Page 79 of The Unkindest Tide

“Torin!” I shouted. “Look at me!”

He didn’t turn around. Not as I yelled, and not as Tybalt stepped out of the shadows, moved in close behind him, grabbed him by the throat, and yanked.

Torin shouted, confusion and fear wrapped into a tidy little package, and his guard swung around, ready to attack the invader. They were too slow. There were a lot of shadows clinging to the dock, and Tybalt was already gone, hauling Torin with him into the darkness.

“Try not to kill him!” I shouted, probably already too late to be heard—but that part didn’t really matter, not as much as having at least pretended to try. Privately, I’d be thrilled to know that the man who had menaced my daughter, arrested Dianda, and thrown a knife at my fiancé had met his end in the freezing cold and endless dark of the Shadow Roads.

“Mom!” wailed Gillian.

I whipped around. The Cephali had wrapped one thick tentacle around her neck, squeezing slowly. He glared at me, hatred in his eyes.

“Give him back,” he said. “Give him back, or I’ll—”

Whatever he was going to say died as he made a thick gurgling sound and slumped forward, revealing the sword protruding from his back. It was long and sharp and far less dangerous than the scowling woman who stood on the deck behind him.

Captain Pete folded her arms and glared at the lot of us. “I’m going to have to apologize to Chryseis, assuming she’s still alive, for killing one of her descendants. Someone want to tell me why this was worth it?”

Silence fell.

TWENTY

GILLIAN STRUGGLED OUT FROM under the fallen Cephali, sobbing as she pushed away the heavy tentacles that had bound her. There were sucker marks on her arms and throat. Those were going to bruise, leaving her marked for days, if not weeks. She’d have to wear even more illusions around the house as she concealed the damage from her father. It felt like my heart had become lodged in my throat, making it hard to swallow or breathe.

It was almost anticlimactic when Tybalt tumbled out of a patch of shadow, dragging Torin’s limp, motionless form in his wake. Anticlimactic for me, anyway: not for René. The Selkie man snarled and dove for the unmoving Merrow, stopping only when Quentin and Patrick caught his arms and held him back.

“Let me go!” he howled, following the demand with a string of curses in French. I didn’t understand any of them. Quentin did, and from the look on his face, they weren’t pleasant. René thrashed, trying to break loose, coming dangerously close to hitting one of them with his sword. “He killed my sister! You heard him! He as much as admitted to killing my sister!”

“You just had to go and summon your Selkies to my fiefdom,” said Pete. She stepped over the fallen Cephali, the heel of her left boot coming down on the edge of one of his tentacles with a vicious squelching noise. Gillian was still struggling to stand. Pete offered her a hand and a sympathetic smile. “It’s all right, kid. No one’s going to hurt you while I’m here.”

“I gave the Selkies permission to rob one another, not to attack the rest of your guests,” said the Luidaeg. “And self-defense has always been permissible in the Duchy. It’s the aggressor, not the victim, who gets punished.”

“Uh-huh.” Pete frowned as Gillian stared at her outstretched hand like it was some kind of venomous serpent. “Do you like being on the deck, kid? Because barnacles like being on the deck. You want to be barnacles?”

Gillian switched her wide-eyed stare from Pete’s hand to Pete herself. “You stabbed that man,” she accused. “The octopus man.”

“The one who was strangling you, yes, I did,” Pete agreed. She glanced at me. “She’s not super bright, is she? But you love her, and that’s what matters.”

“Can someone unlock this damn gate?” I shook the bars. “Please?”

“Um, sorry. That’s my bad,” said Marcia, stepping timidly forward. She glanced at the Luidaeg and then shied away, like a frightened animal trying not to attract the attention of a larger predator. “I locked them. When the—you know. Angry people with spears showed up.” She hesitated, looking at Torin’s remaining guards. They were standing frozen, clearly unsure of what they were supposed to do now. “Are they going to stab me when I unlock the gates?”

“Only if they really, really want to be barnacles,” said Pete, with a vicious good cheer that I was all too familiar with, thanks to my long association with the Luidaeg.

One of the Merrow whimpered. It was forgivable; she was being menaced by her own Firstborn, after all.

“Okay,” said Marcia. She grabbed a sprig of rosemary from behind her ear and ran it down the seam between the gates, murmuring something under her breath. The gates sprang open, nearly dumping me on my face as I found myself without anything to hang onto.

No matter. Quentin and Patrick had René contained, Tybalt was taking care of Torin, and I needed to get to my daughter. I half-ran, half-staggered the short distance to where she was still sprawled on the dock, dropping to my knees and sweeping her into my arms.

For one short moment, she returned my embrace, burying her face against my shoulder and closing her arms around my chest, holding me as close as I was holding her. It was everything I’d ever wanted in this world, and it was all I could do not to cry when she finished by pushing me away, looking from me to Pete, not even pretending to conceal her fear and fury.

“I wanted to ask you to make the sea witch tell the other Selkies to stop fighting,” she said. “I wanted to ask you to help. But instead, these people grabbed me, again, and they hurt me, all so they could make you do what they wanted you to do. Is that how this is always going to be? Am I always going to be a target because people want to make you suffer? I can’t do this, Mo—Toby. I can’t.”

She scrambled to her feet, gathering her bruised dignity around herself like another form of sealskin, and looked imperiously down her nose at me and Pete in the same motion. Gillian hadn’t been a part of Faerie for long enough to understand what it meant to snub a pureblood ruler in their own domain—and she didn’t even realize Pete was Firstborn. She had no idea how brave she was being. My wonderful, foolish daughter.

“I’m done,” she said. “I’m part of Faerie now, and I know that means I can’t walk away entirely, but I’m still done. I can’t take this. I am . . . I’m so sorry I was mad at you for all those years, for leaving. You didn’t have a choice. Now I’m mad at you because you won’t stay away. So please, stay away. Whatever the hell it is you’re a part of, leave me out of it. I don’t want it.”

She turned and stalked away, deeper into the Duchy of Ships. I gaped at her, barely able to comprehend what had happened. Then I turned to the crowd in the courtyard, fixing my attention on the first person I saw who wasn’t in the middle of doing something terribly important.