Page 52 of The Unkindest Tide

“Your father is fine, if worried about you; your mother has been arrested for treason, which isn’t the same as ‘okay,’ but means she’s probably causing a lot more problems for the people holding her than they expected. She’ll come back with bruised knuckles and cracked ribs and a smile on her face.” I forced a smile to my own face, trying to look as encouraging as possible. “Right now, you’re the one we need to worry about. Your uncle Torin has Saltmist, and that means we have to get you out of here. Can you walk?”

Peter nodded, sniffling again, and pulled away from Helmi, standing at the same time. Most of his scales shimmered and fell away, or maybe shrank back into his body—it was impossible to tell, it all happened so fast. In less than a second, a skinny boy in rough homespun trousers was standing, still shirtless, where the Merrow teen had been. A few scattered scales shimmered on his wrists and ankles. Peter looked at me shyly, chin tilted downward, so he was staring up through the long fringe of his lashes. It was a soft, vulnerable expression.

He was still Dianda’s son. I raised an eyebrow. “Are you planning to stab me, or just punch me in the throat?”

Peter allowed his chin to raise, softness becoming stubbornness in an instant. “My mother says never to trust anyone who’s offering you something for nothing.”

“Your mother is pretty smart that way, but trust me, this isn’t something for nothing,” I said. “I’m a hero of the realm in the Mists. That means anything that might disturb the Kingdom’s peace is my problem. We like having your parents in charge of Saltmist. They’re allies, and they don’t attack us for no reason. I don’t trust your uncle to show the same restraint. I also don’t trust your mother not to start breaking spines if she finds out you’ve been hurt. Saving you is the best way for me to keep my kingdom calm.”

Quentin shot me a sharp look, seeming offended by my pragmatic approach to rescue. Peter, on the other hand, looked relieved.

“All right,” he said. “I’ll come with you.”

I smiled. “Great,” I said. “Let’s go.”

Helmi had been forced to grab Peter and run when Torin’s forces came spilling into the knowe: there hadn’t been time to collect any of his belongings. That would make things harder eventually, but for right now, it made things somewhat easier: we didn’t have to collect or carry anything. We just had to run.

So we ran.

Five of us, fleeing down a hall that technically belonged to the enemy, past closed storeroom doors, past the scuffs and blood on the floor that marked our battle with Torin’s guards. Helmi stayed with Peter, but Kirsi took to the ceiling, somehow keeping up with the rest of us as her tentacles roiled, one over the other, propelling herself along at a seemingly impossible rate.

We were almost to the storeroom we had entered through when another Cephali dropped from the ceiling and the five of us stopped dead in our tracks.

He was larger than Helmi or Kirsi, larger than any two of us put together: if the Undersea had a wrestling foundation, he was probably their star attraction. He had a neck as thick as my thigh, and heavily muscled arms that promised a world of pain to anyone who got within reach. That didn’t touch on his tentacles, which were even thicker than his neck at their bases, or the trident in his hands. His smile was thin and cruel, the expression of a man who had been held in check for too long.

Helmi hissed—actually hissed, like water flicked onto a smoking hot pan—and pushed Peter behind herself, falling into a defensive position. Kirsi dropped down from the ceiling, joining the blockade.

The Cephali man laughed. It was a deep, rolling sound, and it set my teeth on edge.

“I had wondered where my kin were swimming when none of you came to our new Lord’s command,” he said, in a voice even lower than his laughter. His skin was a deceptively cheery shade of baby blue, darkening along the length of his limbs, so that his fingers and the tips of his tentacles were cobalt-dark, like they’d been dipped in someone’s inkwell. “Have you lived in peaceful waters for so long that you’ve forgotten what it means to follow a proper warlord? Duke Torin will lead us to greatness, if we allow him to do so.”

“Usurper Torin will lead us to blood and the battlefield,” spat Helmi. “He’ll leave us in pieces for the sharks to swallow, and cry that we died for the greatness of the Merrow. Who cares for the greatness of the Merrow? Titania is gone. There’s no reward to gain for following them into dark places. There’s only death, and we were made to be immortal. Maeve won’t praise us for laying our lives down in service to her sister’s descendants.”

“Titania isn’t the only one missing,” said the man. “Maeve hasn’t been seen in centuries. If there’s no reward for what we do, then what we do must be its own reward. I would prefer to be rewarded with battle.”

“Peter, stay behind me,” hissed Helmi.

I stepped forward. “Yeah, no,” I said. “This is stupid, and I’m not playing.”

Silence fell. The man slowly turned to frown at me, squinting as he realized he didn’t recognize me and couldn’t tell precisely what I was. I might be able to fool a casual onlooker with my vague air of Merrow-ness, but this Cephali had presumably been serving the Lordens long enough to look at me and know I wasn’t what I seemed to be. Without the gills, I could have passed for a particularly drab Daoine Sidhe. As it was . . .

“Who are you?” he demanded.

“Sir October Christine Daye, Knight of Lost Words, sworn in service to Duke Sylvester Torquill of Shadowed Hills, named hero of the realm by Queen Arden Windermere in the Mists, here in the name of Duchess Dianda Lorden, rightful ruler of Saltmist, to recover her youngest son, who has been detained against his will by her brother, who has no claim to her demesne.” I somehow managed to make the recitation of my titles sound almost bored. Gold star me.

Jutting one hip out to the side in a nonchalant posture that anyone who knew me well would have recognized as a sign of trouble to come, I folded my arms and looked the Cephali languidly up and down before lifting an eyebrow. “What are you supposed to be?” I asked. “The wall we have to scale to get to freedom? Because trust me, I’m not in the mood for rock climbing right now. How about you go do something else, and let us walk away nice and easy?”

He sneered. Actually sneered. It was a pretty good display of arrogance and misreading the situation, if I did say so myself. “Out of my way, vermin,” he snapped. “This is between me and the traitors.”

“Wow, ‘traitor’ is a moving target around here, isn’t it? See, where I come from, the people who are defending the son of the rightful regent aren’t the traitors, they’re the heroes of the hour. Quentin?”

“Um, yes?” My squire sounded uncertain. I couldn’t blame him for that. I was so far off-script at this point that I might as well have been part of an entirely different production.

That was the plan. If even my allies were off balance, the people who were supposed to be fighting me would have absolutely no idea how to handle themselves. “Can I have that big fork you took from the patrol we beat the snot out of?”

The Cephali man glowered, his tentacles curling closer to his body in a move I could only interpret as enraged. They lightened at the same time, that inky shade of cobalt retreating to their very tips.

“I bet they didn’t get the Smurfs down here under the Pacific, but trust me, you look like a giant angry Smurf right now, and it’s not helping you look impressive.” I stuck my hand out. To my immense relief, Quentin slapped the shaft of his borrowed trident into it. “How about we dance, big guy? Just you and me.”