Page 55 of The Unkindest Tide

But it was already underway. It felt like the water was getting colder, like it was rejecting our presence. The fields still grew green, but there were strands of what looked like an underwater species of briar growing around their edges, reaching upward with thorny, gravity-defying tendrils to catch and claim anything that came too close. We swam by one of the thicker brambles and I saw fish trapped inside, impaled and motionless, their bloodless bodies left by circumstance to rot.

Peter shivered, swimming faster, until he was pacing me through the water. I expected him to pull ahead, but he didn’t. Instead, he matched the motion of his tail to mine, pacing me, so I’d be able to protect him if something attacked us. I blinked, surprised, and barely resisted the urge to glance back and see how his Cephali guard had taken this change. There wasn’t time. Anything that could slow us down was something to be avoided.

Then the gate was there, appearing out of the gloom like the welcome anchor that it was. I grabbed Peter’s hand, ignoring his startled look, and swam even faster, pulling him with me into the glimmering disk.

The world dipped, whirled, and spun, remaking itself as something new. Nausea threatened to overwhelm me. Before it could, the water warmed around us, suddenly pierced with brighter shafts of shimmering sunlight that couldn’t possibly have been visible this deep, not according to the rules of the mortal world. Faerie works differently, thank Oberon.

I let go of Peter, who looked frantically around before kicking as hard as he could, arrowing toward the surface like a shot. I took off after him, unwilling to lose sight of him when we were this close to our goal. “I had your son, but I don’t know where he went” wasn’t the sort of thing that was going to play very well with the Lordens. I didn’t know what Patrick’s breaking point actually was. This wasn’t how I wanted to find out.

Peter swam, and I followed, and Quentin followed me, and the Cephali followed him, until together we sketched an arrow across the slope of the sea, six people fleeing from an uncertain future, heading for the questionable safety of a duchy that could still decide that Torin had been in the right to do what he’d done. A duchy filled with anxious Selkies and inscrutable Firstborn and seriously, there are days when I feel like I need a vacation from my life. Is it too much to ask for things to stop being hard for just a few hours? Please?

The shadow of the Duchy of Ships cut through the water, seeming to loom out of nothingness with a speed that shouldn’t have been possible. Then the long chains of the anchors and the thick sweeps of the pylons were all around us, turning the formerly open waters into an obstacle course. There were no guards. Pete apparently trusted her people to take care of themselves, and didn’t see any point to holding off an invasion that was never going to happen. I couldn’t decide whether that was arrogance or confidence. For the Firstborn, I guess the difference doesn’t matter as much as it does for the rest of us.

Peter broke the surface first, propelled by his own anxieties. I was close behind. I took a gulping, almost involuntary breath when I broke back into the air. Quentin did the same. The Cephali were more decorous, rising silently, their tentacles curling around them. Then we were looking up at the smooth wooden side of the Duchy, and Poppy was looking back at us, one orange-skinned arm raised in a vigorous, amiable wave.

“There you are!” she chirped. “I was getting worried you wouldn’t come back before everything ran out and you drowned yourselves dead, bones at the bottom of the sea and everything!”

Peter looked nonplussed. I nudged him with my shoulder.

“That’s Poppy. She works for the Luidaeg, and she’s as close as you can get to harmless without becoming a parody of yourself.” Cupping my hands around my mouth, I called up, “We need something to help us get out of the water! I don’t think I can focus enough to go back to having legs while I’m still wet!”

“We will help,” said Helmi gravely, and proceeded to begin climbing the side of the ship, her tentacles pulling her easily along while her upper body remained as graceful and seemingly motionless as a noblewoman making her grand entrance during a summer ball. The male Cephali followed her, and the two of them ascended with apparent effortlessness. Kirsi remained behind, hanging protectively in the water next to Peter.

“I wish I could do that,” said Peter. “Cephali get to have all the fun.”

“Can’t argue, kid, although I, personally, will be happier when I have knees again,” I said.

Quentin didn’t say anything. He’d shifted in the water, until he was so close to me that our shoulders were almost touching. I glanced at him, frowning at the hint of dark confusion in his eyes. Something was really bothering him.

Well, there’d be time to figure out what it was later, when asking didn’t mean involving his boyfriend’s little brother in whatever he was feeling. Quentin would tell me if he felt like whatever he was dealing with would interfere with him performing his duties as my squire. As long as he didn’t say anything along those lines, I could give him space until we could sit down and talk about it privately.

Helmi reached the top and vanished over the rail, followed a moment later by the man—I was really going to need to learn his name before too much longer. Poppy stepped back, out of sight. Peter made a small, unhappy noise. I flashed him a quick smile.

“It’s okay, bud,” I said. “Your dad’s going to be thrilled when he sees you’re safe. He wanted to come with us, but we convinced him not to.”

“Why?” he asked, a whine in his voice that betrayed his still-heightened anxiety. I couldn’t blame him. Being held hostage twice before you turn sixteen has got to be hell on the nerves.

I shrugged. “I’m scared of your mom,” I said.

Peter cracked a smile.

“What? It’s true! I like her a lot, she’s great and everything, but she’s also terrifying, and I’m not doing anything that might upset her. Taking your father on the kind of adventure that might get him killed would definitely upset her.”

“You took him,” said Peter, pointing at Quentin.

This seemed like a strange place for this conversation, but whatever; it wasn’t like we could go anywhere before Poppy and the others tossed us a rope. “Quentin is my squire,” I said. “That means it’s my job to take him places that might kill him, at least until he’s learned everything I have to teach and can go off to be a hero in his own right.”

“Not a hero,” said Quentin hastily. “I never want to be a hero.”

“I didn’t exactly sign up for this,” I said.

He rolled his eyes but didn’t say anything.

Peter, on the other hand, looked almost excited. “So Quentin won’t be your squire forever?” he asked. “You’re going to need a new squire one day?”

A horrifying possible future unfolded in front of me like the petals of a large, potentially carnivorous flower: one where, as soon as I was no longer responsible for the care and well-being of the next High King of the Westlands, I had to start taking care of the younger son of the Duchess of Saltmist.

“No,” I said firmly. “Quentin was a special case, and I only agreed to take him on because my liege was the one who asked. Once he graduates, I’m done with squires. I’m bad for their health.”