One Salt Sea

SEVEN

STARLIGHT FROSTED THE BEACH in gilded silver as we stepped from the shelter of the cave and waded through the water to the beach, all of us emerging perfectly dry, courtesy of Connor. Sylvester gave me a fierce hug and turned to walk, hand-in-hand with Luna, toward the parking lot.

April watched them go before turning back to me. “Is there anything else I can do?”

“Just get home safely, and tell your people to stay out of danger.” I allowed myself a brief smile. “I don’t have time to save their butts right now.”

“Acknowledged,” she said, and vanished in a haze of static, presumably returning to her escort.

Connor cast a quick don’t-look-here over the both of us, the briny smell of his magic blending into the smell of the waves. He took my free hand once the spell was complete, his eyes going to the water. “Toby . . .”

“I know.” I followed the direction of his gaze. “If it comes to that, I won’t blame you.”

“That’ll make one of us.”

“Connor . . .” The Luidaeg’s shell was getting steadily colder, reaching the point where “freeze” becomes “burn.” I shivered. “I shouldn’t have let April leave without asking if she had a phone. Do you have a phone?”

Connor blinked, apparently thrown. “Uh . . . no? I spend half my time underwater. They make diving watches, but they don’t make diving cell phones yet.”

“Oh, root and branch.” May’s been trying to get me to start carrying a cell phone for ages now. I hate it when she’s right. “Do you mind taking a detour? I think the Luidaeg’s trying to get hold of me.” I didn’t want to pull the shell out while I was standing on a public beach, don’t-look-here or not. It might do anything, from transmitting her voice to exploding, and I didn’t want to deal.

“I . . . guess not.” Connor looked uneasy. I couldn’t exactly blame him for that. If the Luidaeg is a legendary monster to most of Faerie, she’s a well-known, and very real, danger in the Undersea. “If she wants you.”

“Good. Come on.”

The parking lot was empty by the time we reached my car. I passed Connor the arrow, still wrapped in Patrick’s vest, and unlocked the doors. He offered the arrow back once we were in the car. I shook my head.

“Keep it while I drive. Try not to stab yourself.”

Connor snorted. “There’s a real vote of confidence.”

“Stick around. Maybe you’ll get another one.”

He smiled a bit at that, setting the arrow across his knees with the pointy end toward the door. If anything got stabbed, it would be my poor car, which was better than the alternatives.

Jokes aside, the enormity of what was ahead of us was staggering. For Connor, this was a choice between loyalties. For me, it was just too damn much to think about. My mind kept skipping tracks, too overloaded to settle on which was more important—the Lorden children or the threat of war.

From the look on Connor’s face, his thoughts were equally grim. I cleared my throat. “Are you sure you’re okay with coming along on this?”

“I have to be.”

“Why?”

“Because I’d rather deal with the Luidaeg than risk winding up on different sides of the battlefield.”

I grimaced. “We’re not going to war. I just need to find the kids, and this all goes away.”

“That’s assuming your Queen didn’t kidnap them herself.”

I didn’t miss his choice of pronouns. The Undersea is technically part of the system of Courts and Kingdoms established by Oberon, but “technically” is a big word. There’s a King somewhere in the Pacific Ocean. If Saltmist wanted to claim to belong to his Kingdom instead of to the Mists, nobody could really stop them. “I don’t think she did, and anyway, it’s not a good thing to say,” I said carefully. “She was ready to banish me for suggesting it.”

“Yeah, well, the Queen’s not here now, and I don’t trust her.”

“There’s something we have in common; neither do I. I get a little wary when people try to kill me.”

“And I get a little pissed when people try to kill either one of us.” He sighed. “Toby, you know what’s going to happen if things get bad. I—”

“Do you really want to talk about that right now?”

“No.”

“Did you kidnap the Lorden kids?”

“What? No!”

“Then calm down until we get to the Luidaeg’s. We’re going to stop all this from happening, and then it won’t matter.” I flashed him a smile. “That’s the beauty of the future. We get to change it. Okay?”

“Okay.” Connor put his hand on my knee. I put my own hand over it, squeezing gently before returning my focus to staying on the road. It was only eight-thirty—were we really only at the Queen’s Court for an hour? It’s amazing how quickly things can fall apart—and there was too much traffic for me to safely get distracted.

The streets cleared once we moved into the less-reputable stretch of the waterfront, and the smell of the docks slipped in through the vents, filling the car with a familiar mix of fish and sweet decay. Weird as it seems, I found myself relaxing. The Luidaeg was one of Faerie’s monsters, but she was also a friend, and I trusted her.

The Luidaeg’s neighborhood looks like it might topple into the ocean at any moment. The people who live there tend to be the poorest of the poor, the ones who don’t have any other choice. And it’s probably one of the safest places in the city. I looked it up in the police department records once, after using a quick don’t-look-here to keep the police from realizing I wasn’t supposed to be there. Sure, you’ll find drug dealers in the shadows and hookers on the street corners, but no one ever seems to actually get hurt. All the crimes are victimless ones, and even the poorest children don’t go to bed hungry. There’s something to be said for living in the haunt of a fabulous monster.

I parked a block away from her apartment, taking the arrow from Connor before I got out of the car. He scanned the deserted street as he stood. “Um, Toby? Are we in the right place?”

“Not what you expected?”

“From the sea witch? Not really.” Connor shook his head. “I don’t know what I expected. But it wasn’t this.”

Oberon preserve me from purebloods and their expectations. “Just follow my lead, and try not to touch anything.”

I led him down the alley to the Luidaeg’s door, a flat rectangle of rotting wood set in a crumbling frame. The door swung open before I could knock, revealing the Luidaeg herself. Connor froze. That’s a natural response when confronted by the sea witch.

Good thing all my natural responses were burned out years ago. “Hey,” I said.

“What in my mother’s name took you so long?” she snarled, stepping out of the way as she gestured me briskly inside. “I expected you twenty minutes ago.”

“Traffic,” I said. The shell stopped radiating cold as soon as I was over her threshold. I rubbed my thigh through the fabric of my dress, wincing a little. I’d be lucky if I didn’t have frostbite.

As if she could read my mind—there was a terrifying thought—the Luidaeg said, “Be grateful. It could have been a lot worse.”

“I am,” I said. I meant it, too. The Luidaeg could probably have blown my brains out with the thing, if she’d wanted to.

She swung her attention to Connor. “Selkie,” she half-said, half-spat.

He swallowed, hard. “Ma’am.”

“Oh, for Mom’s sake.” The Luidaeg rolled her eyes. “I don’t have time for this. Get in here.” He stepped inside, and she slammed the door behind him, casting the hall into darkness. “Now come on.” She turned and strode down the hall. Not being entirely stupid, I followed. Connor followed me.

The carpet crackled underfoot, bits of debris catching on my heels. I don’t know what color the carpet was when the Luidaeg moved in, and she keeps the lights low enough that even the improvements to my vision won’t let me see what color it is now. There are some small mercies in this world. The crackling was accompanied by the sound of insects scuttling for cover. The cockroaches clever and quick enough to survive in the Luidaeg’s presence breed prodigiously; she crushes or eats the dumb ones. If an insect uprising ever displaces the mammals as the titular head of the food chain, I expect it to start at her place.

The Luidaeg’s living room is usually slightly better than the hall, in that the layers of junk covering the floor are shallower, and there are windows, which keeps the mold from getting more than a light foothold on the walls and furniture. The Luidaeg was standing at the center of the room, arms crossed, waiting. “Well?” she demanded. “What happened?”

“How do you know something happened?”

“You’re here, which means the shell reacted. That means something happened. What was it?”

I took a breath. “Somebody decided to take a shot at Patrick Lorden.”

“Oh, rot and wreck.” The Luidaeg took a step back, sitting heavily on the couch. Her eyes were wide. That was the scariest thing I’d seen all evening. “Is he dead?”

“No—I managed to knock him out of the way before the shot was fired.” I held up the arrow. “I dug this out of the floor.”

“Give it to me.” It wasn’t a request. I stepped forward, dropping the arrow into her outstretched hand. She peeled away Patrick’s vest, first sniffing the wood, then licking the feathers fletching the end. Making a sour face, she offered it back. “It’s just elf-shot. It’s safe to touch, as long as you don’t do anything stupid, like cutting yourself.”

Assurances aside, I still used Patrick’s vest to keep myself from touching the wood as I took it from her hands. She snorted, looking almost amused.

“I’ll ask Walther to take a look. Maybe he can figure out which recipe was used,” I said. Walther Davies is Tylwyth Teg, and possibly the only alchemist in Faerie who holds a PhD in chemistry. He cured my iron poisoning after I was rescued from the Queen’s dungeon, and was largely responsible for saving Luna’s life when Oleander poisoned her. If anyone could identify the specific spell used to craft the elf-shot, it would be him.

“Good. Now, while I was waiting for you, I got a visit from one of the Queen’s messengers.” She started peeling the electrical tape off her left pigtail, expression pensive. “Saltmist has declared war. You have to find those boys, Toby. You don’t understand just how screwed you are if you don’t.”

I frowned. “What do you mean? We’re going to war if I don’t find them. Isn’t that screwed enough?”

“He knows.” She jabbed a finger toward Connor. He looked away. She glared. “Oh, he knows. The Undersea is marshaling their forces, isn’t it, Selkie? It’s going to be a massacre, because while the land’s been getting soft, the sea’s stayed hard. The sea can’t afford to be soft, can it, Selkie?”

“No,” mumbled Connor.

“No,” repeated the Luidaeg. “Do you get that, Toby? The sea has more fighters than the land. They’re better trained, they’re better disciplined, and they’re not as politically divided. They’re going to slaughter you.”

“Us,” I said. The Luidaeg was silent. “Luidaeg? You mean they’re going to slaughter us.”

“No.” She looked at me gravely. “I mean they’re going to slaughter you.”

“Luidaeg—”

“The Undersea knows my limits.” She dropped her pigtail, standing. “There’s no one there that’s willing to come here and take me on, but they know I won’t take the fight to them. I can’t attack the children of Titania. I won’t attack the children of Maeve. This one’s up to your Queen’s army, and guess what, October? Your Queen’s army ain’t up to the task.”

Connor wasn’t saying anything. That just made the Luidaeg’s tone—a mixture of anger, fear, and resignation—all the more terrifying. I squared my shoulders, trying to ignore the fact that I was standing in the apartment of the sea witch, wearing a fairy-tale prom gown, waiting for the attack of the mermaids.

“What do you want me to do?”

“Find the boys. I assume the Queen tasked you with the same thing?”

I snorted. “More like I bullied her into allowing it, but yes.”

“Good. Now listen to me: if you find them, you must not take them to her. Bring them to me, or find a way to get them to their parents, but don’t let her near them. I don’t trust her to remember that the land can’t win this war if she thinks she has the upper hand.”

“All right.” I shifted the arrow to my other hand. “Anything else?”

“One more thing—I’ve been scrying for the boys, and I can’t find them. That’s not a good sign. You don’t have much time.”

“I figured that out on my own.”

She pointed to the door. “Then what are you still doing here?”

“We’re on our way out.” I turned to go. Connor was right beside me, looking painfully relieved to be getting out of there.

We were almost to the door when the Luidaeg called, “Oh, and Toby?”

I looked back. “Yeah?”

“You’re going to need to bring me a shapeshifter soon. Not him. Never bring a Selkie here again. They’re not welcome.” Something in her voice told me not to ask. If she said I was going to need a shapeshifter, she meant it . . . and if Selkies weren’t welcome, she wasn’t going to tell me why with Connor in the room.

“All right,” I said, and grabbed Connor’s hand, yanking him out into the night.

I didn’t have to drag him for long. He pulled his hand out of mine as soon as the door slammed behind us, starting to walk steadily faster. He was almost running by the time we reached the car. I grabbed his elbow. He whipped around to face me, eyes wide, breath coming short and panicky.

“Whoa!” I let go and took a step back, raising my hands. That probably wasn’t as reassuring as it could have been, given the poisoned arrow I was holding. “What’s wrong? What was all that about?”

“The sea witch doesn’t parley with Selkies,” he said. There was some ancient, wounded longing in his voice, like the sound of the tide rushing out. “Don’t ask me why. I can’t tell you.”

“All right,” I said. “I just . . . all right. Are you coming back to the apartment?”

“For a little while.” He sighed. “This doesn’t have anything to do with you. Okay?”

“Okay,” I said. “Now get in the car.”

It took almost half an hour to fight through the traffic and get back to my place. May and Jazz were snuggled together on the couch when we came in, watching a television show featuring a lot of twenty-something actors pretending to be teens. They looked up when the door opened, initial smiles dying as they saw the expression on Connor’s face and the arrow in my hand. Even for me, that sort of thing doesn’t normally spell “hot date.”

“Bad night?” asked May.

“About like I expected. We’re going to need to call Walther.” I closed the door and stuck the arrow in the umbrella stand, point down. Connor blinked at me. “You have a better idea?”

“Not really,” he admitted.

“Didn’t think so. Guys, the arrow in the umbrella stand is elf-shot. Don’t touch it.”

“And that’s why we’re calling Walther?” asked May.

“Exactly.”

“Right.” Jazz got up. “I’m going to make some coffee.”

“Good call.” One of the cats started twining around my ankles. I bent to scoop her up. “Hello, Cagney. You don’t care that we’re going to war, do you?” She purred. “Didn’t think so.”

“Is it official?” asked May quietly.

“Yeah,” I said. I stood there stroking Cagney as I started filling May in on the events of the night so far. I was about halfway through when Jazz emerged from the kitchen and offered me a mug of coffee, which I took gratefully. Connor interjected occasionally, but was mostly silent, standing close and offering what support he could just by being there. It was surprisingly comforting.

A brief silence fell when I finished speaking. Finally, Jazz asked, “Do you really think Walther can figure out who made the elf-shot?”

“It’s worth a try.” I glanced to Connor. “The Luidaeg’s sidelined for this fight, except for whatever she can accomplish through me. So we’re basically on our own.”

“Super fun,” said May.

“I can take the arrow to Walther,” volunteered Jazz. We all looked at her. She shrugged. “I don’t need a car, remember?”

“Fair enough,” I allowed. “Just make sure you don’t scratch yourself. The best case scenario with elf-shot involves sleeping for a hundred years.”

“I’ll be careful,” said Jazz. She kissed May on the cheek, grabbed the arrow from the umbrella stand—only touching the leather, I noted approvingly—opened the door, and was gone. Mortal ravens don’t like to fly after dark. Fae ravens are more adaptable. They’re also a hell of a lot more resilient. Jazz could probably fly a hundred miles in a night, if she had to.

I took a breath. “Okay, that’s one problem down. Now for the big one: we have three days to find the Lorden boys before things get ugly.”

“Is finding the Lorden boys going to stop things from getting any worse, or is it just going to make them a little less worse?” May paused. “I’m not sure that was a sentence. Anyway, what I’m saying is if they’re at the stage of, like, shooting at people, are they going to back down just because we find the kids?”

“Probably not,” I admitted. “But at that point, at least we’d only be dealing with people who want to start a war, rather than dealing with them and an actual war. That has to be an improvement over what we have now, right?”

“It’s worth a try,” said Connor. He turned his head slightly, meeting my eyes. I almost flinched away. Selkie eyes are always dark, but the darkness in Connor’s expression wasn’t just a matter of biology; not tonight. He was a man looking at a choice he didn’t know how to make, and this time, he was the one who looked like he was in danger of drowning. Me or the Undersea? If he had to choose, who was going to win?

“Connor—” I began, and stopped as someone knocked on the front door. We all turned to cast wary looks in that direction. “May, did you order a pizza?”

“Good idea, but no,” she said.

“That’s what I was afraid you were going to say.” I put my coffee cup on the nearest bookshelf and walked to the door, calling, “Who is it?” I wasn’t going to waste the energy on a human disguise if I didn’t have to.

“We wouldn’t have to go through this little charade if you’d simply acknowledge me as an honored guest and agree that I can enter any time I like,” Tybalt replied, managing to sound amused and tired at the same time.

I opened the door.

Tybalt was standing on my doorstep, only the barest veil of human illusion between him and the mortal night. Raj—his nephew and titular heir to the Court of Cats, assuming he can live that long—stood next to him, looking near-terminally embarrassed. I barely even noticed he was there. I was too busy blinking at his uncle.

Tybalt blinked back.

San Francisco’s King of Cats is difficult to describe. Too much of his appeal is in the way he moves, the way he smiles, the subtle tilt of his head when he gives someone his full attention. Not that he’s not good-looking—he is—but he’s more than that. He has fewer feline traits than some of the other Cait Sidhe; cat-slit pupils, black tabby stripes in his dark brown hair. The rest of him could pass for Daoine Sidhe in the right lighting. Appearances can be deceiving. Tybalt’s a cat, through and through, and it’s best to keep that in mind.

I hadn’t seen him since I left the Court of Cats before my second “trial” in the Queen’s Court. He’s always been prone to disappearing, but he’d never been gone for so long before. The last thing he said to me before I left was: “Come back to me.” When I tried to do just that, I couldn’t find him. The Court of Cats is open only to those the King allows to enter, and he’d locked the doors without telling me why. Now here he was on my doorstep, staring at me with an expression that bordered on amazement.

Connor stepped up behind me, bringing the sharp smell of the sea in his wake—and, more importantly, reminding me that he was there. I drew myself up, realizing as I did that I was still dressed for the Queen’s Court. Well, that explained the staring. Tybalt had never seen me voluntarily wearing a dress before, and all the involuntary dresses had been of the Disney princess variety.

“Tybalt,” I said, as neutrally as I could. “I wasn’t expecting you.”

“What, really?” May shoved her way past Connor to the door. “Whoa. Hey, Tybalt, long time no see. Come on in, Raj. They’re probably going to stare at each other for a while before they get anything done.” She offered her hand to the younger Cait Sidhe. He took it, letting himself be tugged into the apartment.

True to May’s prediction, Tybalt was still staring at me. Finally, awkwardly, he said, “Toby . . .”

Was I happy to see Tybalt after a month of being avoided? Well, that depends. Could he possibly have picked a worse time than right after I’d failed to prevent a declaration of war? Knowing him, the answer was probably “yes.” He has an amazing talent for showing up when I don’t want him to.

He also has an amazing talent for saving my ass. No matter what we thought about each other, the fact remained that he was a King of Cats, and if I was going to stop the war, I could do worse than having him on my side.

“Forget it.” I stepped back, opening the door wide enough to let him pass. “Come in if you’re coming.”

A look of momentary discomfiture flickered across his face, there and gone almost before I could blink. “As you like,” he said, inclining his head, and stepped inside.