Page 11 of The Innocent Sleep

“And then you heard the seas screaming and came to see what was going on?”

“And then I heard the seas screaming and tried to go to the shore to find out what had happened. I hit a wall, which repelled me, and determined that it ran all along the coast of the Mists, and all the way down the coast to the border between Golden Shore and Angels, and up to the border between Silences and Evergreen. I beat myself against it for a while, decided that wasn’t going to do me any good, and looked at the local demesnes to decide which one was most likely to be involved in fuckery. I was on my way to Saltmist to ask what the fuck when I felt a geas I had placed on myself activate and realized that if I didn’t hurry, someone I’d promised would never need to fear death by water was going to drown, on account of tossing himself off a cliff and knocking his fuzzy ass unconscious when he hit the surface,” she said, without rancor. “So I scooped you up and brought you here, and now we’ve reached the present day, and we can get on with things. This has been going on long enough.”

I nodded. “My apologies. I don’t know how much time passed between Titania’s arrival in my home and my awakening in the Court of Cats. It felt immediate.”

“Let’s be realistic,” said Amphitrite, glancing over at Dianda, who was scowling as she assembled a sandwich. She managed to slice cheese like she was cutting throats, every motion infused with violence. “Ten minutes of forced separation from our families would have been too long. But no. A full day between the sundering and reaching the borders of the wall; two more to throw myself against it; and we’ve spent two days on top of that trying to get you back to the lands of the living. I hate to repeat myself, and I’m not revoking my wedding gift over a moment of oddly understandable panic, but if you ever do that again, I will personally transform you into a nudibranch. Do we understand each other?”

I couldn’t answer. I was too busy staring at her, once again feeling as if the air had been knocked out of me. My slice of bread slipped from my suddenly nerveless fingers, landing fish paste–side down on the table with a splat that would have been comic under almost any other circumstances. Patrick grimaced as he leaned over to pry it up, and one of the knowe’s many ubiquitous Cephali appeared with a cloth clutched in his tentacle, quickly wiping away the mess.

“Not sure whether that’s understanding or shock,” said Amphitrite. “Tybalt?”

I didn’t answer her. I was too busy shoving myself away from the table and turning in a frantic circle, scanning the kitchen for shadows I might be able to use for my escape. There were a few patches, mostly under things, deeper than the ones in the room where I’d awoken, but still not deep enough for my liking.

“Tybalt!” repeated Amphitrite, this time with a note of sharp command in her voice. “You will stop and look at me right now, or you’ll wish you had when I gave you the chance and the choice.”

Forcing myself to grab for what threads of rationality I could find, I turned to her. “Five days?” I demanded. “You didn’t think I might want to know that it had been days?”

“Since no Firstborn has ever been who can control time, I didn’t think it mattered,” she said. “We’re moving as fast as we can, given the circumstances, and while I’m sure you want to get back to October, all we’ll do by letting you kill yourself in the process is piss her off, which isn’t the best idea anyone’s ever had. Five days is not that big a—”

“She’s pregnant!” I blurted.

Amphitrite stopped. “. . . ah,” she said, after a pause. “That explains a few things. I’m sorry, Tybalt. This must be very difficult for you.”

“None of you knew me the first time I was married,” I said. “Her name was Anne, she was a human, and she died because the Divided Courts refused to help her when the birth went badly. The child died with her. October isn’t Anne, and she’s unlikely to die of anything as ordinary as childbirth, but—I can’t control what frightens me.”

“You have every right to be afraid,” said Amphitrite. “I still need you to eat before I can allow you to attempt the Shadow Roads. You’re right about them being thin this deep. I remember when my Father gave them to the Cait Sidhe. It was your use that would keep them easily accessible, when so many other of the old roads have closed or fallen into disrepair. Even the Tidal Roads are difficult to use in this modern world, and I can’t currently access them at all. I think Titania remembered to seal them off, because she understood the need to eliminate the Undersea.”

“Well, I don’t,” said Dianda hotly. “I’m a descendant of hers as much as Patrick is, and I don’t understand why her perfect Faerie would involve pretending I didn’t exist.”

“Maeve,” said Patrick. We all looked at him. He shrugged. “Oberon and Titania were both hiding in the Bay Area, and they both seemed to be things they weren’t, yes? Did Oberon give any indication that he’d known where Titania was before she was unmasked?”

“No,” I said. “He seemed as surprised as the rest of us.” Although no one would ever match October’s sheer shock over the discovery that her childhood friend had been Titania all along. For her, the loss of Stacy had been and was always going to be devastating.

“So it’s not unreasonable for Titania to assume Maeve might be hiding somewhere nearby,” said Patrick. “More, that she might be hiding in the local Undersea, where she would be surrounded by the strongest aspect of her own magic and shielded from the bulk of her sister’s. We have illusions here in the deeps, good, strong ones, but they aren’t subject to the rising and setting of the sun. They don’t anchor themselves the same way.”

“Seal off the Undersea, potentially eliminate the threat of the missing Queen,” I said. “It makes sense.”

“If you’re lashing out, sure,” said Amphitrite. “Mom’s pulled this sort of bullshit before, just on a smaller scale. She’d make entire Courts forget their liege, or mortal villages forget what year it was. It was usually a fit of pique, and Dad would always come along at Moving Day and set things straight again.”

I stared at her. “Moving Day’s not for four months,” I said. “I’m not waiting four months to have my wife back!”

“And we’re not waiting that long for our husband, or our children,” said Dianda. “But breaking an enchantment woven by one of the Queens isn’t going to be something easy, or that we do just because we want to. This is going to take planning and effort, and first, it’s going to take getting you out of here.”

“Which means getting him safe passage to the Shadow Roads,” said Amphitrite. “We do have the Almere . . .”

“No,” said Dianda.

“They have access to the Shadow Roads, where they cut through the abyss,” said Amphitrite.

“No,” said Dianda again.

“I thought you wanted your husband back,” said Amphitrite. “Your daughter. Your son.”

“You’re talking about dealing with the devils in the deep,” snapped Dianda. “You really think they’re going to help us?”

“You, perhaps not,” said Amphitrite. “Me? The Devouring Deep? Oh, me, they’ll help, even if it’s only to the extent of propping a door open.”

“It’s dangerous.”