One Salt Sea od-5

by Seanan McGuire

  “So you pushed me into the Shadow Roads? Maeve’s teeth, Tybalt, did you not pause to think that maybe something could go wrong with that particular stroke of genius?”

  He shook his head. “No. I did not pause. I did not hesitate. Your life was in danger, and while I knew the Shadow Roads would be less than hospitable, I also knew they wouldn’t kill you. I’m sorry to have harmed you. I’m sorry to have caused you distress. But what I did, I did to save you, and I would do it again, were the same moment to be set before me.”

  I glared at him. He glared back. Finally, I said, “I’m supposed to be at the Queen’s Court at dusk. I should really get moving if I’m going to be on time.”

  “Then we should go.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “We?”

  “We,” he said, firmly. “Be as angry with me as you like, October; the fact remains that you need me, at least for now. As I have already said, I’m sorry to have harmed you. I’m not sorry, in the slightest, to have saved you.”

  I sighed. “You’re right. Come on.” The question of how we’d get from Pleasant Hill to San Francisco without my car or a trip down the Shadow Roads could be answered once we started moving. If all else failed, I could always call Danny.

  “October . . .”

  “Not now.” I shook my head. “We need to have this conversation, but we need to do it at a time that isn’t now. After Gilly’s back. After we stop this war. After I’ve had time to finish being mad at you.”

  Tybalt smiled, very slightly, and nodded. “I suppose I can accept that.”

  “Good,” I said. “Now come on.”

  We walked to the garden door. The hall outside was deserted. That made sense. It was afternoon; most of Shadowed Hills would be asleep for a few more hours at least.

  “Where do we begin?” Tybalt asked.

  Now that I was past the initial rush of fury, every inch of me was screaming that I needed to go, go, find my daughter, and let the rest of Faerie hang. I couldn’t do that. Thankfully, I didn’t have to; finding Gillian would mean finding Rayseline, and the missing Lorden boys. I could do everything at once—assuming I could accomplish anything at all.

  “First, we need to see Sylvester,” I said. “I have to tell him what we’ve learned. He needs to understand what’s been going on.”

  “This isn’t likely to be something he’ll want to hear.”

  I sighed. “It never is, is it?”

  I could hear voices up ahead; some people were already awake and moving around. I picked up my pace, and was rewarded with the sight of two pages in the hall just around the corner, both of them sagging in that “up way too early” way. I vaguely recognized them as Quentin’s contemporaries and members of his general social circle within the knowe. Somehow, they looked like they were at most half his age. He’d been doing a lot of growing up lately, and doing it fast.

  The Glastig spotted us first. His eyes went huge, and he poked his Cornish Pixie companion in the side, fast, before jerking his head in our direction. Her eyes got even bigger. By the time we reached their position, both of them were standing at attention, spines locked like they’d been replaced with iron bars.

  “Countess Daye—” began one, in perfect synch with the “Sir Daye—” from the other.

  I smiled a little. “You should really get your titles straight before you try that again,” I said. “Is Sylvester available?”

  The Cornish Pixie swallowed hard. “He’s waiting for you,” she said. “In the throne room. He said to say if we saw you.”

  Sylvester had to know I’d go looking for Tybalt as soon as I woke up, and there are dozens of routes we could have taken from there. I raised an eyebrow. “How many of you does he have stationed around the knowe, waiting for me?”

  “All of us, sir,” said the Glastig.

  “That’s my liege.” I sighed. “Do me a favor? If you see any of the other pages, let them know that I’ve been found, and they should get some sleep already.”

  “Yes, sir,” said the Cornish Pixie.

  Neither of them moved. They couldn’t. Until Tybalt and I passed them, propriety demanded they stay exactly where they were. I offered them a shallow bow and started walking again, Tybalt walking along with me.

  He waited until they were out of earshot before murmuring, “You do seem to enjoy making things difficult for yourselves in the Divided Courts. A Cait Sidhe page would have tracked us down, delivered the message, and gone off to chase rats until his mother called him home.”

  “Yeah, well, we get to skip the rat-chasing part, so I’m going to call us even.”

  Tybalt smirked. We walked on.

  The throne room doors were standing open. I expected to find Sylvester and Luna alone, since everyone sane would be getting some sleep while they still could. Instead, we walked in on an earnest conference of knights, all of them assembled around the dais while Sylvester talked to them in a hushed voice. Luna was absent. Maybe that was for the best, given what I was about to tell her husband.

  Grianne’s Merry Dancers were the first to spot us. They abandoned their position near the ceiling to swoop down and weave a quick pattern around our heads before sailing onward to circle Grianne. She turned. The other two knights in attendance—Etienne and Garm—did the same. Sylvester straightened, a look of naked relief sweeping across his face. The others stepped aside as he moved from the dais to the floor, and started toward us.

  Tybalt and I kept walking. We were halfway across the floor when Sylvester reached us. He swept me into a fierce hug, whispering against my hair, “Tybalt told us. Oberon’s bones, October, I’m so sorry. All my resources are at your disposal.”

  That was the best thing he could possibly have said. It was also the worst. Up until that moment, it was like I’d been moving in some sort of protective bubble, a thin layer of numbness that kept me from really thinking about the horror of what had happened. I’ve dealt with a lot of missing children—more than I care to think about. This was the first time the missing child had been my own.

  “Sylvester, it was Rayseline,” I said, pulling away from him. I needed to see his eyes while I was telling him this. “There were traces of her magic in Gillian’s room.”

  Sylvester froze. It was like watching him transform from a living man into a statue carved from ice. “Ah,” he said, very softly.

  “She took the Lorden boys, too. Someone’s helping her—I don’t know who, but they’ve been brewing her charms that let her do these things. She’s already killed at least one person.” A single tear escaped, running down my cheek. I couldn’t let myself break down. Not yet. “That’s how she got into Saltmist. She killed a Selkie. The skin let her get inside.”

  “You’re sure the Selkie is dead?” It was a small question. It was the biggest question in the world.

  I nodded. “Yes. I am. She had to knock the Selkie out before she could take the skin, and she’s been using elf-shot. A Selkie without a skin is essentially human.”

  “Oberon’s Law is broken, then. There’s nothing else I can do.” Sylvester stepped back. “Tell us what to do, and we’ll do it. Anything you need from me, or from my holdings, is yours.” He paused, and added, again, “I am so sorry.”

  “So am I.” We’d both lost a daughter today—mine to kidnapping, his to the cold reality of Faerie justice. Rayseline had taken a life. There was nothing he could do to save her, not after that.

  Tybalt cleared his throat. “If I may make a suggestion?”

  “Please,” said Sylvester.

  “Send the Lady Candela,” a nod toward Grianne, “out to search your lands, and the bounding lands as well. Her Merry Dancers see better than the majority of us, and she’s quite familiar with the magical traces left by the individual in question. Should she find anything, she can report back, and your Tuatha can easily investigate further.”

  “That sounds like an excellent idea,” said Sylvester.

  “I’m not quite done, if you would humor me.” Tybalt’s smile was anyt
hing but humorous. “October has an unpleasant tendency to leave herself without means of contacting those who might come to her aid. Is it possible she might be provided with one of the phones modified for use in the Summerlands? It would doubtless be useful in what’s to come.”

  “Of course. Etienne!”

  “Sire?” Etienne was abruptly next to Sylvester, despite not seeming to transverse the space between us and the dais. He probably hadn’t. Tuatha de Dannan are teleporters, and they’re way too casual about it for my taste.

  “Please fetch Sir Daye a phone from the supply closet. Make sure it has one of those—what are they called again?”

  “Chargers,” supplied Etienne.

  “Yes. One of those.”

  “Yes, Your Grace.” Etienne was just as abruptly gone, leaving the scent of limes and cedar smoke hanging in the air.

  Sylvester turned his attention back to the pair of us. “Is there anything else?”

  The ghosts of a thousand conversations we couldn’t have hung between us as I met his eyes, going back all the way to the day he begged me to bring his little girl home. I failed Rayseline, and now that failure was poised to destroy the one part of my life I’d foolishly assumed was safe from Faerie. “I need to get to the Queen’s Court,” I said. “I said I’d be there at dusk. Do you have a car I can borrow?”

  “I’ll take you.” Etienne again, behind me this time. I whirled, staring at him. He held out a slim flip-phone and a car charger, offering them to me like they were the greatest weapons in the world. “I can take you both, if you’d like.”

  “That won’t be necessary,” said Tybalt. I shot him a wounded look, and he continued, “I’m going to notify October’s friends and family of the situation, and tell her squire where she can be located. After that, well . . .” A small smile creased his lips. “One Candela can search a great many shadows. My cats can search more.”

  “Tybalt—” I stopped, swallowed, and finished, “If you don’t find anything, come back to the apartment?”

  “Little fish.” He reached out to tuck a lock of hair behind my ear, and smiled. “As if you could prevent it?” Looking to Sylvester, he asked, “If I may?”

  “Open roads,” Sylvester replied.

  Tybalt smirked. Then he turned, stalking toward a shadow at the edge of the room. The shadow spread as he drew near, folding around him like a veil, and he was gone.

  I turned to Etienne. “Are you sure you can do this?” It was an indelicate question, but I needed to be sure. Some Tuatha can cross continents in the blink of an eye, while others can only handle shorter hops. In all the time I’d known him, I’d never seen Etienne move farther than one side of the knowe to the other.

  He looked affronted. “I wouldn’t offer if I wasn’t sure, October. Remember yourself.”

  “Hey, I’m the one they gave a County to, remember?” My sense of humor is sometimes the only defense I have—inappropriate as it often is. I looked at Sylvester. “We have to go.”

  “I know.” He smiled, just a little. It didn’t reach his eyes. “I know you won’t be safe. None of us is safe. But if you can, be careful?”

  “If I can be, I will. But there’s nothing I won’t give up for my daughter. You understand that, don’t you?”

  Sylvester nodded. Barely. He looked like he might break if he tried to do anything more. “I do. And I also understand what that means. Now go. There’s a great deal to do, and time is so very short.”

  “I know.” I turned to Etienne. “Let’s go.”

  Etienne raised his hand, transcribing an arch in the air. The scent of limes and sweet cedar smoke followed the motion, gathering as he pulled his spell together. There was a pause, like the world was holding its breath, and a pale disk appeared in front of him. It was the size of a door, hanging suspended in midair. I couldn’t see through it.

  “After you,” said Etienne.

  I looked around the hall one more time—maybe for the last time, considering what we were up against. And then I turned to the disk, took a deep breath, and stepped through.

  TWENTY

  THERE WAS A MOMENT OF blinding light, like we were stepping between levels of a knowe. Then everything froze, a second turning into a dozen seconds, and finally into what felt like the better part of an hour. Nothing moved, not even me. That’s how I knew we were still in transit. I was starting to wonder if it was ever going to end—

  —and then we were standing on the marble floor of the entry hall leading into the Queen’s knowe. Etienne looked strained but reasonably untroubled by the transition. I wasn’t quite so lucky. I blundered forward until I hit the point where the wall turned misty, leaning through the phantom stone to vomit into the water just outside. And people wonder why I skip meals when I’m working.

  I pulled myself back into the knowe once I was sure I had nothing left to lose. “That wasn’t fun,” I said, wiping my mouth as I turned to Etienne. “Let’s not do that again.”

  “As you’ve just been violently ill through the only exit I’m aware of, I think we may not have a choice,” said Etienne. “Unless you feel like going wading?”

  The thought made my stomach do another slow flip. “Okay. We can do it one more time.” I wiped my mouth again, wishing I had something to take the taste away. “Come on.”

  “Naturally.”

  We walked down the silent hall to the doors—unguarded for once, leaving the knowe open to potential attack from outside. Either that was sloppy work, or I was missing something. There were no obvious wards set. If there was anything lurking to strike at unwelcome guests, we were going to find out the hard way.

  “Super fun,” I muttered, and opened the doors.

  The Queen’s ballroom was big enough to hold an army, and at the moment, that’s exactly what it was doing. I stopped on the threshold and stared, staggered by the scene in front of us. The clang of metal and the buzz of voices filled the air. The scale of it was frightening. I’d seen the ballroom filled with people on occasions ranging from casual court to a formal trial, but I’d never seen it at capacity before. I was seeing it at capacity now.

  Throngs of bodies were in motion everywhere, moving things from place to place, clustering in small groups which then scattered like flocks of pigeons, and never holding still. The purpose of the fuss was instantly clear, for all that I didn’t want it to be: they were preparing for war. I knew things were serious—I had no illusions about that—but the scale of it still chilled me. The Undersea was bigger than I ever dreamed. Did all these people realize that? How many people were going to die if I couldn’t stop this?

  That was a stupid question. Even one death was too many, and we’d already suffered the first casualty of war: a Selkie whose name I didn’t know, and whose face I might never have seen.

  A page rushed past, arms loaded with bundled arrows. I grabbed his elbow, bringing him to an abrupt halt. He staggered, but managed not to drop anything as he turned in our direction, expression bemused.

  “What are you doing? I need to get these arrows to—”

  “You need to get us to the Queen,” I said flatly. I wasn’t in the mood to argue. My patience has never been legendary, and Raysel stole the last of it when she stole my daughter. “She’s here somewhere. She’s always here somewhere. Tell her Countess Daye is here in the company of Sir Etienne of Shadowed Hills. Tell her we seek an audience. Immediately.” I let him go. Bemusement melting into something close to panic, he clutched the arrows to his chest and scampered away, vanishing into the crowd.

  I hate doing that to pages. Most of them have never seen the world outside a court setting, and they’re destined to grow up to be useless fops like Dugan, unless they get lucky and find a knight willing to teach them to be something better. Quentin is the exception where junior courtiers are concerned, not the rule.

  “That was unkind,” said Etienne.

  “Forgive me if my manners aren’t at their best just now. I have a lot on my mind.” I glared at him, sidelong. “
You’re not a parent. You wouldn’t understand.”

  “I don’t pretend to understand your pain, October, but there are better ways to express it.”

  I sighed. “I guess. I just don’t know what to d—”

  The word died as a slender female arm locked around my neck. Its owner brought her other hand up, pressing the edge of a knife to the skin just below my jaw. I froze. The “fight or flight” impulse gets a little muted when either response might leave me with an open jugular. I guess I have some sense of self-preservation after all.

  “So you say you’re my dearest, most esteemed Countess Daye,” said the Queen, inches from my ear. “Yet others say the Countess Daye has turned traitor. Others say she’s gone to sea with the enemies of my Kingdom. That she sent her baby-faced death in her place because she couldn’t be bothered to cater to the whims of the woman she’s sworn to serve.”

  “Uh, Etienne? A little help here?” I swallowed. The blade she was holding to my neck was very sharp, and I was suddenly intensely reminded of how much she disliked me—and how tempted she might be to “slip.”

  “Your Majesty, the Countess Daye was merely undertaking her commission as she understood it, seeking to find the answers to the troubles which plague your fair Kingdom’s shores,” said Etienne, in a voice as slick as buttered silk. “There has been no treason here. You have my word on that.”

  “Yours, but not her own? An interesting statement in and of itself.” The Queen’s breath was warm against my ear as she leaned closer, and hissed, “Blood will tell.” Even with her voice pitched so low it was barely audible, the power native to her bloodline—Siren and Banshee both run in her veins—hummed through my bones, chilling them. She can’t command you with her voice. But she can kill you.

  “I believe the blade in your hand is distracting her such that she is unable to speak in her own defense,” said Etienne, still sounding utterly calm. I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to hug him for keeping things under control, or slap him for not pulling her off me. “If you would release her, I’m sure she would have a great deal of interest to share.”