Page 30 of The Unkindest Tide

“Annie!”

The cry came from our left. I turned to see a freckled teenager with brown-and-silver hair and green, green eyes running across the sand, arms already open for the hug she knew she was certain to receive. The Luidaeg didn’t move as Diva barreled into her. She didn’t return the hug, either. She just stood there, implacable as the tides, while the girl clung to her.

“I knew you’d come, I just knew you would, I told Mom you had to, we were all summoned and that means you, too, and you wouldn’t dare go against the sea witch—have you seen her? She’s supposed to come here, she’s supposed to come tell us what happens next, and I’m excited but I’m scared, too, because what if she’s not nice? What if she called us here to hurt us? I’m not even in line for a skin, I don’t need one, not with the magic I got from Dad, but I had to come anyway, and—Annie?” Diva caught herself mid-sentence and pulled back, squinting at the Luidaeg. “Annie, what’s wrong? What’s wrong with your eyes?”

“I love you,” said the Luidaeg softly. My breath caught. The Luidaeg can’t lie. “I’ve loved you since the moment I met you. You were this little wrinkled screaming thing, you were Liz trying to apologize for what she’d done to me, and you were everything. Blood of my blood, bone of my bone. I’ve never met your father, but I don’t need to meet him to know who he’s descended from. Your great-great-grandfather’s name was Aulay, and he died along with the rest of the Roane, and one of these people is wearing his skin tied around their bodies like a belt, and he deserved better, and so do you. I love you, Diva Ryan, but if you don’t take your hands off me right now, I will have to remove them from your body as a warning to everyone watching us. Please. Let go.”

Diva stumbled backward, staring at the Luidaeg. Her face had gone pale, freckles standing out like brands. “Annie?” she whispered.

“My name is Antigone of Albany, daughter of Maeve, daughter of Oberon,” said the Luidaeg. Her voice was soft, but it carried, oh, how it carried. All around us Selkies turned, faces wan and shoulders shaking as they beheld the instrument of their creation and destruction. “I am here to call the Convocation of Consequences.”

“Annie?” Diva whispered again, her voice breaking.

The Luidaeg looked at her with sorrowful eyes, and said, “Get your mother, Diva. It’s time.”

Diva turned and ran away across the strand, leaving the three of us standing there, surrounded by staring, shivering Selkies. I moved a little closer to Tybalt, who put his arm around my shoulders and didn’t say anything. There wasn’t anything to say.

EIGHT

THE FIRST PERSON TO approach us wasn’t Elizabeth Ryan, but a tall, distinguished man with dark skin and black hair shading to silver at the temples. Like Diva, he had freckles across his cheeks and the bridge of his nose, mimicking a seal’s spots. Somehow, they failed to detract from his overall air of solemn dignity. He wore a brown linen suit, which seemed timeless to my modern eye, and was probably shockingly gauche to everyone older than me.

“Mathias Lefebvre,” he said to the Luidaeg, bowing deeply. “I represent the Lefebvre clan, from the waters off the Kingdom of Beacon’s Home. I am at your service, and your disposal.”

I glanced at Tybalt, mouthing “Beacon’s Home?”

“Halifax,” he mouthed back.

Ah. One of the Canadian Kingdoms. One of the East Coast Canadian Kingdoms, even. With my reputation for causing political chaos every time I leave the house, it was a pretty good bet that I was never going to be invited over for a casual visit. Although given that Quentin’s parents were offering to host my wedding, who knew? Maybe I’d have the chance to annoy a few more kings before I got myself confined permanently to the Mists.

The Luidaeg raised an eyebrow. “Bold,” she said, in a perfectly neutral tone. “What makes you think you have the right to approach me as you do, wearer of a stolen skin? Why should I hear whatever it is you have to say?”

Mathias was unflustered. “The Convocation has yet to begin, Lady; we stand in a liminal space,” he said. “I am here to speak with you before the formal commencement of our funeral, to beg a boon.”

“I hardly think you have any stones beneath your feet, but continue,” said the Luidaeg. “Only be aware that I reserve the right to slit your throat if you cease to amuse me.”

“I suspected your nature long before I became head of my clan and learned your name,” said Mathias, and tensed, apparently aware that what he was saying was pretty much guaranteed to annoy the Luidaeg. Her inability to lie to anyone except the Selkies was a sore spot, and she had always treasured her identity as “Cousin Annie,” the person no one was afraid of.

Her eyes narrowed, traceries of darkness moving through the green of her irises. She said nothing.

To his credit, Mathias stood his ground, although I could see him fighting the urge to take a step backward. I liked him a little for that. He’d decided to walk right into the arms of the sea witch, and now that he was here, he wasn’t going to pretend he hadn’t been aware of the risks.

“Why are you telling me this?” asked the Luidaeg.

“Because we are all criminals in your eyes, heir to the crimes of our ancestors, and we are yours to keep and command. You have a Firstborn’s duty toward us, for so long as we swim these seas.” His voice became more formal as he spoke, taking on a tight, clipped cadence that fit surprisingly well with his maritime accent.

“And?”

“And you favor the Ryan clan over the rest of us, because their waters are so close to your own.” He met her eyes and somehow didn’t flinch. “Elizabeth Ryan has come into possession of eighteen of the Lost Skins. She increases the size of her clan, and guarantees Faerie to eighteen of her family, while the rest of us receive no such bounty. So I approach you, Lady, to ask you do the same for the other clans, who have always done our best to keep our side of the ancient bargain, who have lived and died knowing we did so solely at your discretion. The bargain comes due. Let us save our children, as we were unable to save yours.”

“Elizabeth Ryan received those skins for doing me a favor outside the scope of the bargain between the Selkies and the sea witch,” said the Luidaeg. “How many children do you think I had, Mathias? How many grandchildren? How many Roane would you hope were slaughtered, if it means you can drape their physical remains around the shoulders of your own descendants and mark them for immortality? You’re lucky I don’t rip the skin from your shoulders merely for suggesting it.”

Mathias said nothing. Instead, he dropped to his knees in the sand, reaching up and tugging the knot resting at the hollow of his throat, where I would normally have expected a tie to be. It came easily undone, and he pulled the sealskin from beneath his jacket, holding it out to the Luidaeg with shaking hands.

This time, she raised both eyebrows. “You think this impresses me?” she asked. “You think I can be impressed by an offer to return something that has always been mine? Your gesture isn’t ‘grand’ so much as it’s misguided. Be grateful I don’t find it insulting.”

“Lady, please,” he said, in a low voice. “I’ve spent my entire adult life trying to make amends for a loss you suffered centuries before my birth, knowing it was futile. I have asked you for nothing. I have sought to be beneath your notice. I have devoted myself to you. Please, please, I beg. If there is anything to be done, if there are any more skins held in secret, please. Give me only the gift you have given to Elizabeth Ryan. Let me save my clan.”

“Get up,” she said, and her voice was low and tight and unreadable, even to me.