Page 12 of The Innocent Sleep

“So is going up against Titania. So is trying to access the Shadow Roads from the bottom of the sea. So is basically everything we’ve been talking about doing, and everything we’re about to do. A little more danger is nothing after you’ve already signed up for this much.” Amphitrite turned to me. “What do you say, cat? You ready to face something unpleasant on the chance that it gets you home that much faster?”

“I’m willing to face Titania at the end of all this,” I said. “I can handle a little unpleasantness in getting there.”

“I wouldn’t call the Almere ‘a little unpleasantness,’” said Dianda. “More like ‘slavering monsters sensible people avoid.’”

“They’re my brother’s kids, I can handle them.” Amphitrite stood. “Come along, then. If we’re going to do this, we should get it done with. I don’t even know if it’s going to work.”

I was so relieved to be moving, to be doing something, that I nearly knocked my chair over in rising and hurrying to her side. Patrick followed more sedately, and Dianda gestured for him to take control of her wheelchair, leaving her hands free as he wheeled her after us.

“This is a terrible idea,” she said. “At least let him rest and try on his own before we go deep.”

“You don’t have to come,” said Amphitrite. “You could stay here, in the light, if you’re afraid.”

Dianda stiffened like that was the worst insult she could possibly have received. “No Merrow worth their fins has ever been born or lived a coward,” she said.

“No, but many have died that way,” said Amphitrite. “Patrick?”

“I’m not Merrow, and I’m already on the verge of breaking down due to the disappearance of half my family,” he said, in an artificially calm tone. “I’ll stay here and be ready to talk to Peter if he comes looking for something to eat. Maybe I can keep him from noticing that Simon and August are still gone. We’ll have to tell him soon.”

“Not if we can get them back,” said Dianda.

“So get them back,” he said, and let her chair go.

She stood, scales melting into the fabric of a long skirt as she turned to grab the front of his shirt and yank him into a fierce kiss. He went willingly, lingering in her arms until she finally broke away and turned to Amphitrite.

“You’re my First, but they’re my subjects, and while we’re below, you listen to me.”

Amphitrite nodded. “Whatever makes you feel better.”

Patrick stayed behind as Dianda started moving again, storming down the hall with me and Amphitrite by her sides. Amphitrite looked faintly amused, like this was the best possible outcome. Dianda was furious; Patrick was no longer a potential weakness in our little group; whoever these Almere were, they were presumably something we could handle on our own.

Speaking of . . .“Who are the Almere?” I asked. “I’m feeling rather woefully uninformed at the moment.”

“There are more secrets in the deep than we speak of to the fae of the land,” said Dianda. “When we die, as happens when you go to war as often as we do, our bodies fall like they would anywhere else. And like all fae flesh, ours does not decay. But the night-haunts are creatures of the air. They can’t fly beneath the waves. Faerie makes do. When there’s a gap, Faerie fills it. And as our bodies began to fill the abyss, Faerie sent us the Almere, born to a son of Oberon who dove too deep, seeking to recover the body of his fallen lover. They ripped their way out of him and claimed the deepest waters—and unlike your night-haunts, they were never bound.”

“Never . . . ?”

“They can still attack the living,” said Amphitrite. She sounded almost bored, like this wasn’t something horrific and unthinkable. “Strip the flesh from their bones and leave what’s left for the tide to take. Fae bones don’t rot, either, but the waves will roll them along and break them down. What we offer, the water gladly claims.”

“Ah.”

“They technically belong to Saltmist, and hence answer to me,” said Dianda. “Doesn’t mean they’re very interested in listening most of the time, but if this is what has to happen, this is what has to happen.”

Our trajectory had brought us to a large, circular door in the wall. Clear panes set at eye level showed me the living sea outside, and I stopped, catching my breath.

“I know I can’t drown, and I appreciate that, but have either of you stopped to consider the fact that I can’t breathe below, either? I can still suffer, and I’ll be easy prey for these Almere if I go below in no fit state to defend myself.”

“Oh, that’s easy,” said Amphitrite. She snapped her fingers, and a stinging sensation lashed along the sides of my neck, like I had been raked at by a kitten’s claws. I hissed in pained surprise, raising my hand to touch the raw area. Amphitrite caught my wrist and pushed my hand back down. “You’re fine. Don’t worry about it. Dianda?”

“Oh, I love being ordered around in my own knowe,” said Dianda, and opened the door. The water didn’t so much flood the hall as expand into it, cascading over us in a huge, frothy wave that somehow had no force behind it, despite the sheer volume involved. It should have hit like a hammer, or at the very least pushed us back against the wall. Instead, it merely entered like a dubiously invited guest.

Both Dianda and Amphitrite were abruptly finned and scaled from the waist down, their legs replaced by powerful flukes. I glanced down at my own body, suspicious, and found my legs where I normally kept them, apparently unchanged. That was something of a relief, especially given that I was still breathing. There was a strange pulsing in the sides of my neck, and I knew that if I succeeded in touching it, I’d find gills where no gills should have been.

Well, in a way, I had asked for them. “Come along, cat,” said Amphitrite, and dove out the opening. Dianda was close behind. I paddled after them, feeling slow and awkward, and Dianda doubled back to catch my hands and tow me along with her, which was only slightly embarrassing. There’s no shame in being ill-suited to an environment where one doesn’t naturally belong, but I disliked the feeling of helplessness.

Once she had a firm grip on my wrists, Dianda accelerated, tail pumping hard. She easily caught up with Amphitrite, who accelerated in turn, until they were both racing through the water at a horrifying speed. I glanced back to see the seashell spires of Saltmist fading into the distance, gleaming luminescent against the dark water.

Then that same darkness swallowed us, all light lost to the distance as we began to plunge rapidly down. Interestingly, the temperature didn’t change, remaining clement and pleasant and clear. The lack of visibility was entirely due to the depth, and not to any sort of sediment or pollution. Amphitrite snapped again, the sound carrying clearly, and a globe of white light appeared in front of her, leading us farther down like a fisherman’s lure guiding a hapless minnow into the net.