Page 44 of The Unkindest Tide

“My grandfather turned a man into a linden tree for a hundred years,” said Quentin.

“Trees are different.” The Luidaeg produced a large glass bowl and began dumping her various liquids into it, doing the measurements by eye. “Trees are slow. A hundred years as a tree is less than a decade as something that has a heartbeat. There’s a reason most punishment-through-transformation involves trees. Everyone gets to look impressive, and no one has to live with the long-term consequences of having a pissed-off enemy popping out of the decorative water feature. Toby, you got your knife?”

“Do you even have to ask?” I wearily produced the knife from beneath my skirt, holding it out to her hilt-first.

The Luidaeg raised an eyebrow. “I don’t want it. You’re all going to be bleeding for me in a moment. I needed to know we had a way to make that happen.”

“All?” asked Quentin nervously.

“Well, kiddo, since your lady knight wants to go hang out in the Undersea like a big asshole, you’re going to go with her.” The Luidaeg flashed a toothy smile. “Call it a learning experience. You’re going to learn why you need to get yourself a better knight if you want to live long enough to be High King.”

I gaped at her. “I’m not taking Quentin.”

“She’s not only taking Quentin,” added Tybalt. I turned my gape on him. He raised an eyebrow. “Don’t look so offended, little fish. If you must go submerge yourself in a watery nightmare, it’s my duty to be by your side.”

“Hilarious as the idea of transforming you into a giant catfish is—and believe me, it’s funny as fuck—no,” said the Luidaeg. “You’re here to provide the shapeshifter’s spark to my spell and nothing more. I’m too protean to power this. You have two forms, and that’s the number we need.”

Tybalt narrowed his eyes. “I’m going with her,” he said.

“No, you’re not,” said the Luidaeg. “If you try to negotiate for passage, I’ll set the price so high that your own betrothed will stab you in the kidney before she lets you pay it.”

“That sounds like me,” I said. “But why? Why do I have to take Quentin, who doesn’t want to go, and not Tybalt, who does?”

“She’s right: I don’t want to go,” said Quentin.

“Because, currently, this is a two-way war,” said the Luidaeg. She plucked a hair from the crown of her head and dropped it into the swirling liquid in the bowl. It dissolved with a faint hissing sound, and the smell of quinces spread through the room. “Land and sea, Divided Court against Divided Court. We’re used to this. It hasn’t happened often in the last hundred years, but oh, the war of wall and wave used to be practically a sporting event. Taking your squire with you means you’ll have backup, and means he’ll have a little more understanding of what he’s going to be in charge of one day. Add a King of Cats, even one who isn’t sitting on his throne, and you complicate things. You make them messy. You make this look calculated, like you were gathering allies before you even set foot in the Duchy of Ships. Trust me, all right? I know what I’m doing.”

The liquid, for all her mixing, was still swirled in three colors, like the scales of a calico koi. I suppressed a shudder. “And you’ll go find your sister?”

“Yes. I’ll go find my sister, and do what I can to convince her to come back and rein in her descendants. I can’t promise she’ll listen, but I’ll try.” The Luidaeg sighed. “Now’s when you bleed for me. All of you. Toby, I’m going to need a lot of blood from you; Tybalt, Quentin, I need seven drops. Each. Once that’s done, the compact is sealed, and everything proceeds.”

“What if I refuse?” asked Tybalt stiffly. “If you won’t send me with my lady, perhaps I think she shouldn’t go at all.”

I swung around to stare at him. “You don’t get to make that call.”

“October—”

“No. No. You don’t get to make that call. Not now, not once we’re married, never. We can discuss things, absolutely. I can make an effort to tell you before I go throwing myself into mortal danger, sure. But you don’t make that call, because that call is not yours to make. Peter Lorden is . . . best case, Peter Lorden is in a lot of trouble. He’s a kid, and he’s alone and he’s scared and his parents can’t help him, and maybe I can. So you don’t get to decide for me. I’m a hero, remember? I didn’t want to be, but I am, and that means when a kid is alone and scared and in danger, it’s my job to try and make things better. If you think you get to make that call, we’re going to have to have a conversation. And I don’t think either of us is going to be happy with the results.”

My heart was beating too fast and my skin felt too tight and everything was wrong, wrong, wrong. After everything Tybalt and I had been through together, the idea that he could try to stop me from saving someone, from saving a child, was—

It was—

I couldn’t do this. If he really wanted me to walk away when Peter was in danger, I couldn’t do this. And I couldn’t do it if he only changed his mind out of the fear of losing me. We had to be in this together, even when it was hard, or we weren’t really together at all.

Tybalt sucked in a sharp breath, pupils narrowing to slits. Then, slowly, he nodded.

“I’ve long since resigned myself to the idea that immortality will never be your saving grace,” he said, voice even more formal and stilted than usual. “Not because of the human blood in your veins, but because you insist—you demand—the world be less unkind. One day, you’re going to go up against something you can’t conquer, and the only way I make my peace with this is by telling myself, over and over again, that when that day comes, I’ll be there to fight by your side, to do whatever can be done to save you. It’s not that I . . . I fell in love with a hero, October. I fell in love with you. I would never dream of asking you to change that essential part of who you are. I don’t want you to stop fighting. I just want to be fighting with you.”

“Right now, you fight by staying in the Duchy of Ships and protecting Patrick and Dean,” I said softly, reaching up to touch his cheek. “They’re going to need allies. Clever allies. Allies who can pull them into the shadows if Torin’s guards come back. Can you do that for me?”

“Can you come back to me?” he asked.

“I can try,” I said.

Tybalt nodded, glancing to the Luidaeg. “Lady sea witch, if you would grant me a moment’s time?”

“Clock’s ticking, kitty-cat, but you do you,” she said.