Page 40 of Saved By the Selkie

“I thought about a kayak,” she says, “but traveling over the ice is faster when the sea’s so rough.”

“We set out from her village, two, three days ago. Missed the tail end of the storm.”

“Of course,” I murmur. We’d been pinned down for days. That would have helped them catch up to us.

“So,” Anna says, taking my hands and helping me to my feet, “you let Porthos take care of last rites for this poor soul lost to the wilds of the north. And we’ll get you something warmer to wear, hm? I’ll be surprised if you don’t have frostbite in all ten of your toes.”

“I’ll be surprised if he keeps ’em!” Porthos calls from where he’s tugging Johan over to the hole in the ice. There’s a bloody trail behind them.

Anna puts her hand on my shoulder, and I note the heavy parka she’s wearing, the mukluks and the beaded mittens. She looks … cozy, and I’m suddenly aware of how cold I am. Bone-rattlingly, teeth-shatteringly cold.

I let Anna lead me back to the sled, which has a team of six dogs, all of them wagging their curled tails. I see a second sled not far from it, this one with a team of four. Both of them are heaped high with furs and supplies.

Anna forces me to sit on the sled. She tucks me under all the furs, then pours something out of a bladder. I drink it gratefully, then let it burn down my throat. It’s alcoholic, whatever it is, and it warms me from head to toe.

Lir and the pup hang back, apparently leery of the dogs. Anna ignores them while she digs through her pack, offering me a hat, a muffler, mittens.

Porthos strolls back to us. “All done?” Anna asks him.

“Taken care of,” he agrees, and she nods. Then she lifts her head and looks across the way at Lir and the pup.

“You going to shift or what, Mister Silkie?”

Lir stares at her for a second, long enough that I think he’s going to play dumb with her. Then, slowly, he curls his tail up to his belly and flicks off the pelt.

The transformation is less gradual than his return to seal form. The pelt falls to the ice and he’s humanoid—and naked. He shudders and curls up into a ball, gasping with the cold.

“Here now!” Anna cries, and Porthos rushes over with a blanket. Anna grabs a pair of boots and mittens. I haul myself off the sled and wander over, despite Anna glaring at me.

“You,” she says, “need to warm up.” She jams a boot onto one of Lir’s feet. Lir glances up at me from under his fringe, shivering underneath his blanket.

Words well up in my mouth and choke me. I want to tell him I’m sorry, that I never meant to hurt him, that this is all my fault and I understand if he hates me and never wants to see me again.

Lir looks like he wants to say something too, but the pup barks and leaps at Lir, practically knocking him over.

“And who’s this?” Anna asks, putting her hands on her hips again, even as Porthos returns with a parka for Lir.

Lir glances at the pup. “This is—”

The pup chooses that moment to switch into a humanoid form, shifting effortlessly, then flailing four limbs. The look of surprise on the pup’s face is priceless—this clearly isn’t how they thought this would go.

The pup—baby—whatever it is now—begins to wail, maybe as they realize how cold it is out here. Anna grabs the parka from Porthos, and Lir wraps his blanket around the baby, scooping them into his arms.

“This is my son,” he says finally, even as Anna drapes the parka over his shoulders. He hesitates, then lifts his head and looks at me. “Our son.”

I take a deep breath, stumbling back like the words are a physical wave crashing into me. My knees give out; I land on my bottom in the snow, still staring.

I want to be shocked—and yet, somehow, I already knew.

twenty-three

Lir

A

ramis is taking the news that the pup is his son well enough, I guess, if you count fainting as taking it well.

I’m still more surprised at the baby’s peltless shift into a humanoid form. I was not expecting that, not at this stage. I couldn’t shift until I was four or five years old, and I’ve always had to take my pelt off or put it on to shift.