One Salt Sea

by Seanan McGuire

  SEVENTEEN

  I COULD HAVE SPENT DAYS, if not weeks, exploring Saltmist. It was labyrinthine on a level even Shadowed Hills couldn’t match, since Shadowed Hills has to at least pretend to believe in gravity. Saltmist had ballrooms where every wall was a dance floor, dining halls where the tables hung suspended on ropes of kelp that also served as a living salad bar, and passageways set in what I couldn’t help regarding as “the floor” or “the ceiling.” Even the air-filled areas were built with little regard for mundane architecture, following plans that seemed as much borrowed from sailing ships and Viking feast halls as they were from the medieval castles I’m used to seeing.

  The fae were as strange as their surroundings. Merfolk with sea horse tails stuck close to the floor in the underwater areas. They seemed to fill a role similar to the Hobs back home, since they were almost all engaged in some form of housework or repair, and most didn’t look up when we swam past them. Cephali were in evidence in both the wet and dry areas, usually armed and hanging from the ceiling. According to Dianda, they served as the Ducal guard, save for a few, like Helmi, who had gone into private service.

  “She’s upset about the boys because she loves them, but also because they represent her failure,” said Dianda. “She’s supposed to guard them. Someone hurt them while she was watching. That isn’t acceptable to the Cephali.”

  “So her honor is at stake?”

  “Her life.” Dianda’s lips thinned. “If they aren’t found, her family will kill her as a form of apology to our household.”

  I stared at her. “And you’ll let them?”

  “This is the Undersea,” she said. “We do things differently here.”

  I was starting to figure out just how differently.

  After the third time I’d made the transition between air and water, it started to feel almost natural. I didn’t really have to think about going from legs to tail, or back again; it just happened, my body changing to suit the environment it was in. The green dress didn’t change with me, and clung to my skin like seaweed whenever we had to get out of the water and walk. It didn’t drip as much as my jeans had. I didn’t worry about it.

  We eventually wound up back in the round aquarium-room, surrounded by that impossible Summerlands sea. The whale-mermaid and her hippocampi charges were gone, replaced by three of the sea horse-fae and a whole school of undersea children. They were a wild assortment of fins, tails, and tentacles as they chased each other around and through the kelp and coral. Dianda and Patrick looked at them with undisguised longing, not seeming to care that I was still there, still watching them.

  Connor put a hand on my shoulder. I tilted my head back, asking, “Can you get me to the surface?”

  “If you think you can follow.” He glanced to the webbing between my fingers. “How much longer is this supposed to last?”

  “Not long enough for me to be comfortable staying here. I don’t want to drown on my way back to the surface.”

  “Anceline and her brothers will escort you,” said Dianda, abruptly turning away from the wall. “Connor, your services are needed here for the time being.”

  “What?” His eyes widened. “Your Grace, I—”

  “I would be honored to be escorted by Anceline and her brothers,” I said, cutting him off. If Dianda was keeping Connor with her, it was because she wanted to grill him on Rayseline. That was something that needed to happen as soon as possible, for everybody’s sake. “There’s just one thing.”

  Dianda blinked. Apparently, she wasn’t expecting me to make requests. “What?”

  “Can I please have my clothes back?”

  “Of course.” Dianda’s expression softened. “You may keep the dress. Consider it a souvenir.”

  “Sort of an ‘I went to the lost city of Atlantis, and all I got was this lousy T-shirt’ thing, right?” I asked.

  Dianda looked at me blankly. “Atlantis isn’t lost. It’s about an eight-day swim from here.”

  Right. “If Connor is staying here, how would you like me to send word of my findings? I won’t be able to come back after the spell wears off, and I don’t know if the Luidaeg will mix me another one.”

  “I’ll release him before the deadline. Failing that . . .” She dug a hand into the pocket of her skirt, producing three tiny glass bottles with cork stoppers and bits of rolled-up parchment inside. They looked like the sort of “genuine pirate treasures” you can buy six for a dollar in the shops along Fisherman’s Wharf. “If you throw one of these into the water, it will find me.”

  “Handy.” I tucked the bottles under my knife belt, which held them fast. “I promise, we’re going to work on this as fast as we can.”

  “You’d best.”

  Patrick put a hand on her shoulder, almost mirroring the way Connor was standing next to me. “Connor, why don’t you show October to the exit pool? Helmi will meet you there, and can lead October out to meet Anceline and the others.”

  “Of course, Your Grace,” said Connor. He stepped away from me and bowed to the Lordens. “Where can I find you once she’s gone?”

  “Meet us in the receiving hall,” said Dianda.

  “I appreciate your hospitality,” I said, and curtsied, directing the gesture to both of them. As I straightened, I added, “I’ll bring your sons home.”

  “Please,” said Dianda. Nothing more than that; everything else had already been said. She and Patrick turned and walked away, leaving me alone with Connor.

  I sighed. “I can’t wait to be back on dry land.”

  “I can’t wait to be there with you.” Connor touched my cheek. “Come on. Let’s get you home.”

  He led me along the above-water path through the knowe. We passed Merrow in their human forms, Cephali making their way along floor, walls, and ceiling with equal ease, and Selkie after Selkie. I even glimpsed a few of the ward-weaving Asrai—tiny, silver-haired people who could have passed for children, if not for the decades I could see reflected in their eyes. None of them gave us a second glance. I was in the company of a Selkie, I looked like a Merrow, and clearly I belonged.

  It was becoming more and more apparent how Rayseline had been able to do what she did. For all Patrick’s comments about the Undersea adopting mortal technology, they were still living in a time when Faerie was simpler. Back when humans didn’t encroach on our land, and when our halls were full, because we had the bodies to fill them. These days, people know everyone who lives in their fiefdom, because there just aren’t that many of us left. The Undersea didn’t have that problem. Instead, they got its opposite.

  When there are too many people to know them all on sight, you can have strangers. And strangers can do bad things.

  Helmi was waiting by the entrance pool. She had my clothes, shoes, and leather jacket—all still dripping—held primly at arm’s length. “These are yours,” she said, as soon as I was close enough to take them from her. “I’m to take you to meet Anceline outside the hall. If you’ll come with me?”

  “Just a second.” I dug the bottles from Dianda out of my knife belt before unzipping the jacket’s breast pocket and dropping them inside, along with the bottle containing the needle from Peter’s room. It wasn’t a perfect solution, but it would prevent me from losing them during the trip back to the surface.

  After a pause, I put the cold, wet jacket back on, shivering as the heavy leather hit my shoulders. I could buy new jeans if I had to. My jacket was something I couldn’t replace.

  Connor watched me pull the cuffs of my jacket tight around my wrists before leaning in to kiss me, pinning my sopping-wet clothes between us. I didn’t care. Kissing him was worth a little chill.

  Pulling back, he asked, “You good?”

  “I’m good.” I hugged my dripping clothing. “Call the apartment if you need anything. One of us will be there. I may not be, but—”

  “I love you. Now go. And be safe.”

  “I’ll try,” I said. Then I turned, and jumped feet-first into the water.


  Helmi was waiting for me in the mouth of the tunnel connecting the entrance pool to the rest of the palace by the time I had my fins back on. Her tentacles were wound around an anchor-post to hold her in place. When I swam toward her, she let go, and beckoned for me to follow her.

  Cephali move more slowly in water than Merrow—then again, so do most speedboats. Keeping up with Helmi was easy. Not even the green dress slowed me down, although it probably looked pretty silly, especially with the leather jacket. Mermaids in skirts are not likely to be the next big fashion trend.

  The question of why Anceline didn’t come into the knowe to meet me was answered when Helmi led me out one of the palace windows and into open water. A pod of Cetacea was waiting there, causing me to stop and simply stare. Anceline was reasonably normal-sized, as the fae measure such things; her human half was bigger than any human, but still smaller than a Bridge Troll, and even with her tail, she was no more than twelve feet long. Two of the other Cetacea matched her in coloring and size. The other four were almost twice as large, and resembled gray whales, not orcas.

  Helmi gave me an amused look, hooking my wrist with a tentacle as she swam past. I let myself be towed, beginning to swim under my own power once it became clear she was planning to pull me all the way over to the pod of waiting Cetacea.

  Anceline swam forward to meet us, executing an odd rolling curtsy before gesturing for me to grab her dorsal fin. I blinked. She repeated the gesture with more urgency. Time was ticking past, and while I didn’t think I was quite to the point where the Luidaeg’s spell would break, I didn’t want to risk it. Besides, it wasn’t like I could argue with her while we were underwater. I motioned for Helmi to release my wrist before swimming the last few feet to where Anceline waited and grabbing the indicated dorsal fin with my right hand, holding my clothes against my chest with my left. My tail stretched down the length of her body, my own gauzy flukes lying over the top of her powerful black-and-white ones.

  I should probably have expected her to take off like, I don’t know, a killer whale with a mermaid hanging onto her back end. For some reason, I didn’t expect it to be that fast. Merrow move at a speed that seems unrealistic. Cetacea make them seem slow.

  Anceline and the others cut through the water like they were running a race with themselves, hauling me in their wake. I would never have been able to keep up on my own. I doubt Dianda would have been able to keep up. As it was, I held on as hard as I could and kept my head down, praying I wouldn’t inhale a fish or something while we were on the way up.

  We passed through the changes in temperature almost too fast to feel them. The water around us darkened as we moved back into the mortal seas, then started growing rapidly lighter as we approached the surface. The Cetacea weren’t slowing down. That probably should have worried me, but I was too busy hanging on for dear life to really think about it.

  More things I didn’t expect to do first thing in the morning: get hauled out of the water by a breaching Cetace who felt like translating her momentum into a wave-shattering leap. I had just enough time to realize that the sun being up would mean humans on the docks before we fell back to the water, Anceline laughing all the while. The other Cetacea were breaking the surface all around us, laughing with her. At least some of us were having a good time.

  I let go of Anceline, popping back up to the surface and swimming a few feet away to avoid being hit by falling Cetacea. I turned to look toward the docks as soon as I was clear, fully expecting a throng of humans to be pointing in our direction, shouting about mermaids.

  No one was even glancing in our direction. Oh, the dockworkers and passing tourists were there. They just didn’t seem to realize that we were there, too.

  Anceline laughed again as she swam over to me. “They do not see us,” she said. I didn’t recognize her accent, something sweet and lilting and entirely foreign. “We cast our look-away as we rose.”

  It took me a moment to realize that she meant a don’t-look-here spell. I must have been too distracted by being hauled through the water to notice the casting. “Nice trick,” I said.

  The rest of the pod finished their leaps and swam over to surround me in a wide circle, their faces still contorted with mirth. Anceline smiled and gestured for me to follow her as she began swimming toward the shore.

  The other Cetacea swam after us, although the larger members of the pod stopped when the water began getting shallower. Anceline continued farther than any of the others, but even she stopped well before we reached the dock. “This is as close as I can go,” she said. “Can you finish the journey on your own?”

  “I think so, yes,” I said. “I appreciate the escort.”

  She waved a webbed black-and-white hand. “An excuse to visit the surface is rare and should be seized. We swim in blessed seas.”

  “Um, sure.”

  “Open waters and sweet tides, little land creature.” Anceline smiled, not unkindly. “If we see you again, we shall go swimming fast.”

  “Right. I’ll look forward to that.” In my nightmares, I’d be looking forward to that. Probably every night for the foreseeable future.

  Anceline turned and whistled. The other Cetacea nodded, and waved to me before ducking beneath the waves. In a matter of seconds, I was alone, bobbing in the water a few hundred yards off the San Francisco shore.

  Never let it be said that I don’t know how to live an interesting life.

  I swam for the shore as fast as I could, fighting the waves as I tried to keep my head above the water. The weight of my leather jacket and the bundle of clothing I was still holding didn’t help matters, but I wasn’t letting them go after hauling them this far. None of the dockworkers looked my way as I swam by, but I wasn’t pushing my luck. I chose a deserted pier as my destination, one that seemed to have the least amount of human activity.

  I had reached the dock and was trying to figure out how to climb out of the water when I realized what my next problem was going to be: with Connor in Saltmist, I didn’t have a ride home, and with Quentin back at the apartment, I didn’t have a phone.

  “Oh, Titania’s ass,” I grumbled.

  “You kiss your momma with that mouth?” asked a rumbling voice. Something I’d taken for a stack of fishing crates unfolded, resolving into the craggy, familiar form of Danny McReady, cab driver. Even wearing a human disguise, he was big enough to block me mostly from view. “I mean, not recently, I guess.”

  “Danny!” I waved with my free hand. “Thank Oberon you’re here. I really didn’t want to steal a car today.”

  “That’s my favorite paragon of law an’ order,” said Danny fondly. He walked to the edge of the dock, squatting to peer down at me. “You want some help getting out of there? Never took you for a distance swimmer, you know.”

  “Believe me, I’m really, really not.” I heaved my clothes onto the dock, where they landed with a wet “splat.” I held my hands up toward him. “Pull me out. Don’t make a scene, and don’t drop me.”

  “Oh, see, now you’re hurtin’ my feelings. Why would I drop—Titania’s tiny titties, girl, you’re a fucking fish!”

  I hit the water hard. That shouldn’t have been a surprise. “Dammit, Danny, I told you not to drop me!” A few dockworkers looked our way. I scowled. “And could you yell a little louder? I don’t think the reporters from the Weekly World News heard you.”

  “You didn’t tell me you were a fucking fish!”

  “How else was I supposed to visit the Undersea? Rent a submarine?” I was going to shake Quentin for letting Danny come to pick me up without a warning. Literally shake him.

  “Oh, ’cause growing some fins was a much more obvious solution.” Danny bent to offer me his hands again, grumbling all the while. “Warn a fella next time you’re going to do something crazy-ass like that.”

  “Next time, I’ll make sure you get a written note. Hang on.” I grabbed his hands, focusing on trading fins and scales for legs and functional feet. “Now pull me up.”

&
nbsp; “If you’re sure . . .” he said, and pulled me, legs and all, up to the dock. “Much better.”

  “I thought so, too,” I said. I barely had my feet under me when a sharp pain pierced my upper thigh. I dropped to my hands and knees, clamping my right hand over the source of the pain. The Luidaeg’s pin was sticking out of my flesh, the metal slick with blood. I barely managed to keep from driving it farther in. “Ow, dammit!”

  “What’s wrong?” Danny demanded.

  “Spell’s over.” I pulled the pin loose, holding it up for him to see before pushing it through the strap of my dress. “I’m done playing little mermaid.”

  “Good. That was too weird, even for you.” Danny took my hand again, pulling me to my feet. He didn’t have to work very hard to do it. I’m not tiny, but when you’re as big as Danny is, tiny is a relative term.

  His cab was illegally parked at the bus stop with the hazard lights blinking. He opened the passenger-side door, waving grandly for me to get in. “Ladies first.”

  “What, so I can trigger any booby traps that might be waiting?”

  “Exactly!”

  The interior of Danny’s cab smelled like artificial pine, not-so-artificial herbs from the Gremlin charms he used to confuse police sensors, and something that was almost, but not quite, dog. That would be the Barghests. At least there weren’t any of them currently in residence. I’m not sure I could have handled being enthusiastically licked by a venomous horror when I was sopping wet and uncaffeinated.

  Danny must have seen how tired I was, because he didn’t talk after we pulled away from the curb. He just drove, racing through the city at speeds ranging from “unsafe” to “insane.” Danny’s a good enough driver that it wasn’t a problem. It was just part of riding with him—and at least this time, he wasn’t likely to drive the cab into the Summerlands. Instead, he was providing a valuable educational service to the tourists visiting our fair city: namely, San Francisco drivers are nuts.

  I was the one to break the silence, asking, “Have you been able to learn anything from the rocks?”