Page 40 of The Unkindest Tide

“She’s my mother,” said Dean. He glared at the Luidaeg. Her majesty seemed to have faded where he was concerned. Good kid. “A hundred years isn’t enough.”

“It never is,” said the Luidaeg.

Patrick took another step. “I’ll—I’ll make a bargain with you. I’ll give you whatever you want if you’ll just save her. If you’ll bring her home. I’ll—”

“No.” He turned to stare at me, seeming surprised by my presence, like he’d forgotten I was even there. I shook my head and said it again: “No.” That didn’t seem like enough. “You can’t do that to her.”

“Dianda is your friend,” he said.

“So’s the Luidaeg,” I said. “And she’s here to finish burying her children. I won’t let you force her into a bargain right now. Before you say you wouldn’t be forcing anything, remember, if you ask, she has to answer. She doesn’t have a choice.”

“Impressive,” said the Luidaeg wearily. I turned to face her. She shook her head and said, without a trace of sarcasm, “With as much time as we’ve spent together, you still can’t get over thinking of me as a person, and not a salvation dispenser. Most people, when the chips are down, jump straight to telling me what they need and what I should do. It’s a nice change.”

“I’m a hero,” I said. “I can deal with this myself.”

“October.” She folded her arms across her chest in an almost defensive gesture. “Dianda Lorden is a Merrow. She belongs to the Undersea. You can’t just go yell at Queen Palatyne the way you would at Arden. You’d drown before all her guards decided to stab you.”

“I’ll figure something out,” I said. “There has to be a way. I’ll find someone with a SCUBA kit, or . . . or something.”

“The sea witch is right there,” said Patrick desperately. “Please. She has to help us. You have to make her help us.”

“I know you’re new around here, but unless you enter into a bargain with me, I don’t have to do anything, and October’s not going to let you enter into a bargain,” said the Luidaeg. “I can close this door and ignore you all until it’s time to bind the Selkies into their skins and bring back the Roane.”

Patrick clenched his hands into fists by his sides. “He took her.”

“I’m sure he did.” She looked at him levelly. Her eyes had bled back to driftglass green, clear and pale and exhausted. “I’m sure he put her in chains of rowan and silver, and called her all sorts of names, and led her away. But the Merrow are the descendants of Amphitrite, and Amphitrite is the daughter of Titania, and I am bound not to harm or raise my hand against the children of Titania.”

“Wait,” I said. “You were able to send Quentin into Blind Michael’s lands to find his girlfriend, and the Daoine Sidhe are children of Titania, too.”

“Quentin came to me of his own free will. I did him no harm, only offered him the knife and told him how to cut himself. It’s not the same thing. It might look like the same thing from the outside, but it’s not.” She shook her head. “I have no power here, October. The Merrow keep the Law in their own way, and I am not invited to intervene.”

“Okay, fine. You said Pete wouldn’t let Torin leave with his sister. I’ll just go to her and tell her what happened, and—”

“You won’t find her.”

I stopped, blinking. “What?”

“I said, you won’t find her.”

“But you just said—”

“I know what I said. She leaves instructions when she sails, and they usually include keeping people where she wants them. There’s no way Torin leaves before she gets back.” Somehow, the Luidaeg seemed to be growing wearier by the moment. “Dianda’s brother came here to arrest her, which means he came with guards, which means Pete sailed on the next tide. She’s neutral ground. That’s how she keeps herself from needing to face off against Palatyne.”

Palatyne. I seized on the name, demanding, “Why doesn’t she face off against Palatyne?”

“Because we agreed, all of us, to fade back. To let Faerie govern itself in the absence of our parents. We’re not gods. We’re not perfect. Even the sister I can’t name has held by the agreement. She tries to take power whenever she can, but she does it as a part of Faerie, not as something held above it. Pete isn’t going to save you.”

“Then I’ll go to Palatyne,” I said. “If she’s allowing Dianda to be arrested for treason just because I’ve overthrown a couple of monarchs, she’s not a good queen.”

For the first time since this conversation started, the Luidaeg looked almost amused. “Are you really going to stand there and tell me Dianda doesn’t deserve to be punished for spending time in a king-breaker’s company—your company—and say in the same breath that Palatyne isn’t a good queen? Because that sounds like sedition to me.”

I scowled. “That isn’t what I meant.”

“What you mean and what you say should be similar, or you risk people not understanding you.” The Luidaeg sighed. “Look. I know you aren’t trying to be insulting when you challenge me on the things I say, I know you’re just . . . really fucking young by the standards of anyone as old as I am, and you’re trying to make sense of things. I get that, I truly do. But I said I couldn’t help you—any of you—and I can’t lie to anyone except for the Selkies. I. Can’t. Help. You. Whatever happens next is on your shoulders. Figure it out. But know that I won’t allow you to get yourself killed in a stupid way. We have a Convocation to complete.”

She turned and stalked back into her apartment, slamming the door behind her. Silence fell. I knew what I would see when I turned around, and so I didn’t turn around, instead taking a moment to catch my breath.

The silence was broken by the sound of a fist slamming into something solid. There was a horrible cracking sound, like bone giving way. I spun around before I had time to think better of it, and clapped my hands over my mouth when I saw Patrick clutching his right hand against his chest, eyes closed and cheeks red. The table that had been in front of him was on its side. No one else had moved. No one else even seemed to be entirely breathing. Poppy’s wings were moving so fast they were a blur, leaving her hanging a foot off the ground, watching him with bleak dismay.