Page 54 of The Unkindest Tide

“You fought like a fool who thought themselves a sacrifice,” said Helmi. Somehow, coming from her, it wasn’t an insult. She sounded genuinely awed. “No warrior of the land has ever been willing to risk themselves so for one of the water.”

“I want to be there when you tell Patrick that.” I pushed myself back to my feet, using the wall for balance when the world spun.

Helmi scoffed. “The ducal consort is a good man and a better father, but he’s no fighter. He never has been.”

“Semantics.” I took my hand off the wall. The world spun again, but this time Quentin was there to keep me from toppling over. Why did I ever resist having a squire? They’re so useful. “We need to get out of here.”

“We’re at war,” repeated Peter, entirely too calm for a teenager who’d just seen a man stabbed in the throat until he died. Like mother, like son. “You haven’t broken the Law, Sir Daye. My parents will reward you for this.”

“Okay, see, that’s a weird thing to say and I don’t like it, but that’s not why we need to get out of here.” I started moving, keeping my grip on Quentin’s shoulder. The wound in my stomach was almost healed, but the itching hadn’t stopped, for all that it was mostly beneath the surface now. That made it almost worse. When my skin itches, I can scratch it, even if I’m sensible enough to choose not to. When it’s my liver that itches . . .

Complaining that my ability to heal from injuries that should be fatal isn’t comfy enough feels sort of like a jerk move. That’s never stopped me before.

Together, we made our way down the hall to the storeroom where we had entered. It was thankfully still unoccupied; if any more of Torin’s forces had come down here looking for us, they hadn’t seen the signs of our arrival, and hadn’t decided to stop and lie in wait for our return. The surface of the pool that led to the outside was untroubled, inviting us back into the depths.

I hate swimming. I eyed the water mistrustfully as I said, “Okay. Quentin and I don’t speak whatever language it is you use to communicate underwater; once we dive, we’re basically going to be incommunicado. You need to follow us to the gateway to the Duchy of Ships. The Luidaeg isn’t there right now, but she’ll be back soon, and she’ll be pissed if I come back without you after putting her to all this trouble. If you have any questions, ask them now.”

Peter, Helmi, and Kirsi all stared at me, united in their stunned silence. Bands of color washed across the two Cephali, briefly tinting their skins in sickly pallor.

Peter was the first to find his voice—there was his mother’s influence again, teaching him that rushing in was always better than the alternative. Eyes wide and round, he whispered, “You’re taking us to see the sea witch?”

This thing where the Undersea was still radically impressed by her would have been charming, if I hadn’t been trying to get them into the water and out of the knowe before someone noticed the mess out in the hall. I’d just killed a man. Yes, he’d been trying to kill me at the time, and no, I wasn’t sorry I’d done it, but wow did I want to get out of here before the night-haunts came.

“I’m not taking you to see the sea witch,” I said, with as much patience as I possessed. Which was, admittedly, not as much as I might have liked it to be. “I’m taking you to the place where the sea witch is currently planning to be. She doesn’t have a lot of patience under the best of circumstances, and trust me when I say that these are not the best of circumstances. Are there any other questions?”

There weren’t. Peter gave me a small nod, his jaw still clenched and his eyes still wide, and I stepped into the open circle of water in the floor, and let the ocean take me.

THIRTEEN

THE TRANSFORMATION WAS NO less nerve-racking the second time. It was still someone else’s magic dictating the shape of my body, pulling me into a new form and fixing me there, like a butterfly trapped under glass; it was still dropping me into the crystalline depths of my worst fears and leaving me there. I grasped the walls of the narrow tunnel, pulling myself toward the distant promise of freedom. Which, weirdly, helped a lot.

When Simon transformed me into a fish, he’d gone all the way, leaving me without hands or arms or any way to communicate. Even here, silenced by the sea, I could gesture to get my point across. Quentin, at least, would recognize what it meant if I showed him my middle fingers. And that meant I wasn’t as cut off from the world as my increasingly panicked thoughts were trying to make me out to be.

The journey through the supply tunnel seemed to take longer this time than it had before, maybe because the urgency was even greater. Time was short—the Luidaeg’s spell would have to wear off eventually, and I doubted we had more than a few hours left—and more, there was a mess in the hall that would tell Torin’s guards something was wrong. We had to hurry. I hadn’t come this far to fetch Peter only to lose him before I got him back to his father.

I was the first to emerge from the hole in the side of the knowe. My flukes were still inside when someone grabbed me by my hair and whipped me around, slamming me into the coral wall. I began to push myself back into open water, ready to fight, only for my attacker to press the tip of a jagged blade against my throat. I froze.

Blood in the water means sharks, means setting off alarms, and even if it won’t kill me, having my throat slit isn’t my idea of a good time. I stared, wide-eyed and furious, at the Cephali hovering over me. It was the man from before, pale yellow with blue rings, and his expression was unreadable, impassive and calm. Had he been waiting for us to return all this time? I suspected he had.

Quentin came out after me, and froze when he saw the situation. I had no way to signal him, but he seemed to realize what he had to do, and whirled, clearly intending to block the others from coming out.

He was too slow. Helmi pushed through, followed by Peter and Kirsi. All three of them stopped for a moment, staring at the Cephali man whose blade was still pressed—uncomfortably tightly—against the skin of my throat. Then, with a wordless sound that carried through the water, formless and echoing, Helmi threw herself into his arms.

My attacker was good; he didn’t drop the knife. Instead, he transferred it to one of his tentacles while he caught Helmi, plucking her out of the current like she was a leaf blowing along on a stiff breeze. He gathered her into a complicated hug that involved at least six limbs on both their parts.

Then she slapped him.

He recoiled, looking startled and confused. She pulled back, pointing to me with one hand while three of her tentacles twined together in a complicated motion that couldn’t have been anything other than purposeful, an impression that was only reinforced when the man’s tentacles did something similar, if not precisely the same. Kirsi stayed where she was, holding Peter back while the two other Cephali argued.

The man pulled the knife from my throat. I reacted immediately, bringing my tail up and whacking him in the stomach as hard as I could. The reason Dianda depended on that move so much was immediately apparent, as the blow shoved him away with surprising force. He tumbled, not losing his grip on Helmi. I pulled my knife, ready to fight—

—and stopped as I realized he was laughing soundlessly. They both were, like this was the funniest thing they’d ever seen. I narrowed my eyes, glaring. They kept laughing.

Whatever. I’ve been mocked by better than a few octopus-people, and the longer I hung here having my feelings hurt, the less time we had to get back to the Duchy of Ships. I flicked my fins at him and spun in the water, taking advantage of the lack of gravity to return to Quentin and the others.

Kirsi shot me an amused look. I ignored her, motioning for Quentin and Peter to follow me. They did. Kirsi fell in behind them. Helmi and the stranger fell in behind her, and we swam as fast as we could back toward the gate that would see us safely out of these waters.

In Faerie, the king is the land. That’s not just a pretty phrase: it’s a reality of the way the magic that anchors us to the Summerlands works. A noble can control the weather, the season, even the overall feeling of their demesne. A forest that seems creepy and unwelcoming in the hands of one noble may be airy and open in the hands of another; a place where it never stops snowing may blossom into eternal summer when the head that wears the crown is changed. How extreme the effect is depends on how tightly the landholder is tied to the land. It would take time for Saltmist to adapt completely to being held by Dianda’s brother.