Page 14 of The Unkindest Tide

“Why do parents always use food names when they’re talking to their kids? I’m legally an adult, and you still treat me like a dessert topping.” Gillian folded her arms. “Is this about whatever has Ms. Ryan so spooked? Because I’ve been waiting for someone to get around to telling me what’s going on.”

I should probably have felt guilty. All I felt in that moment was relief. Gilly knew this was coming; had been waiting, in fact, for someone to get it over with. I was actually doing her a favor for a change. “It is, yeah,” I said. I glanced to Janet and Tybalt before asking, “Has someone explained to you where Selkie skins come from?”

Gillian nodded. “Mass murder, very sad, and it’s why I’m not allowed to tell any of the other Selkies that their ‘Cousin Annie’ is secretly the actual sea witch from The Little Mermaid. I’m hanging out with Ursula on the regular, and I can’t even tell the other fairies about it.”

Something in the way she said “fairies” told me she was still spelling it wrong in the privacy of her own mind. She was adjusting to the idea that her world was different now, and she was probably going to be adjusting for a long time yet to come. If it had been up to me, I would have given her as much time as she needed. She was a Selkie now, fae and immortal, and she didn’t share my tendency to run headlong into danger at the slightest provocation. We had time.

Except for the part where we didn’t, because she wasn’t going to be a Selkie for long. The time of Selkies was ending. “All right,” I said carefully. “Well, the reason Selkie skins work the way they do—you can’t flense fae at random and expect to become a skinshifter; skinshifters are rare, and the other kinds don’t require anyone to die—”

“There are other kinds?” interrupted Gillian.

I nodded quickly. “Raven-maids and Swanmays. Well, and Raven-men. Swanmays are descended from a woman named Aoife, and they’re hatched with their skins wrapped around them like cauls. Raven-maids and -men are descended from Aiofe’s sister, Aine. They’re not a part of this. Their ancestors didn’t wipe out someone else’s descendant line to give them access to the skies. You know . . . the Luidaeg told you, right?”

“I’m wearing her daughter’s skin around my shoulders,” said Gillian. She reached up to touch it, seemingly unaware of the gesture. “Yeah. I know she was their mother.”

“She was also their grandmother, and in some cases, their great-grandmother.” There had to be something about the presence of a descendant line’s Firstborn that increased fertility, at least for the first few generations. The numbers didn’t make sense otherwise. And that, like the topic of the other skinshifters, was currently beside the point. “The Luidaeg enchanted the skins of her slain descendants so that they would continue to hold the Roane bloodline until such time as she could make things right again.”

I could see the moment when Janet understood what was going on. Her eyes widened, ever so fractionally, and the skin around her mouth tightened, like she was biting back some inappropriate exclamation. Instead, she drew herself up to her full height and took a half-step forward, putting herself, however subtly, between Gillian and me.

“No,” she said. Her voice was ice and iron, foreboding, unwilling to let anything pass. “I refuse. I don’t care. Send your sea witch to me directly, and I’ll say the same to her. She’ll not do this to my daughter.”

“October’s daughter,” said Tybalt.

“My own person,” snapped Gillian, and stepped around Janet, scowling. “I get that you’re all older than I am, and you all know more about this ‘traditions and dangers of Faerie’ bullshit, but I’m standing right here, and I’m a grownup, whether you like it or not. What are you talking about?”

I took a deep breath. “The Luidaeg enchanted the skins of her dead descendants, so they would remain technically alive until such time as the Roane could be resurrected as a people. Not the individuals themselves—they’re long since lost—but the Roane. They’re a piece of Faerie that we’ve lost. The Luidaeg wants to bring them back.”

“You may be getting more of the individuals than you think you are,” muttered Gillian.

“What’s that?” asked Janet, voice sharp.

“Nothing, Mom,” said Gillian. She turned to look at me, seal-dark eyes wide and solemn. “If I’m following you—which isn’t easy, since you seem bound and determined to talk your way around the problem as much as possible—you’re saying the reason Liz has been drinking even more than usual and won’t talk to me is because the sea witch is about to make all the Selkies go bye-bye, and replace them—us—with the Roane. Is that basically it?”

“Yes.” I nodded. “You know I’m a different kind of fae than you are. I’m Dóchas Sidhe, and we’re blood-workers. The Luidaeg is going to use my magic to bind the Selkies into their skins and transform them back into the Roane. I don’t know exactly how it’s going to work. But we’re going to have to travel to a place called the Duchy of Ships, where the Selkies who intend to keep their skins will be gathering, and I’ll cast whatever spell she wants me to cast, because I owe her a debt. Several debts. I don’t have a choice here.”

“Who intend to keep their skins,” said Janet hurriedly. “That means some of them will set them aside.”

“Probably,” I said. “Selkie culture is centered on the idea that eventually, most fae parents will choose to become mortal in order to give the magic to their children. When there’s only one skin, only one person can wear it. I’m sure some of the current Selkies will choose to set their skins aside for the sake of the ones who would have been their heirs in a few years.”

“But Gillian can’t do the same.” There was a note of bitterness in Janet’s voice, like we could have found another solution somehow, if we’d only cared enough to try. “You and your sea witch saw to that.”

It was Gillian who shook her head and put her hand over Janet’s, saying quietly, “No, Mom. It wasn’t like that. The sea witch made me into a Selkie to save my life, because the stuff I was shot with—”

“Elf-shot,” I supplied.

Gillian nodded very slightly as she continued. “The elf-shot is going to be in my blood for a hundred years. I have to be fae or I’ll die, because elf-shot kills humans. If I give away the skin, I’ll die.”

“There must have been another way,” said Janet.

“If the Luidaeg said there wasn’t, there wasn’t,” I said. “She can’t lie. I don’t mean ‘doesn’t lie,’ or ‘tries not to lie,’ I mean literally can’t. Titania put the whammy on her the same way Maeve put the whammy on you. You can’t die, the Luidaeg can’t lie.”

“Meaning you get to take your daughter back.” Janet had stopped making any effort to conceal the brittle fury in her voice. I wasn’t sure whether to be flattered or annoyed about that.

I did know one thing: much as I wanted to dislike her for everything she’d done, both to me and to Faerie, I felt bad for her. She looked at me like a mother whose heart was in the process of breaking, and that was exactly what she was, even if the child she was currently claiming was technically my own. Janet was in pain. Some of it was her own fault, but isn’t that always the way when things are hurting? It wasn’t like she was suffering for fun.

“No,” said Gillian firmly. Janet turned back to her. I . . . didn’t. I had some idea of what was going to come next, and I didn’t want to see it.

“No,” said Gillian again. “I’m not a toy that passes from hand to hand. She doesn’t get to ‘take’ me just because I have to change again. The only way you’d lose me is if I died, and since I’m not going to do that, you’re just going to have to get over this. Toby?”