Page 20 of The Unkindest Tide

I whirled. She was right behind me, a politely quizzical expression on her face. The moonlight glinted off the faerie ointment around her eyes, making them seem huge and guileless. She wasn’t breathing hard. She wasn’t even paler than usual.

Gillian was behind her, making her introductions to Rodrick. I gestured toward the two of them, keeping most of my attention on Marcia. “The crossing,” I said. “Didn’t it knock the wind out of you?”

“Um, no?” Marcia glanced up, eyes widening. “Oh, wow, look at all those moons. Are we in the Summerlands? I guess we must be. Earth doesn’t go around adding moons for fun.”

“Yeah,” I said faintly.

She flashed a quick smile before trailing after Dean and Quentin, who had gone to find a seat atop some nearby barrels. I looked back to the gangplank. Gillian was now safely on the ship, and two more sailors—a Merrow and a Candela—had appeared to get us ready to cast off. Everyone looked perfectly content with the situation, and with their role in the journey ahead.

Tybalt touched my elbow. “What is it?” he asked.

“That’s the problem. I don’t know,” I replied. “But something’s wrong.”

He nodded and stepped closer as we pushed away from the pier—still visible through a wavering, crystalline curtain, like it was on the other side of a heat haze rising from a highway in the summer sun. As soon as we were no longer in contact with it, it winked out, and we were sailing on an endless, wine-dark sea, bound for an unknown destination, and everything was water all around us, and there was no turning back.

FIVE

IT TURNS OUT SAILING is intensely dull when you’re just riding the boat, not actually doing anything to drive it. There were cabins belowdecks, but as we were supposed to arrive at the Duchy of Ships before sunrise, they hadn’t been prepared for our use, and the crew didn’t like us hanging out down there. Worse, there were no beds—not even cots. The rocking that suffused the whole ship was worse on the deck, and there was nowhere else to be. I heal quickly enough for injuries that would be game over for most people to be only minor inconveniences for me. Somehow seasickness, like migraines from excessive magic use, didn’t care. Once my stomach went into rebellion, that was all she wrote.

I hoped the barnacles lining the ship’s hull and sides didn’t mind being vomited on, because it was happening. It was happening a lot. I gripped the rail, trying to keep my eyes closed so the roiling water below wouldn’t set me off again. Footsteps warned me of someone’s approach. I wondered, half-eagerly, whether this was a surprise assassination attempt. Drowning couldn’t have been worse than the nausea.

Actually, I had drowned before, at least once, and it hadn’t been worse than the nausea. I hate puking. Almost as much as I hate being shot, stabbed, covered in my own blood, and everything else that happens to me on a horrifyingly regular basis.

“Did you not bring any Dramamine?” Marcia sounded concerned, but not like she was about to lose everything she’d ever eaten over the side of the ship.

I decided to hate her a little. “Didn’t think of it,” I wheezed, allowing my head to loll forward, so if I did vomit again—I couldn’t possibly vomit again, there was nothing left inside me—it would follow the path of the existing mess. “Never been seasick before.”

“Have you ever gone sailing before?”

I shook my head. The motion was enough to set my temples throbbing and make my stomach do another slow tuck and roll. I groaned.

“Poor Toby.” Marcia put her hand against my back, rubbing in small, concentric circles. It helped. Not enough to make me feel like I could let go of the rail, but it helped. “We’ll be there soon. Miss the Luidaeg says the Duchy of Ships doesn’t sway nearly this much. It’s too big for that. Well, except when there’s a major storm, but the Merrow have agreed to sing the storms away for as long as this meeting is going on. Which could be days. I hope you remembered to clean your fridge before we left.”

“May and Jazz are home, and the wards are keyed to Raj,” I said. “Food doesn’t have time to spoil in my house.”

“Oh, that’s good,” said Marcia cheerfully, still rubbing my back. “Tybalt is having a serious conversation with one of the ship’s cats, or at least that’s what it looks like. I don’t know whether the cat is Cait Sidhe or not. I guess it doesn’t matter much. And the prince is up in the rigging. He climbs really well, for a prince. If I were a prince, I think I’d spend all my time sitting around waiting for people to bring me things. Bonbons and stuff like that.”

I finally took my eyes off the water, peering at her through the disheveled curtain of my hair. “Are you just babbling at me until I start feeling better?”

“Yup!” Marcia beamed. “Is it working?”

My stomach was no longer roiling. I didn’t trust myself to stand up on my own, but I also didn’t feel like I was about to introduce the barnacles to my breakfast. Again. I blinked. “Actually, yes.”

“Sometimes you need to take peoples’ minds off their problems if you want those problems to resolve themselves,” said Marcia. “Focusing on things can make them worse.”

“Not all problems go away if you ignore them. Most don’t.”

“No, but not all problems can be fixed. Sometimes you have to wait until the situation changes.” She smiled sympathetically. “Like if you’re on a boat and you get seasick.”

“I don’t like water.” I closed my eyes, trying not to think about the fact that I was completely surrounded by my least favorite element.

“Which explains why you’re marrying a cat,” chirped Marcia. When I opened one eye to look balefully at her, she grinned. “I know you don’t like water. It’s a real good thing you’re doing here.”

I opened my other eye. “Did Dean explain why we’re doing this?”

“He did. He’s good about making sure his people are kept in the loop. He’s trying, you know? They do things differently in the Undersea, and it’s not like he can ask any of the local nobility for help without weakening his position, but he’s trying.” She turned so she could rest her elbows on the rail, facing the ship while I faced the sea.

When she spoke again, her voice was softer. “I meant what I said. It’s a real good thing you’re doing. There are so many broken parts to Faerie, and sometimes I don’t know if they can ever be fixed. What happened to the Roane wasn’t just a tragedy, it was . . . it was unforgivable. I know the Firstborn are supposed to be judged by a different standard, but I can’t think of any standard that makes killing an entire people because you don’t like your sister the right thing to do. This doesn’t bring back the ones who were lost. This doesn’t make things right. But it makes things better than they’ve been, and maybe that can be enough to let us move forward, you know? Maybe this is where some of the broken bits get fixed.”