eager to get to work.

Tybalt glanced away. “The Queen . . .”

“She won’t help me. She’s already refused.”