One Salt Sea

NINE

TYBALT DIDN’T SAY ANYTHING as we drove; he just stared fixedly out the window. I spent a few minutes trying to figure out what I’d done wrong this time before I realized that it wasn’t about me at all. Tybalt’s older than I am. I’ve never asked how much older, but some of the things he’s said make me guess that he’s at least three hundred. I grew up with cars, and he didn’t.

That’s the thing about living forever. You eventually stop getting used to the way the world changes. “We’re almost there,” I said, as reassuringly as I could.

He shot me a grateful look before catching himself and sitting up in his seat. “Are we? I was enjoying the scenery.”

“Well, we could go around the block a few times if you want—”

“No,” he said hurriedly. Then he sighed, rubbing his face with one hand. “No, please. I’m quite prepared to be out of this infernal construction. We could have walked the Shadow Roads, you know. We would have been there long since.”

“What, and miss the fun of driving?” I offered a sympathetic smile. “It’s okay. Have you been to the Luidaeg’s before?”

“I have never had the privilege—or the need.” It was his turn to smile, putting a trace of wryness under the expression. “It seems you spend more time than most in a state of sheer emergency.”

“It’s a gift.”

“Yes.” He chuckled. “I suppose it is.”

We drove in silence for a while longer. I was thinking about turning on the radio when Tybalt said, almost to himself, “I don’t understand why it always comes to this.”

I barely stopped myself from twisting to look at him. That would probably have sent us careening into the nearest tree. “I don’t understand.”

“War. It seems that in Faerie, conflicts such as these must always come to war.”

“But . . . you’re Cait Sidhe. No offense, but your people are some of the most violent I’ve ever seen. You fight constantly.”

“Yes; we fight from the day we’re born—and we learn that fights have consequences. When you cut someone, he bleeds. When someone cuts you, you scar. Nothing is free. Sometimes I think we’re the only ones in Faerie who remember that.”

I slanted a frown toward him. “Everyone knows wars have costs.”

“If they did, they wouldn’t fight them. Watch. The veterans are smart enough to leave for other Kingdoms while they still can; most of the ones who come when the call goes out won’t have ever fought a war before. They’ll come because they think it’s honorable, or because they want to be called heroes. They’ll show up in their pretty armor, and they’ll litter the battlefield like leaves.” He sighed, running a hand over his face. “I’ve been to war. Believe me. What’s coming won’t be anything honorable.”

“I thought Cait Sidhe didn’t have wars.” Bloody, brutal battles for succession, sure, but not wars.

“We don’t.” Tybalt flashed a humorless smile. “What makes you think you’re the first of your kind to befriend me? I’m older than you. I’ve had time to put some skeletons in my closet.”

“It’s the ones you buried in the backyard that worry me.” My attempt at levity sounded flat even to my own ears. If we went to war, people were going to die.

The joke pretty much killed the conversation. He shook his head, turning his gaze back to the window. I sighed and kept driving. Only a few blocks later, we entered the Luidaeg’s neighborhood, and a thick fog that smelled like brine and ashes rose to envelop the car. The buildings that lined the street were dark, the mist blurring them into architectural ghosts. I was willing to bet that the Luidaeg’s mortal neighbors, few as they were, had been gripped with the sudden desire to visit friends or relatives as far from the coast as possible, leaving their homes abandoned.

I caught Tybalt looking out the windows in confusion, like he didn’t remember where we were or what we were doing there. “This is a seriously good misdirection spell,” I said. “It’s a good thing she told it I was coming, huh?”

Tybalt glanced at me, seeming briefly confused that I was there. The moment passed. “You’re an ally,” he said, shaking his head. “She’s wise to remember that.”

“Maybe,” I agreed, pulling up to the curb. Tybalt was out of the car before I turned the engine off. He stopped about five feet away, half-bleached by the fog, and stayed there, shuddering slightly and taking large, shaky breaths. I took my time getting out of the car, giving him a chance to calm down.

He jumped when I closed my door, casting another bewildered glance my way. Acting purely on instinct, I crossed to him and took hold of his elbow. His expression cleared, replaced by embarrassment.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I forgot . . . briefly, I’m afraid that I forgot you were here.”

“Yeah, well.” I shrugged. “I’m forgettable. You okay?”

“No.” He stepped a little closer as he scanned the fog surrounding us. “Perhaps you’d best keep your grip. This enchantment seems somewhat over fond of claiming me.”

“Not a problem.” I started into the fog. “This way.”

“As you like.” Tybalt let me pull him along. His footsteps made no noise on the broken, gravel-studded sidewalks, while I sounded like an entire invading army all by myself. “What, if anything, do you know about the Lordens?”

“Patrick seems nice. Dianda was a little cranky, but I’d be cranky, too, if someone stole my kids and tried to put an arrow through my husband.” I shrugged, kicking a chunk of glass out of the way. “Why? Do you have some great revelations to share?”

“Not great, but they might be of use.” His gaze went distant as he tried to put his next words in order. “The Duchess—Dianda—has reigned in Saltmist since before I moved to the Mists. She used to be seen in the Courts quite often, when Gilad was King. She’s a traditionalist, of a kind, but unlike some, she’s never preached separation of land and sea. That’s part of why she married Patrick.”

“Only part?”

Tybalt gave me a half-amused, half-exasperated look. “They fell in love,” he said. “It does happen.”

I was grateful for the fog surrounding us. I could at least pretend he couldn’t see me blushing. “Right. So what does that mean?”

“It means she didn’t take it well when people started shunning him, or when he started having ‘accidents.’ King Gilad was an attendant at their wedding—he didn’t just approve, he gave his blessing—but things changed when the new Queen took the throne. It wasn’t acceptable to be a land noble married to a sea Duchess anymore. That’s when Patrick renounced his titles.” Tybalt started walking faster. I tightened my hand on his elbow.

“Do you think you can find the Luidaeg’s on your own?” I asked.

He eyed me. “No,” he admitted.

“Then slow down.”

Grudgingly, Tybalt slowed his pace.

“That’s better. Now, back to the Lordens. You’re saying they had some resentment before some idiot decided to snatch their kids.”

“They’ve had a long time to feel hurt and persecuted, and the Duchess has never forgiven easily.” He cast a sidelong look at me. “That’s something her Court and mine have always had in common.”

I didn’t know how to answer that. I didn’t have to; we’d reached the Luidaeg’s door. It was open, flooding the surrounding fog with warm lamplight, and the Luidaeg herself was sitting on the threshold, eating Ben and Jerry’s Phish Food out of the carton. She stuck the spoon into the ice cream and stood when she saw us, flicking one electric-taped pigtail carelessly back over her shoulder.

“I thought that was you,” she said. “And you brought a friend. It’s good to see you playing nicely with the other children, even if this isn’t the best time to develop a social life.”

Tybalt folded a hand over mine as he offered her a cordial bow. “Milady of the Moors. It has been too long.”

“No, it hasn’t,” the Luidaeg replied, mildly enough. The last time they’d seen each other, he’d been helping to steal me back from Blind Michael. Not exactly the sort of thing that inspires a lasting friendship. “Has the Court of Dreaming Cats declared alliance?”

“Yes,” he said. He didn’t let go of my hand.

The Luidaeg lifted an eyebrow, looking amused. “Is that so? Well, you’re here now. I guess you might as well come in.” She turned, heading into the hall. Tybalt and I exchanged a look before shrugging, almost in unison, and stepping inside.

The door slammed shut behind us.

The smell of brine and ashes was stronger inside the apartment, and golden lamplight seemed to radiate from the walls, probably anchoring the misdirection spell blanketing the neighborhood. The light made the mess in the hall seem less severe, blunting the edges into an abstraction, like the treasure in a dragon’s lair. The muck-colored carpet still crackled underfoot. I found that reassuring.

The Luidaeg was settled on the couch in a disarmingly casual pose when we reached the living room. “Well?” she asked, around a mouthful of ice cream. “Why are you already back? Did you save the world or something?”

“I’m still working on it.” I sat down on an old wooden chest. It creaked under my weight. “Tybalt’s here because the Cait Sidhe are going to help defend Goldengreen, if things come to that.”

“Brave little kitty.” She watched Tybalt pick his way across the floor, her gaze as flat and cold as a shark’s. “You going to run out the moment things get difficult, cat?”

“That isn’t my intention,” he replied, haughtiness warring with caution in his tone. Only the narrowing of his pupils betrayed how much her question annoyed him. “Cats may be fickle, but my word has value.”

“Good.” The Luidaeg took another bite of ice cream, turning back to me. “You’d have called if that was all you had. What is it, and what do you want?”

“I got some information from a Glastig I know. He says the Lorden boys were stolen by a woman with red hair and yellow eyes. Know anyone who fits the description?” She was silent. I nodded. “Thought so. I’m going to Shadowed Hills next, to tell the Torquills in person and search Rayseline’s quarters. There’s a chance, even if it’s a slim one, that she’ll have left something there that could give me a clue to why she’s doing this—and whether she’s doing it alone.”

The Luidaeg’s eyebrows rose. “You’re thinking conspiracy?”

“Does Rayseline strike you as smart enough to pull this off without help?”

“Smart, maybe; stable, no. I’m surprised she can put her own shoes on without written directions.” The Luidaeg took another bite of ice cream. Finally, she asked, “What else?”

I took a deep breath. “I need to meet with the Lordens. Can you arrange it?”

“I can,” said the Luidaeg. “Your reputation may actually help for once, since everyone knows the Queen hates you. That’s still not enough to make you come here, instead of calling me.”

“I missed your smiling face?”

She lifted an eyebrow.

So much for that. “I don’t think I’m going to be able to find the kids if I can’t search the place where they were taken. That means I’m going to need a way to travel to Salt-mist without drowning.”

The Luidaeg nodded. “I hoped you’d figure that out before I explained it to you. It comes easier this way.”

“Yeah. I guess so.” The Luidaeg knows how much I hate water. More, she knows how much I hate having anyone use transformation magic on me, and even the simplest water-breathing spell is a kind of transformation. She’d probably been expecting me to pitch a fit.

“There are ways for an air-breather to survive underwater—Patrick Lorden proves that—but he gets his enchantments from his wife, and he doesn’t spend much time in the open sea without her. You’ll need something longer-lasting.”

I’d worked out most of this for myself. That didn’t make hearing it any better. “Longer-lasting? You’re not coming with me?”

“I can’t. If I enter the water right now . . .” She let the sentence trail off.

“The sea witch traditionally owes her allegiance to the Undersea,” said Tybalt. His voice was studiously neutral. “I believe that, if she were to enter the waters, she would not be able to return until this conflict was done.”

The Luidaeg nodded. “Bingo.”

“As I thought.” Tybalt crossed his arms. “What, then, are you proposing?”

“Can’t you guess?” asked the Luidaeg.

I glared. “Could you just answer the damn question?”

The Luidaeg sighed, throwing her half-empty container into the corner. It splashed ice cream across the wall as it fell. “Both of you, come with me.” Tybalt blinked. She sniffed, standing. “Yes, you, kitty-boy. I don’t leave anyone alone in my apartment without good reason.”

“Besides, you’d just make me tell you what she says anyway,” I said, smiling weakly as I stood. “At least this way, we’re cutting out the middleman.”

Tybalt snorted. “I suppose that’s true. Very well, then. Let us go.”

We followed the Luidaeg to her bedroom. She knocked three times on the doorframe before opening the door, either to dispel some ward too subtle for me to see or to warn something inside to get out of view. Then she turned the knob, waving for us to follow her into the dazzling candlelight on the other side.

If most of the Luidaeg’s apartment is decorated in “early decay,” her bedroom is more like a cross between a movie version of a medieval castle and an aquarium. Candles cover every available surface, and saltwater tanks filled with strange fish and stranger creatures line the walls. A sea dragon the length of my arm swam in the largest tank, casting a disapproving pearl-eyed gaze over everything it surveyed. I couldn’t sleep in that room if you paid me, but the Luidaeg likes it; it’s the one room in her apartment that she bothers to take care of. The few times I’ve seen it, it’s been spotless, lit by those ever-burning candles . . . and candlelight is no comfort to me. Not since Blind Michael.

The Luidaeg saw my shudder. There was a trace of sympathy in her expression as she closed the door, saying, “My little brother left his marks on people who knew him.”

“You can say that again.” I tried to focus on a tank of orange-and-white-striped hippocampi—tiny, literal sea horses that chased each other in and out of the colorful anemones lining their tank, their miniature hooves lashing. “So what are we in here for?”

“You need to go to the Undersea.” The Luidaeg opened a drawer in her nightstand, pulling out a long, wicked-looking pin crusted with pearls and loops of verdigrisstained silver. Straightening, she said imperiously, “Give me your hand.”

“Is this one of those things where you injure me to make a point?” I asked, already extending my left hand toward her.

“Yes.” She lashed out like a striking snake, burying the pin in the meaty part of my thumb. I’d been expecting the pain—I’ve learned to anticipate bleeding once the Luidaeg has a weapon—but I yelped all the same, jerking my wounded hand away from her. Tybalt hissed, suddenly beside me.

“Settle down, kitty-cat; I’ll be needing your blood in a moment,” said the Luidaeg, right before she drove the pin into the palm of her own hand. Voice still calm, she continued, “It’s all a matter of getting the right mix. Toby’s not a shapeshifter, which is bad for our purposes, but she’s easily changed, which is good for them. It’s just a matter of telling her what to be—and how to come back to what she is.”

“No big, then,” I said numbly, trying not to look at the pin sticking out of the Luidaeg’s hand. I hate the sight of blood.

Tybalt’s hand was a heavy, welcome weight on my shoulder. “My blood only knows one transformation, and cats can’t breathe underwater,” he said.

“True. But your blood knows what it is to go from one thing to another and back again.” The Luidaeg smiled, pulling the pin free. “Mine’s a bit more malleable, and I figure she’d like to go back to her semi-original shape when she’s done.”

“The word ‘semi’ is a problem for me in that sentence,” I said.

“Like you’re mint in the box right now? You are what you were made to be, you’re not what you’ve always been—your poor body is almost as confused as you are.” She walked to the tank where the sea dragon swam and knocked her finger against the glass. “Come to the surface, Ketea. I need you.”

“What, precisely, are you attempting to do?” demanded Tybalt.

“What I was asked to do. Send October down to the depths and bring her back again, with no nasty loopholes or conditions to complicate our lives.” The sea dragon stuck its head out of the water. The Luidaeg stroked it with a finger, cooing in what sounded like Greek before continuing, “Normally, I’d charge for something like this, but since you’re doing it for me—and it amuses the shit out of me—we’ll call this a freebie.”

“That’s sweet of you,” I said blandly.

“I know.” The Luidaeg stroked her dragon’s head one more time before pinching a scale between her thumb and forefinger and plucking it loose. The dragon hissed at her. “Hush, now, Ketea. You’re a good boy. I’ll bring you an eel tomorrow.”

The dragon seemed to approve of this. It stopped hissing and ducked back beneath the surface of the water.

The Luidaeg smiled indulgently as she turned back toward us. “He does love eels,” she said. Then her expression hardened, attention fixing on Tybalt. “Hand, kitty-cat.”

Tybalt narrowed his eyes as he extended his hand toward her, but didn’t pull away as she drove the pin in her hand into the meaty part of his thumb.

“Should we be getting worried about infection?” I asked, looking at my own hand to keep from seeing Tybalt bleed. The place where she’d stabbed me was already scabbing over. Bouncing back fast seems to be a Dóchas Sidhe trait. It’s hard to know for sure, since as far as I know, I’m the only one in existence. Amandine doesn’t count—she’s our Firstborn.

“Give me a little credit, will you?” I looked back as she pulled the pin from Tybalt’s hand. She dipped it in the water of the sea dragon’s tank three times in quick succession before holding it, and the scale, out to me. “Here you go.”

It’s always best to take what the Luidaeg offers you. I did so, holding pin and scale at arm’s length. “What do I do with them?” I asked.

“When the time comes, you swallow the scale and jam the pin into your leg.” The Luidaeg mimed stabbing herself in the thigh, smiling in an unsettling fashion. “You’ll have five hours after that. Just don’t fight it.”

I glanced uneasily at Tybalt, who was staring at her with such intensity that she would have been in danger if looks could actually kill. “What, exactly, will it do?”

“What you asked for.” She opened the bedroom door. A thin stream of red-black blood from her puncture wound ran down the side of her hand, making the entire room smell like a marsh. “Now get out of here. I have a Duchess to contact, and you have a war to prevent. Time isn’t stopping while we stand around here like a bunch of idiots.”

“I’m going,” I said. I slid the scale into my jacket pocket, sticking the pin through a fold of the lining. I wasn’t worried about losing it so much as I was worried about poking myself by mistake. “You’re not going to tell me what this is going to do, are you?”

“No,” said the Luidaeg, and left the room.

Tybalt slanted a glance in my direction. “Is she always this forthcoming?”

“Oh, no.” I smiled wryly. “Sometimes, she’s downright obscure.”

He actually laughed as we left the Luidaeg’s bedroom. It sounded so natural, so normal, that I found myself joining in. We kept laughing as the Luidaeg ushered us down the hall and out the door, back into the cool mist that blanketed the San Francisco night. War was coming, I was almost certainly going to wind up underwater before things were finished, but we could still laugh.

That was nice.