The Unkindest Tide

by Seanan McGuire

  “Elizabeth Ryan, of Roan Rathad,” said Liz.

  “Mathias Lefebvre, of Beacon’s Home,” said Mathias.

  “Isla Chase, of Belle Fleuve,” said a striking woman with long brown hair and piercing gray eyes that had somehow managed to dodge the usual Selkie deepness. She had a faint French accent, and a strand of glass beads braided behind her left ear.

  “Joan O’Connell, of Tremont,” said a redheaded woman in a brown broomstick dress that looked like it had come directly out of the nineteen seventies.

  “Claude Anthony, of Sweet Water,” said a black-haired, brown-skinned man in jeans and a simple button-down polo shirt. He looked even more anachronistic than the others, like he’d just wandered out of some hot new show about attractive people and their sexy problems.

  All five of them fell silent after their introductions, looking to the Luidaeg, waiting to see what she was going to say. She took a step forward. Mathias and Joan flinched, but didn’t move. None of them moved.

  “The Convocation of Consequences is begun,” said the Luidaeg, voice clear and calm and carrying. “You represent the five dominant clans of North America. Through you, the word has been passed to all who know these waters. Through you, the Selkies of the world have been called. Are they called?”

  I blinked at the phrase “North America,” exchanging a quick, anxious glance with Tybalt. Were we going to have to travel outside the continent? Because I didn’t exactly have a passport, and if I was worried about my reputation for treason when on lands controlled by Quentin’s father, I couldn’t imagine what would happen if I went to, say, Europe. They probably didn’t like treason very much there. Although, to be fair, no one liked treason very much anywhere.

  “They have been,” said Liz. Her voice was soft, and more resigned than I had ever heard her sound. “Word has been passed already. The Selkies and their chosen and potential heirs come to the Duchy of Ships from all over the human world, to receive your judgment. The gates will be running all through the night and day, bringing them to port.”

  Oh, good. We weren’t going to need to travel internationally after all.

  “We beg your indulgence, Lady,” said Isla. “We can send word, but we have no control over the Selkies who swim in other waters, the ones who make their homes on other shores. Some may refuse to come at this summons.”

  The Luidaeg smiled at that. It wasn’t a pleasant expression. “They’re coming,” she said. “They’re all coming.”

  “Lady?” Isla’s voice quavered, like she was afraid of the consequences of contradicting the Luidaeg. Which was pretty smart of her, under the circumstances.

  “Each of you wears a skin cut from the body of one of my descendants, powered across the centuries by my own magic, imbued into skin and fur and sacrifice,” said the Luidaeg calmly. “Did you really think you had the power to refuse me? That you could run, that you could hide when I came to call you home? They come because I called them. As soon as they hear that the summons has been sent, they’ll leave their lives and come to us. Some will bring their families and have the opportunity to pass their skins along, if that’s what they choose; others will come alone, and have no choices left. Once you sent the word to your people, you sent it to the world.”

  All five of the clan leaders looked suddenly, profoundly uncomfortable. I couldn’t blame them. I wouldn’t have looked too thrilled, either, if I’d suddenly been informed that my role in the destruction of an entire fae culture had been larger than I’d originally believed it was going to be.

  The Luidaeg took another step forward.

  “All of you were content to lead when you thought there’d be no costs, as there had been no costs for hundreds of years. You took up the mantle of your families knowing this day might fall within your lifetimes, and when it did, you regretted it. Your regret measures not even a fragment of my own. Mourn your lost peace of mind as I mourn my lost children, and know that we are not even. We will never be even.”

  “Yes, Lady,” murmured the five, in ragged unison.

  “One among your number came to me with a complaint. An accusation, even, of favoritism to one clan above the others.”

  Mathias stiffened. So did Liz.

  “I will not claim to be fair. Fairness is neither my blessing nor my burden. But I do listen. Do any others among you feel I showed favoritism to the Ryan clan when I granted them the Lost Skins in exchange for doing me a direly needed service?”

  Silence fell, and lasted long enough that I started to hope this was over. Then Joan cleared her throat, and said, “Any of us would have been glad to do whatever you asked. You didn’t ask. You approached the Ryans and granted them a gift the rest of us could never hope to achieve. Yes, it was unfair.”

  “I needed the girl to be taught, and the girl needed to remain near her mortal family. None of you are near her mortal family,” said the Luidaeg implacably. “How is this unfair?”

  “None of us had any say in where you settled, Lady,” said Mathias. “We would all have been honored to have you near us, ready to ask us for favors as you do the Ryans.”

  “You didn’t say that at the last gathering,” said Elizabeth peevishly. “None of you had a kind word to say about the idea of sharing waters with the sea witch when we weren’t getting anything out of it. This is shameful. You shame yourselves.”

  “Be quiet,” snapped Isla. “We all know what you did to earn the Lady’s favor.”

  She seemed to realize what she’d said a beat too late to stop herself from saying it. Her mouth snapped shut, her eyes growing wide in her suddenly pale face. Elizabeth looked away, staring fixedly at the waves while the tips of her ears burned red.

  And the Luidaeg smiled.

  “I always wondered when my past would come back to haunt us,” she said, in a conversational tone. “Yes, Elizabeth Ryan was my lover, and yes, I would have kept her with me for as long as her mortal bones could have borne it. I would have lain her to rest in Summerlands soil, in a place where no one would ever disturb her remains, and I would have gone to visit her every sennight until the moons fell from the sky and the sea forgot what it was to sing. But she chose a Selkie’s life, and with it, became one of my children in image if not actuality. And if she keeps that skin tied around her shoulders now, if she doesn’t set it aside, she’ll be mine forever. So no, the Ryan clan has not had my favor for these past thirty years, because the Ryan clan stole my heart when they draped my lover in a stolen skin and called it the sea witch’s blessing. She had my blessing and my bed, and she gave them both away to be exactly like the rest of you.”

  She paused, long enough for her words to fully sink in, before she continued, “But you’re right: here, at the ending of all things, it seems only fair that all clans should be treated equally.”

  Elizabeth went pale. I knew the bargain the Luidaeg had made with her: in exchange for teaching Gillian, who wasn’t technically a member of any Selkie clan, and whose continued association with Cliff and Janet made her a threat to Faerie, the Luidaeg had given the Ryans eighteen of what they called the “Lost Skins,” Selkie skins that had, through one mechanism or another, found their way back into the Luidaeg’s hands and had not been redistributed. It was a gift beyond price, and I could understand why the other Selkies were jealous, even as I could understand why Liz looked so alarmed. If the Luidaeg wanted to take those skins back . . .

  “In two days, the ritual will be performed to strip the Selkies from the sea,” said the Luidaeg. “At that time, anyone who has a skin will be bound to it, and no longer be able to pass it to their descendants. That was the Selkie way, and the Selkie way is ending. But to be bound to a skin, they have to hold it.”

  Of the five clan leaders, only Liz seemed to realize what the Luidaeg was saying. She gasped, a small, sharp sound, and looked to me, like I could somehow stop this. I couldn’t. All I could do was stand with the rest of them a
nd listen in numb, mounting horror.

  “From now until I stand with you once again, I swear that I will neither intervene nor demand satisfaction over any accusation of theft between Selkies. Knock each other down and steal the futures from one another’s shoulders. It does no harm to me. The only limit is this: you will not touch the children, and you will not involve any other Selkie’s human kin. They aren’t yours to endanger. Run and hide and rob each other down to the bones. You have two days. Pass your skins willingly or pass them because you can’t protect them. I no longer care. The Convocation is called. When I return, I will have my satisfaction.”

  The Luidaeg turned on her heel and began marching away down the beach, leaving the rest of us standing stricken and silent.

  Liz broke free of the spell first. She ran forward, seizing my hands in hers like she thought she could make me see things her way if she just held on tightly enough.

  “Gillian,” she hissed. Before I could ask her to clarify, she continued, “Gillian is a damn Selkie now, and she’s the least of us, you understand? She is the least of us. She doesn’t understand her powers, she doesn’t swim fast enough to get away, she doesn’t know the rules. She has no family among the clans. If this goes forward, she’s a target for anyone hoping to settle a skin upon a second child, and if she loses her skin, she dies. You have to make Annie realize what she’s doing to us. You have to make her understand what she’s doing to your daughter.”

  I was still gaping in open-mouthed horror when Joan and Mathias stepped up and pulled Liz away, yanking her backward until she lost her grasp on my hands. Still she reached for me, straining against the empty air.

  “Please,” she said. “Please, you have to make her understand, please.”

  “This is no concern of yours,” said Mathias, eyes settling on my face. “The Lady is leaving. Her protection goes with her.”

  “A true Firstborn would find a way to protect her people, no matter what,” muttered Isla. Liz was still staring at me, silently imploring me to take her warning seriously.

  And I did. I just wasn’t sure what I could do about it without offending the Luidaeg. Not that offending the Luidaeg had ever stopped me before.

  “Oh, to hell with it,” I muttered, and took a step forward, back into the reach of Liz’s hands. Mathias was taller than me, but I still did my best attempt at looming over him, drawing myself up straight and arrogant, just like my mother taught me. “Gillian Marks-Daye, of the Ryan clan, is my daughter. She’s a Selkie, and I swear to you, if anyone touches her, I will rain down fire upon whichever clan has done it. I’ll make you regret ever choosing the sea, because I will drown you in blood. By the root and the branch, the fruit and the thorn, you will regret having ever been born if you so much as look at her too long. Have a nice day.”

  I smiled, broad and bright and borderline feral, before I spun on my heel and stalked off after the Luidaeg. Tybalt followed me, leaving the Selkies alone with their own problems, standing in the shadow of their own future.

  NINE

  WE WALKED AWAY FROM the artificial beach in silence. Only once the surface beneath our feet had shifted back to bare dock did Tybalt say, “That was impressively vicious of you. Had I not fallen in love with your ladylike charms long since, I think I might fall in love now, out of sheerest self-defense.”

  “You’re cute when you’re trying to placate me.” The Luidaeg was up ahead, in sight if not yet in hearing range. “Why the hell did she need to change my clothes if that’s all we were going to do? I could have stood there and listened to her make threats in a T-shirt and jeans. I’m good at standing around in a T-shirt and jeans. I’ve had practice.”

  “Yes, but a T-shirt wouldn’t have been nearly as flattering to your figure.”

  I stopped walking in order to fix him with a baleful eye. He didn’t even flinch. “Are you seriously going to stand there and talk about my tits when things are this messed up?”

  “Be reasonable, October; I could have been talking about your ass.” Tybalt looked at me haughtily. “My interests are far more versatile than you give me credit for.”

  I blinked at him slowly. Then, almost against my will, I started laughing, great, gasping gales of laughter that evolved, a bit at a time, into sobs, until he stopped smiling smugly and gathered me close, surrounding me in the comforting musk and pennyroyal scent of his magic, which always clung to his skin like mist.

  “Ah, little fish, I would take this from you if I could, you know I would,” he murmured, holding me so that his mouth was close to my ear, and his words were mine alone. “You never deserved any of this, and neither did she. It seems the sins of our parents are forever destined to be laid upon the shoulders of our children, generation on generation, until we grow weary of the whole affair. But you will do your best to do right by her, no matter how fiercely she rejects you, and I will be here throughout the whole sordid affair, by your side, to cheer you on.”

  I sighed, pressing my face into his shoulder and letting the warm fabric of his shirt absorb my tears. Then I pulled away and offered him a wavering smile. “We should catch up with the Luidaeg before she decides we’ve been kidnapped and comes looking for us.”

  “As if anyone here would dare?” Tybalt waved a hand airily. “More likely she’ll decide we’ve gone off to have sex somewhere, and come looking for us solely so she can interrupt at the worst possible moment.”

  That startled another laugh out of me. I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand. “Well, then, we definitely want to catch up with her. The last thing I need today is for one of the Firstborn to see me naked.”

  “Indeed.” Tybalt offered his arm, and I took it, letting him guide me down the rickety wooden walkway. I knew the path as well as he did—we’d each walked it exactly once before, in each other’s company—but it made him feel better to take the lead sometimes, and I was willing to let him, for my peace of mind as well as for his. If Tybalt was relaxed, I wasn’t worrying about him. If I wasn’t worrying about him, we could both get more done.

  Like worrying about Gillian. When this was over, and she was safe and home and Roane, part of Faerie forevermore, the Luidaeg and I were going to have words about how casually she’d endangered my daughter. I refused to consider any future in which Gillian wasn’t going to wind up safely in her own bed, with Janet trying her best to keep her away from me. Our family was already fractured. This wasn’t the way it would break.

  Trailing this far behind the Luidaeg was an interesting experience. It hadn’t been obvious before just how much her presence had shut down the normal activity of the stalls around us. Now that Tybalt and I were on our own, people were appearing from all directions, swarming up and down ladders to get to specific shops, leaning out of windows, bartering for wares. A woman who looked like a more delicate version of a Merrow, all the way down to the long, furling flukes of her silver-scaled tail, rode a wicker basket between levels, clinging to the ropes and laughing to the Tylwyth Teg sailor who worked the pulley. Children scampered past, playing some complicated, old-fashioned game with a hoop and a weighted net.

  These people were living entirely outside of the mortal world, in the closest thing I’d ever seen to a full reflection of Faerie. Maybe the deeper realms had been like this, dotted with maritime homesteads and private communities that set their own rules and kept their own tempos. Or maybe this was the social equivalent of a changeling, something created from the necessary meshing of two worlds.

  The Luidaeg was waiting for us at the end of the marketplace. Her eyes flicked coolly from Tybalt’s face to mine before she raised a brow and asked, “Trouble in paradise?”

  “Is this paradise?” I asked. “I hadn’t noticed.”

  “It’s as close as you’re going to get any time soon,” she said. “Where were you?”

  “Can we not do this now?”

  She tilted her head, studying me with more care. “Yo
u’re unhappy with me,” she said finally.

  “I know you can’t read minds, thank Titania, and I know you can’t lie,” I said.

  “Again, that’s on Titania,” she said dryly.

  I ignored her comment. “What would happen if I wasn’t upset? Maybe my face just looks like this.”

  “Which is why I couldn’t say that sort of thing about anyone I didn’t know well,” said the Luidaeg. “You, however, I know very well. I’ve had years of you darkening my doorstep whether I want you to or not. I can tell when you’re unhappy.”

  “You put my daughter at risk,” I said.

  The Luidaeg nodded solemnly. “That’s true. I did.”

  “Why?” I demanded.

  “Because she was going to be put at risk no matter what. What we’re doing here is risky. The destruction of one descendant race to make way for another is something that’s only happened once before, all the way back to the dawn of Faerie. It doesn’t matter that we’re only putting right something that should never have gone wrong. This is going to change the balance of the power in the Undersea. It’s going to change everything. Gillian was going to be at risk, because every Selkie is at risk until this is finished.”

  “You could have told them she was off-limits,” I said stubbornly.

  The Luidaeg sighed. “I could have, yes,” she agreed. “I could have told them she was your beloved baby girl and wearing the skin of my own daughter, and ordered them to leave her alone. And maybe she would have thanked me and maybe she would have spit at me, but she’d have been safe, for now. Only ‘now’ is a moving target. Tomorrow is coming, and another tomorrow after that, and another after that, until we’re standing a century away, and none of the other Roane will even speak to her out of fear that they’ll hurt her feelings and the sea witch will sweep in to steal their livers.”