Page 9 of The Innocent Sleep

“Good,” she said, voice gone flat. “We have other things to worry about right now.”

“Based on how long it would have taken you to accomplish all the things you’ve described, I’m going to say that all this happened at the same time,” said Amphitrite. “I was already on my way to Saltmist when you hit the water, which is why I was close enough to retrieve you before permanent damage could be done.”

“Why?” I asked, only half-warily.

“Because right about when you were ripped from your home and lost track of your wife, this section of the Undersea was sealed off from the land kingdoms,” she said flatly, snapping my attention back to her. “Not just that, but from itself. Leucothea and Cala Siochaint screamed when they were sundered from the rest of the Undersea, as did the Sunlit Seas. From what I can tell, the Undersea regions adjacent to the Mists, Silences, and the Golden Shore have all been severed from the greater Undersea. There’s a wall between us and them. None of the channels that should allow passage to the surface are open. I can force my way through, but it hurts and exhausts me, much more than should be possible, unless . . .”

“Unless the line was drawn by your mother.”

Amphitrite nodded. “If I’d been in any other part of the Undersea when the wall came down, I wouldn’t have been able to reach you. You still wouldn’t have drowned. But with none able to reach you, your injuries would have gone untreated, and there are lots of ways to die at sea.”

She sounded unnervingly matter-of-fact about that, like she was telling me something I should have known all along. I managed, barely, not to shudder.

“As all this was happening, the palace shook in its foundations, I assume because walling us off from the rest of the Summerlands sent a shockwave through the duchy, and all the Roane and Selkies who should have been up on shore appeared in the air-breathing portions of my knowe,” said Dianda.

I straightened. “All of them?”

“Yes, all of them.”

“Gillian.” October’s first child had been born a thin-blooded changeling, more mortal than fae, and had been stripped of her Dóchas Sidhe heritage to save her life after she’d been elf-shot by her own cousin. That would have been the end of her involvement with Faerie, had she not been abducted for use as a pawn against her mother, and been elf-shot a second time, this time without the convenient presence of fae blood that could be manipulated to clear the venom from her veins.

Instead, she had been granted a precious Selkie skin and transformed for the sake of her own survival, a transformation that had become complete when she allowed herself to be bound to the skin as one of the reborn Roane. She was part of Faerie now, and had begun carefully considering the nature of her relationship with her birth mother: she’d even come to attend our wedding. I hadn’t seen her since.

Dianda nodded. “She’s in the dining hall with the rest of the seal-shifters. She doesn’t know anything about October being missing, or if she does, she’s surprisingly good at not letting on.”

I shook my head. “There’s no sense in worrying her. October is terrifyingly resilient. I’m sure she’s fine.”

“And I’m sure you’re lying,” said Dianda. “You’re not the only one who’s missing family. Simon and August were both topside when the walls came down, and if they’re trying to get to us, it’s not working. We tried to send a group up to find them. No luck.”

I stared for a moment, then looked back to Amphitrite. “Am I trapped here?” I asked.

“The fact that you were able to get out of the Court of Cats means you probably aren’t, although the passage may be difficult for you,” said Amphitrite. “Mother always did think poorly of the fae with more animal attributes, your own line included. She considered you little more than performing beasts that could be trotted out to do tricks when necessary, but were better left ignored.”

“Meaning she would have sealed the Shadow Roads if she’d cared enough about the Cait Sidhe to remember what we’re capable of,” I said, in grim conclusion.

Amphitrite nodded. “You aren’t worth her notice, and so she didn’t notice you.”

“The Shadow Roads maintain their integrity through use,” I said. “When neglected, they become more difficult to travel. I’m not sure why anyone would have pushed them this far down beneath the sea. I may not be able to access them from here.”

“Well, you’re gonna have to try,” said Dianda. “Unless you want to be a widower locked in with the angriest widow you’re ever likely to see.”

“Don’t discount my anger in this situation,” said Patrick. “I’m going to kill her.”

“You can’t kill Titania,” said Amphitrite, reasonably enough. “She’s our First. She’s more than our First. She’s the First of the First. I’m pretty sure killing her is actually impossible.”

“I’m innovative,” said Patrick.

He sounded so calm as he said that that for a moment, I truly believed he could do what he was threatening. If Titania kept us away from the people we loved, he was going to find a way to kill the Queen of Faerie, and he wasn’t going to be sorry about it, not in the slightest. He was protecting his family. I could respect that.

“A moment, please,” I said, and turned my back on the group, focusing my attention on the place where shadows gathered at the very base of the wall. They were thin and questionable, battered on all sides by the warm light that flowed from the body of the room, but I could feel them, if I reached. I took a deep breath, straining to connect to the shadows firmly enough to make them open for me.

They twitched, and I stepped back, breaking the connection.

“I’ll need better darkness,” I said. “What’s here is very weak.”

“We live at the bottom of the sea,” said Dianda. “We have the deepest darkness you’ve ever seen. We just prefer to keep it outside, since it’s everywhere, and we keep things well lit inside the knowe. I can get you darkness, if that’s what you want. Is the road there?”

“It is,” I said. “I wouldn’t want to risk running it with a passenger in tow—it’s hard enough to carry October alone though the shadows in the lands above, where the roads have always been well used and remain open enough to know us well. It’s going to be difficult to navigate these roads alone, much less burdened in any way.”