Fool of a selkie. Of course I had.
Standing there on that stage, on display, while my desirability as a purchase was presented, delightedly, to the bidders, I’d been beset by a nagging feeling. That the previous unfortunates, popular as they’d proved, were only an opening act. I was the unwilling star of this show, the jewel in the crown. Why?
Ego told one story, fear another.
I was the oldest, the most powerful, the most beautiful: so said the MC. It could have been true.
But fear said: this was a trap set for you, and as I breathed in those azure waters in the cold and the dark, that fear grew louder.
We’d known since the Pearls club that some part of this mess was, somehow, directed at us. Had we failed to understand how much?
Had everything been a feint, a ploy, designed to bring me to this very moment?
What had I got myself into?
Tai, I’m sorry, I thought, uselessly, even as I knew I’d had no other choice. This pool, these waters, were the route straight through to the answers we hadn’t found. This was the road to the resolution we needed. Whatever lay in wait for me on the other side, I’d have to face it.
Alone.
I breathed water and waited, making myself cool and cold, making myself ice. My racing heart slowed. By the time I opened my eyes, by the time the suffocating darkness ebbed, I was collected again, and ready.
I saw little, at first. Not due to a lack of light, but to an excess: the darkness had fled all at once, blasted out of existence by a dazzling, blinding radiance emanating from several sources at once. I blinked, water leaking from my tormented eyes. It melded seamlessly into the waters around me, saltwater added to saltwater.
For I remained submerged, and my senses told me I was deep under. My eyes grew slowly accustomed, and some of the blinding lights faded; I received a blanketing impression of deep blue, azure and turquoise, the colour of tropical ocean waters. Shallow ocean waters, but I was down in the deeps; how did that make sense?
‘But is it the right one, this time?’ came a voice, from somewhere: a woman’s voice, deep and rich. ‘Is this she?’
Movement: a ripple in the waters, a changing of the pressure. Someone approached. I saw a dim figure at first, indistinct. Then, mercifully, the dazzling light dimmed, and I could see.
Brianne?
‘Ah! It is! Oh, well done, darlings.’ Brianne beamed at me, a cruel twist to the smile. ‘Welcome, the lady Fionn! I hope the accommodations are salubrious enough for you.’
She looked…different. Oh, as unruffled as ever, as at home under the sea as she had been at a table at the Eventide club, quaffing cocktails. Her hair, malachite-green, drifted with the currents; she was clad in silver weed, and sea-foam. Here was a woman whose confidence was in no way forced; a woman in her element. She belonged to the waters as much as I did.
‘Is this your little scheme?’ I demanded, sizing her up with a withering look. ‘Short of palace attendants, were you? Needed some new blood?’
‘Considering you just attended a certain auction, that surmise is unworthy of you.’ Brianne spirited up a string of jewels with a whirl of her slim fingers, turning seawater to sun-coloured topaz. These she draped over my neck, and drifted back to observe the effects of her handiwork. ‘Better,’ she decided. ‘You were rather under-dressed, darling.’
The jewels were pretty, but lifeless, nothing like my pearls. I stripped them off anyway. ‘Fair,’ I said, in answer to her challenge. ‘But why spirit away all those selkies, just to sell them off? There are far easier ways to make money.’
Brianne just shook her head, and gave a tiny, disappointed sigh. ‘Come on, darling. Think it through.’
I thought back over the past few days. We’d considered before that it wasn’t the selkies that were wanted, or even their skins: it was the pearls. The clue was in the damned name of that club, set there to entrap us. In the fate of Narasel, dead in the water, her sealskin thrown after her — but her pearls had never reappeared. In the way those waters at the Pearls club had tried to wrest something from me — something I hadn’t, at the time, possessed, and which Tai hadn’t qualified, or consented, to surrender.
‘What could you possibly want with the pearls?’ I said, no nearer to comprehension. We were missing so much information; even now, I couldn’t read Brianne, couldn’t guess at her scheme. And where she had brought me remained a mystery.
‘It isn’t the pearls,’ said she. ‘Pretty as they are.’ In illustration of this point, another whirl of her fingers produced a flurry of them, shell-pink and moon-white. She tossed these at me, and they settled over my shoulders, my hair. Empty and lifeless, like the topaz, however much they shone. ‘But then, they aren’t pearls, are they?’ continued Brianne, studying me. ‘Not as such. That is but a semblance. Symbolic. What they are, selkie, is power. And they represent an opportunity even I don’t possess.’
‘I don’t believe there’s much I can do that you cannot,’ I said, and with truth. She was an ocean creature, like me; the waters loved her, could never harm her. In that, she was superior to a selkie: no sealskin to betray her, no way to wrest her powers from her. Only death could do that, and as I well knew, she was damned hard to kill.
‘Perfectly true,’ Brianne mused. ‘Save for the seal shape, and to be honest with you, I don’t fancy it. Elegant as you are in this form, you’re a trifle less alluring in the other, hm?’ She decorated me in a few more pearls, and a diamond or two; entertaining herself. Toying with me. ‘All that fur. I appreciate a good mink as much as the next woman, but there is such a thing as too much, Fionn.’
‘While I hate to interrupt the victory lap,’ I said drily, ‘could we perhaps skip to the end.’
Brianne’s smile faded. ‘Of all you fatales,’ she said, coldly, ‘you were always the least fun.’
This was too true for denial. Tai was all laughter and affection, and Daix would try anything once. Literally. Anything.
‘Considering this is the third time I’ve been forcibly abducted this week,’ I said, unimpressed, ‘I don’t think I owe you any fun.’
‘Untrue. You walked into those waters of your own, free will, didn’t you? Both times.’ She waved a hand. ‘Yes, yes, the charade. Frighteningly clever, I’m sure. But nobody who knew you could possibly believe it, darling.’
So much for Tai’s scheme. ‘What,’ I said icily, ‘do you want with the hags-cursed pearls, Bri.’
‘Oh! Yes, that. Well.’ She looked long at me, admiring — like I was a piece of meat. ‘The one, thorny little problem with my various talents, love, is: they’re a lot less transferrable.’
‘I don’t have the first idea what that means—’ I began, but something disturbed the prismatic waters. Some frenzied thing, out of control, pulling the currents out of order.
‘See, now. That’s exactly what I mean,’ said Brianne, no longer looking at me.
I drifted left, unwilling to turn my back on Brianne. We weren’t alone in this dazzling little piece of undersea paradise: a couple of others had joined us. Land-folk, by the way they were thrashing about.
A flash of dark hair, and a face I knew, enlightened me.
Tai.
And Phélan?
I’d covered half the distance before I knew I was moving. ‘Idiot,’ I hissed as I reached her. ‘Now who’s got some kind of a death wish?’
Tai didn’t — couldn’t — answer. Her eyes, meeting mine, were wide and petrified, because her mouth and throat were full of water and she was drowning before my eyes—
Something pale glinted in her fingers: pearls.
‘Right, stop,’ I told her, ignoring Phélan. ‘Give.’ I stripped the pearls out of her hands — had it not occurred to her that merely holding the things wasn’t enough this time? I yanked one out of the string, shoved it between Tai’s lips, and held my hand over her mouth until she swallowed.
She took a breath.
I repeated this procedure, ungently, with Phélan. I didn�
��t return the pearls to Tai. They were not mine: too new, too fresh, the layers of time and magic barely formed. I didn’t waste time asking where they had come from.
‘Lovely,’ came Brianne’s voice from behind me. In my panic over Tai, I had, for a moment, forgotten about the morgan. She came drifting up, and surveyed Tai and Phélan with great interest. ‘Lovely,’ she repeated, with a wide smile. ‘I hadn’t quite courage enough to test the procedure this far below, I’ll admit, but don’t they work a treat? You are all being thoroughly helpful.’
I ignored this for the moment, still focused on Tai. She’d stopped thrashing as her panic ebbed, but she was still swimming like a brick. ‘Don’t fight with the water,’ I told her. ‘Try to go with the flow.’
She snorted, her eyes never leaving Brianne’s face. ‘Fi, please. I fight with everything.’
‘And how’s that working out for you,’ said Phélan. He’d stripped off his coat, lost his hat somewhere. He was doing a better job than Tai, moving just enough to counteract the tugging pressure of the current. His words emerged indistinctly at first, but grew clearer as his body accustomed itself to the Undersea.
‘I don’t know, let’s try an experiment,’ said Tai, smiling at Brianne. ‘For science.’
I wondered, then, if her ineptitude had been a show for Brianne’s benefit, for she lunged at the morgan with all the sleek, confident power of a sea-creature herself. Her knee connected with Brianne’s midriff, her fist with the morgan’s face, and then her hands were around the throat in a throttling grip. ‘What have you done to Mearil?’ she said, cold and hard. ‘What the hell has all this been for?’
I learned, then, that we had never been alone, for several morrough — merfolk — flashed into view, their powerful fish-tails slicing through the waters. I was seized and held immobile; Tai was hauled off Brianne by two morrough guards and restrained, a shimmering blade held to her throat and a large hand held tight over her mouth. I couldn’t see Phélan.
‘Transferrable,’ I said calmly, motionless in my captor’s grip. It doesn’t help to struggle. They’ll only tighten their hold, trap you the more thoroughly for it. They’ll only hurt.
Brianne was taking gasping breaths, rage twisting her perfect face. The anger soon faded, thrust away in favour of her usual, unruffled demeanour. I had the odd thought that I was looking at my mirror-twin; there, but for the Hags’ grace, went I, one of these days.
‘That is the problem with the sealskins, is it not?’ I continued, while she composed herself. ‘They work only for their owner, which I imagine you’ve verified for yourself by now. Why else would you discard Narasel’s?’
Brianne’s only reaction was a look of acute annoyance. She looked from me to Tai, as if to ascertain that we were still immobilised.
‘But the pearls,’ I said. ‘That’s a different matter. What have you done with them all, Bri? Narasel’s, and Mearil’s, and all the others? Several sets of them, albeit none quite as powerful as mine. That’s why you needed to get hold of me, isn’t it?’
‘How long do you think they’ll breathe water before they drown?’ Brianne said, drifting nearer to me, her attention on Tai and Phélan. ‘A day? A month?’
Did she imagine I’d pushed my own, dearly treasured pearls down their drowning throats? I might have, I supposed, if it were a choice between that or letting them perish.
Tai I would certainly have saved, even at such a cost.
Phélan, maybe.
I didn’t correct Brianne. ‘I’ve never had occasion to test the effect,’ I said. ‘But then, I don’t choose to take up my residence in a tasteless undersea palace dripping in jewels.’
‘A long time, I’d wager,’ she said, ignoring my jab at her residence. That’s the thing with morgans. They’re highly territorial, with a taste for luxury. Tai once called them undersea magpies, and she’s right. Brianne was a powerful morgan. She’d have a fiefdom somewhere, complete with a palace fit for a princess.
We were probably in it
‘I expect so,’ I agreed, and waited.
Brianne looked at me, and this time she didn’t bother to smile. There was ice behind her eyes; I doubt she saw a person, merely a means to an end. ‘I’ll be needing the rest of those,’ she said. ‘All of them, please.’
It didn’t do to give up the torn string of pearls too easily. I didn’t want her to guess that they were not mine. I fought, and received a few stinging blows for my trouble. The pearls were pried from my fist by a hard-faced morrough, and delivered to Brianne.
She turned them over in her hands, staring at them with an odd kind of hunger. ‘How long?’ she said abruptly, looking at me. ‘How long will these last?’
‘You mean how long could a land-creature breathe water, with those at their disposal?’
Brianne nodded once.
‘I told you, I have no idea. I’ve never given any away before.’
‘Nobody you loved enough? Sad story.’ Brianne’s gaze flicked to Tai. ‘Except, apparently, for her.’
‘Except for Tai,’ I agreed. ‘Who are you planning to give them to?’
‘That would be none of your business,’ she said crisply. ‘I’m afraid I’ll be needing a lot more, however.’
‘I don’t have any more.’
‘So make some. Make plenty. Nobody’s leaving here until you do.’
‘That isn’t how this works. Those pearls are the product of centuries, I can’t just spirit up some more.’
‘That’s a pity, isn’t it? When you’ve been so obliging as to provide me with so much leverage. Bring them,’ she said to her morrough. ‘Take the lady Fionn into the crystal waters. The others… you know what to do with.’
‘What?’ I said sharply. ‘What are you doing with Tai?’
‘Hopefully, nothing,’ said Brianne pleasantly. ‘But that depends on you, doesn’t it?’
‘This is futile. I cannot work miracles for your convenience.’ I fought against the grip that tightened upon me, to no avail; a morrough guard looped a bright-silver string around my neck, tightened it, began to pull. I was borne along, half-choked.
‘Find a way,’ said Brianne coldly. ‘Or the whole damned lot of you will be face-down in the Thames by morning.’
The crystal waters turned out to be a charming grotto, walled with coral and silver weed. Clear, jewel-toned waters flowed in a ceaseless whirl, intensely pure, and deeply attractive to me, under any other circumstances. I was thrust into the midst of it, and while I could not find the end of the silvery cord around my neck, it was fastened somewhere, fastened tight; when I tried to swim away, I was brought up short.
Not only that but the cord tightened, merciless, painfully compressing my throat.
I stayed where I was as the morrough swam away, grateful for small mercies. I was captive in truth, no longer just in seeming, and I had no obvious means of escape. But at least I had free use of my own will. My sealskin was safe, and I remained me, even under restraint.
I could work with it.
Stillness assisted me. The more I fought to escape, the more the silvery cord tightened, choking me, bruising my throat. When I stopped and held myself in peace and silence, it gradually loosened.
Breaking free by force was no option, then.
I turned my senses on those pure, perfect waters, and made a discovery. I knew this water. I’d immersed myself in it before, twice over: once at the Pearls club, and once at the auction. This was the source of the grasping pools, those waters that seemed half alive.
They were Brianne’s work, then. That made sense. Hers was the power that animated the waters; hers the intimate knowledge of our history, our methods, that permitted her to lay traps for us with such success. Hers might be the resentment, too, that made such a scheme desirable. We hadn’t always been enemies, but it was a long, long time since we’d been friends.
Details nagged at me still. I hadn’t pegged Brianne as the mastermind of such a show, and neither had Tai, or Daix. We had been basing our
ideas on the old Brianne, the one we’d known nearly a century before. Had she changed so much? Or were we right to think this wasn’t her style?
I still believed she’d had help. Whose?
Above all: who was the intended recipient of so many pearls? She hadn’t been exaggerating when she said she’d need a lot. If the pearls were all she’d wanted, she could have stolen them without half so much hassle. I didn’t doubt that this was where she’d been keeping Mearil, and Melly, and the others. She probably had them performing the same task I had been set: manufacturing pearls for her, pearls with the latent powers she sought. She’d exhausted Narasel with the endeavour, pushed the girl until she’d drained herself dry in the attempt — and died. She had taken more care with the rest, pushed them only so far — and then sold them off for profit, ensnaring me in the process.
All for the sake of selkies’ pearls.
Pearls she could give to… who? Who needed the gifts only a selkie could bestow?
Who mattered enough to Brianne to be worth all this?
Useless speculation. I didn’t yet know, and no amount of thinking would produce the information I lacked. Thoughts of Tai, and Daix, drifted uneasily through my mind. Where had Tai been taken? What had become of Daix, left behind on the surface alone?
I remembered, briefly, the impressions of yesterday, brought to me by the stagnant pools of the car factory. Silise. A particularly cruel torment, those visions, and I mentally tipped my hat to Brianne for the manoeuvre.
I would have given such a lot to have Silise at my back. As a quartet, we’d been nigh unstoppable.
‘You don’t appear to be working very hard,’ said Brianne, and I looked up sharply. She’d drifted in, so silently as to escape my notice. She maintained a station some way above me, forcing me to look up at her.
I didn’t appreciate the humility of the posture.
‘I told you,’ I said evenly. ‘I cannot miracle up centuries-old pearls for your convenience.’
‘So you aren’t even going to try? What a pity for poor Tai.’
Hell and High Water Page 21
