A Red-Rose Chain

What we couldn’t do was help them get back to Avalon. Those doors were sealed, and had been since we stopped Chelsea from her panicked flight through Faerie. She couldn’t teleport at all right now, thanks to an alchemical potion that had blocked her powers, and was going to keep blocking them until a year had passed. When it wore off—and it would wear off soon; she only had about three months to go—she would have a normal Tuatha de Dannan’s limitations. No more shredding the fabric of Faerie for Chelsea, and no way home for the Mauthe Doog.

The Mauthe Doog closest to me whined. I heard footsteps approaching from behind me. Experience told me that they belonged to Quentin, not Tybalt—my squire might have the grace and elegance of a pureblooded Daoine Sidhe, but Cait Sidhe are in a league of their own when it comes to sneaking up on people. The day Tybalt did something as common as stomp would be the day he turned in his proverbial whiskers.

“These are my friends,” I said, gesturing toward the sound of footsteps and hoping that the gesture would encompass all three of the guys. “We’re all sorry we fought with you. We didn’t know.”

“I’m not sorry,” said Quentin. “One of them tried to take my throat away from me. With its teeth. I’m not you. I need my throat.”

“Whine about missing body parts later, talk nicely to the poor confused doggies now,” I said, keeping my eyes on the Mauthe Doog. “This is one of those moments when I could really use Etienne’s powers back in working order. Danny, call Muir Woods. Tell Arden we need a door from here to there, and tell her that Madden needs to be waiting on the other side.”

“I think attacking the Queen with a bunch of monster dogs is treason, Toby,” said Quentin, starting to sound concerned.

“Good for me, I haven’t committed treason against this monarch yet. I’m trying to complete the set. Danny?”

“On it,” rumbled the Bridge Troll, and moved away, his steps thudding against the ground like tiny boulders falling.

I stayed where I was, keeping my hand stretched out toward the dogs and making quiet, soothing noises. More Mauthe Doog slunk around us to join the three I’d started with, forming a pack of wary canines. There were seven of them, all told; I didn’t know how many we’d killed, or how many of them had teleported away and were now making their way back to check on their pack mates. I’ve never really been much of a dog person.

The smell of blackberry flowers and redwood bark drifted over me, out of place this close to the water. I twisted to look over my shoulder. Arden was standing behind me and not behind me at the same time, since there was no rational way of folding geography that put Muir Woods “behind” the Marin salt flats. A glimmering circle in the air marked the division between her location and ours.

“What in the world—” she began.

I cut her off. “Is Madden there?” It’s good to be on speaking terms with the Queen: it makes rudeness a little easier to forgive. But only a little. I had to be careful not to push it.

Arden frowned, apparently not used to people interrupting her anymore. I was definitely pushing it. All she said was, “Yes, he’s here. Madden?”

“Coming!” The voice was followed by a large, shaggy man in jeans and a black T-shirt with the Borderlands Café logo on the front appearing in the frame of Arden’s portal. He would have looked completely out of place next to Arden, with her perfectly groomed hair and the dress that could have been lifted straight from the Italian Renaissance, if not for the red streaks in his otherwise snow-white hair and the wolfish gold of his eyes. Madden looked mostly human, but the parts of him that weren’t human were pure canine. “Hi, Toby! Hi, Toby’s friends!”

“Hi, Madden,” I said. “Can you step through for a second? I have some folks here who really want to meet you.”

“All right,” said Madden amiably, and bounced through the portal. Then he stopped, staring at the Mauthe Doog with open-faced delight. “Hey! Cousins!”