Page 13 of The Innocent Sleep

All I had to do was hold on, and so I held as tightly as I could, clinging like a limpet, glad that my current size would make it harder for the current to wash me away, but also somewhat sorry for my lack of proportionately sized claws. I could extend them while in man’s form, but they would be longer, and it would be less like jabbing needles into Dianda’s flesh and more like stabbing her with hands full of knives. Not precisely the way I wanted to thank her for carrying me down into the darkness.

Which wouldn’t normally have been a good thing. I certainly didn’t start my nights going “I certainly hope a mermaid will drag me fathoms below the sea to meet with a pit of murderous cannibals who apparently have access to the same secret network of passages through Faerie as my own people do.” But right now, with Faerie in disarray and October missing, this was the best thing I could possibly have conceived.

Down and down and down we went, farther than I would have thought possible, down as if the sea had no bottom and was simply an endless pit into ever-deeper darkness, darkness so profound that even Amphitrite’s light seemed to dim, unable to shine more than a few inches in any direction. She was only a partial shape in the pale light, and Dianda was much the same; when I looked back along the length of myself, I could no longer be sure I had legs, or feet, or anything beyond a foot or so of torso. I closed my eyes, unable to trust the fractured images they were feeding me.

They were still closed when I felt Dianda start to slow and heard Amphitrite snap again, three times in quick succession. I opened my eyes, and saw that three more globes of light had joined the first one, all of them bobbing in the water around her head like a loose crown of gleaming brightness.

It was enough to cast her sharkbelly-pale upper body into view, gleaming through the darkness like a ghost. She raised one hand, webbed fingers spread wide, palm facing away from her.

“My name is Amphitrite, daughter of Titania,” she said, and her voice was clear and carrying, undistorted by the water. “The seas were given to me by my mother, although she had no authority to do so, and I patrol them in her name, for all that I would very much prefer not to. It is in her name that I ask you come and speak with me, who is your aunt, who is your blood, who has raised her legions to kill and be killed, thus filling your larders and nurturing your children. My name is Amphitrite, daughter of Oberon. I have authority in these waters. I am accompanied by my own descendant, who claims direct dominion over this abyss, whose authority here exceeds even my own. It is on her behalf that I ask you come and speak with me, who would not have come to vex you of my own accord. My name is Amphitrite, beloved of Maeve. I am aware of your hatreds, and share many of them in my own hidden heart. If you answer to my calling, you will upset and offend the one you hate most of all, will cause her shame and suffering beyond all measure. My name is Amphitrite.”

Her other hand rose out of the darkness, clutching a coral dagger, and raked the blade across her palm in a single sharp gesture that left blood billowing into the clear, dark water. It was red when first it left the wound, but quickly turned to black as the current carried it farther from the light.

Through all of this, Dianda said nothing, and so neither did I. This was clearly a ritual, and one of which I had no experience, no way to contribute or contest, but all rituals can be disrupted, and the last thing I wanted to do right now was accidentally throw the whole thing off and make it harder for us to get what we needed. The taste of blood tickled my lips, carried by the water, and I fought the urge to turn my face away. October would have hated this.

Not as much as I hated being apart from her. That thought strengthened my resolve, and I remained perfectly still as the dark water began to pulse and shift, not visibly changing, but giving the strong appearance of moving all the same. The water around us grew heavy and oppressive. We were clearly being watched, even before the first flecks of luminous gold began to appear in that pulsing dark, uncounted tiny creatures opening their eyes. Then the susurration began.

Like Amphitrite’s voice, it was clear and carrying, with no sign of distortion. It sounded like hundreds of tiny voices whispering to one another, like the sound shadows would make if they could speak. The whispering got louder, and individual voices began to make themselves known.

“Blood.”

“She brings blood.”

“Blood of the mother of sharks.”

“Not of our mother, though. Never of our mother.”

“We had no mother. Only our father, Harns, whose blood was silt and brackish water, who fell beneath our fangs when we tore our way from his body. We swallowed him whole, but we have never had a mother.”

And then, in a wondering tone, closer to my ear than any of the others had been, “I wonder what a mother tastes like.”

I jerked away instinctively, turning to scan the darkness with wide eyes. The dark water erupted into giggles, continuing to pulse, more and more golden specks appearing as our audience—one presumed the Almere—gathered for the show.

“What is that?” asked a voice.

“Not fin nor scale; not Merrow, not Siren, not descended of the deeps.”

“Skin and sinew, bone and blood.”

“We could take it.”

“We could eat it.”

“An offering?”

“A . . . sacrifice?”

The voices grew closer and closer. I hadn’t felt so helpless since I was a kit. I could breathe, thanks to Amphitrite’s magic, but I couldn’t swim as well as anything with a tail, I couldn’t change forms without being swept away, I couldn’t defend myself or escape. I shrank against Dianda, hoping she would somehow defend me, hating everything about the situation in which I found myself marooned.

“Not a sacrifice or an offering,” said Amphitrite. “He is under my protection, and I don’t think, little niblings, that you’re prepared to battle me for ownership.”

“Not yet, perhaps, but soon,” said a voice.

“Our time grows ever closer, for the deep is dark and the dark is deep and Maeve comes not near these waters.”

“Why are you here, Auntie?”

“Why have you come, if not to offer?”