The Unkindest Tide

by Seanan McGuire

  Something in the way she said “fairies” told me she was still spelling it wrong in the privacy of her own mind. She was adjusting to the idea that her world was different now, and she was probably going to be adjusting for a long time yet to come. If it had been up to me, I would have given her as much time as she needed. She was a Selkie now, fae and immortal, and she didn’t share my tendency to run headlong into danger at the slightest provocation. We had time.

  Except for the part where we didn’t, because she wasn’t going to be a Selkie for long. The time of Selkies was ending. “All right,” I said carefully. “Well, the reason Selkie skins work the way they do—you can’t flense fae at random and expect to become a skinshifter; skinshifters are rare, and the other kinds don’t require anyone to die—”

  “There are other kinds?” interrupted Gillian.

  I nodded quickly. “Raven-maids and Swanmays. Well, and Raven-men. Swanmays are descended from a woman named Aoife, and they’re hatched with their skins wrapped around them like cauls. Raven-maids and -men are descended from Aiofe’s sister, Aine. They’re not a part of this. Their ancestors didn’t wipe out someone else’s descendant line to give them access to the skies. You know . . . the Luidaeg told you, right?”

  “I’m wearing her daughter’s skin around my shoulders,” said Gillian. She reached up to touch it, seemingly unaware of the gesture. “Yeah. I know she was their mother.”

  “She was also their grandmother, and in some cases, their great-grandmother.” There had to be something about the presence of a descendant line’s Firstborn that increased fertility, at least for the first few generations. The numbers didn’t make sense otherwise. And that, like the topic of the other skinshifters, was currently beside the point. “The Luidaeg enchanted the skins of her slain descendants so that they would continue to hold the Roane bloodline until such time as she could make things right again.”

  I could see the moment when Janet understood what was going on. Her eyes widened, ever so fractionally, and the skin around her mouth tightened, like she was biting back some inappropriate exclamation. Instead, she drew herself up to her full height and took a half-step forward, putting herself, however subtly, between Gillian and me.

  “No,” she said. Her voice was ice and iron, foreboding, unwilling to let anything pass. “I refuse. I don’t care. Send your sea witch to me directly, and I’ll say the same to her. She’ll not do this to my daughter.”

  “October’s daughter,” said Tybalt.

  “My own person,” snapped Gillian, and stepped around Janet, scowling. “I get that you’re all older than I am, and you all know more about this ‘traditions and dangers of Faerie’ bullshit, but I’m standing right here, and I’m a grownup, whether you like it or not. What are you talking about?”

  I took a deep breath. “The Luidaeg enchanted the skins of her dead descendants, so they would remain technically alive until such time as the Roane could be resurrected as a people. Not the individuals themselves—they’re long since lost—but the Roane. They’re a piece of Faerie that we’ve lost. The Luidaeg wants to bring them back.”

  “You may be getting more of the individuals than you think you are,” muttered Gillian.

  “What’s that?” asked Janet, voice sharp.

  “Nothing, Mom,” said Gillian. She turned to look at me, seal-dark eyes wide and solemn. “If I’m following you—which isn’t easy, since you seem bound and determined to talk your way around the problem as much as possible—you’re saying the reason Liz has been drinking even more than usual and won’t talk to me is because the sea witch is about to make all the Selkies go bye-bye, and replace them—us—with the Roane. Is that basically it?”

  “Yes.” I nodded. “You know I’m a different kind of fae than you are. I’m Dóchas Sidhe, and we’re blood-workers. The Luidaeg is going to use my magic to bind the Selkies into their skins and transform them back into the Roane. I don’t know exactly how it’s going to work. But we’re going to have to travel to a place called the Duchy of Ships, where the Selkies who intend to keep their skins will be gathering, and I’ll cast whatever spell she wants me to cast, because I owe her a debt. Several debts. I don’t have a choice here.”

  “Who intend to keep their skins,” said Janet hurriedly. “That means some of them will set them aside.”

  “Probably,” I said. “Selkie culture is centered on the idea that eventually, most fae parents will choose to become mortal in order to give the magic to their children. When there’s only one skin, only one person can wear it. I’m sure some of the current Selkies will choose to set their skins aside for the sake of the ones who would have been their heirs in a few years.”

  “But Gillian can’t do the same.” There was a note of bitterness in Janet’s voice, like we could have found another solution somehow, if we’d only cared enough to try. “You and your sea witch saw to that.”

  It was Gillian who shook her head and put her hand over Janet’s, saying quietly, “No, Mom. It wasn’t like that. The sea witch made me into a Selkie to save my life, because the stuff I was shot with—”

  “Elf-shot,” I supplied.

  Gillian nodded very slightly as she continued. “The elf-shot is going to be in my blood for a hundred years. I have to be fae or I’ll die, because elf-shot kills humans. If I give away the skin, I’ll die.”

  “There must have been another way,” said Janet.

  “If the Luidaeg said there wasn’t, there wasn’t,” I said. “She can’t lie. I don’t mean ‘doesn’t lie,’ or ‘tries not to lie,’ I mean literally can’t. Titania put the whammy on her the same way Maeve put the whammy on you. You can’t die, the Luidaeg can’t lie.”

  “Meaning you get to take your daughter back.” Janet had stopped making any effort to conceal the brittle fury in her voice. I wasn’t sure whether to be flattered or annoyed about that.

  I did know one thing: much as I wanted to dislike her for everything she’d done, both to me and to Faerie, I felt bad for her. She looked at me like a mother whose heart was in the process of breaking, and that was exactly what she was, even if the child she was currently claiming was technically my own. Janet was in pain. Some of it was her own fault, but isn’t that always the way when things are hurting? It wasn’t like she was suffering for fun.

  “No,” said Gillian firmly. Janet turned back to her. I . . . didn’t. I had some idea of what was going to come next, and I didn’t want to see it.

  “No,” said Gillian again. “I’m not a toy that passes from hand to hand. She doesn’t get to ‘take’ me just because I have to change again. The only way you’d lose me is if I died, and since I’m not going to do that, you’re just going to have to get over this. Toby?”

  “Yeah?” I asked roughly. Hearing her tell Janet “no” was more satisfying than I wanted it to be. It wasn’t as heartbreaking as hearing her tell Janet that she wasn’t going to lose her. No matter what, Janet Carter was always going to be my little girl’s mother in so many ways.

  “Tell me where to be and I’ll be there.”

  I took a deep breath. “I’ll send a friend of mine to pick you up at midnight tomorrow. As soon as the clock ticks over into May, he’ll be waiting for you. I’m sorry, but Janet can’t come. She’s too human, and we can’t tell people who she really is.”

  “I understand,” said Gillian, and I could tell from her tone that she didn’t. And it didn’t matter because I’d done what I’d come here to do. We were all going to have to live with it.

  “Great,” I said. “I’ll see you tomorrow. Janet, I appreciate your hospitality. We’ll be going now.” I turned to Tybalt, offering him my hands. He nodded once, immediately grasping my intent, and tangled his fingers through mine, pulling me into the shadows, leaving the warm, well-lit kitchen behind.

  I didn’t start crying until we emerged back into my bedroom. He put his arms around me and held me until
the tears stopped and the ice had melted from my hair, and neither of us said anything because there was nothing left to say.

  FOUR

  STACY WATCHED ME THROUGH the driver’s side window of my car, one hand resting on the wheel. “You sure you’ve got everything?” she asked.

  I nodded, hoisting my backpack as if she would somehow be able to see and approve of its contents. “I even packed a toothbrush.”

  “Good.” She nodded her approval. “You know May will never let me hear the end of it if I don’t make sure you’re keeping up with your dental health.”

  “That’s May. Really concerned about my flossing.” I tried to keep my tone light. I thought I almost managed it.

  Jazz was in no condition to go on another wild adventure, even if this one had been directly relevant to her—Selkies and Raven-maids are both skinshifters, but that’s where the relationship ends. Air and sea have never been as close as they could have been. With Jazz staying home, May was staying as well, preferring not to leave her girlfriend alone. Much as I wished things had been different, it was good to know someone would be at the house to feed the cats and Spike, none of whom did well when expected to fend for themselves.

  “Are you okay?” Stacy studied me, making no effort to conceal her concern. “This is a lot. If it wouldn’t mean certain death, I’d give the sea witch a piece of my mind for putting this on you.”

  “It’s my job, Stacy.”

  She shook her head. “It shouldn’t have to be.”

  Stacy Brown has been one of my best friends since we were both kids living in the Summerlands and trying to figure out what the world had to offer to a pair of clumsy changelings with no magic to speak of. We ran through the halls of Shadowed Hills together, we got into trouble together, and when the time came, we left for the human world together, off to seek our fortunes in the land of our mortal ancestors.

  We’d both been swept up by the machinations of a man named Devin, who had run a sort of thieves’ den-slash-orphanage for changeling kids. He’d called it “Home,” and it had been one for both of us, at least for a while. At least until Stacy had found her true love and slipped away, off to settle down in a small house in Colma and raise her ever-increasing brood of changeling children. I’d been—I was—an adopted aunt to her children, and she was still one of my best friends because sometimes, when you’re lucky, the good things don’t have to change.

  “Hero of the realm, remember?” I offered a crooked smile before hooking a thumb toward the rest of my party, gathered on the edge of the pier and waiting for the next stage of our journey to begin. “Besides, I have these assholes to keep me out of the water. I’ll be fine.”

  “I wish you didn’t have to go.”

  “So do I. I appreciate you being willing to drive us. With Danny picking up Gillian, we needed a ride.”

  Stacy’s mouth made a funny twisting motion. “I still say he could have fit you all in his cab.”

  “We’re spending the next however long in the middle of the ocean together. We’ll have plenty of time to talk. Now get out of here before the Luidaeg shows up and decides you’re coming with us.”

  “Open roads,” Stacy said.

  “Kind fires,” I replied, and stepped back, letting her pull away from the curb. I stayed where I was, watching the taillights dwindle as she rolled down the street. Then she turned a corner and was gone, and I finally turned back to my boys.

  As my squire, part of Quentin’s job is accompanying me when I do stupid shit; it’s a learning experience. Most of what he’s learning is how to get blood out of his clothes, but hey, at least it’s educational. There’d been no chance of my leaving him behind. As for Tybalt, normally his duties to the Court of Cats would have necessitated him remaining in San Francisco, no matter how much he disliked the idea. With Ginevra holding his throne, he could do as he liked, and what he liked was keeping me out of trouble.

  Two more figures walked up to the pair. Quentin promptly swept the taller into a hug. I hesitated before approaching the now larger group.

  “Dean?” I blinked as the second figure came more clearly into view. “Marcia?”

  “Hi,” she said, with a quick wave of her free hand. She was hauling a suitcase that looked nearly as big as she was.

  Quentin loosened his grip on his boyfriend enough for the other boy to lean around and offer me a sheepish smile. “Hello, Sir Daye,” he said. “Did Quentin not tell you we were coming?”

  “Not in so many words, although I suppose I should have guessed about you, at least,” I said. “Is your mom meeting us there?”

  Dean nodded. “She says it’s important to make a good entrance.”

  “She would.” Dean’s mother, Dianda Lorden, was the Duchess of Saltmist, the nearest and largest Undersea demesne. It made sense for her to be present. It also made sense for Dean, as someone raised in the Undersea and now holding a title on the land, to be there.

  I gave Quentin a sidelong look. His cheeks flushed red.

  “I’m still your squire,” he said. “I don’t stop doing my job just because my boyfriend’s here.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Your boyfriend is always around, and you do your job!”

  “She also puts herself constantly into mortal danger, which is why I need to be ‘always around,’ as you so quaintly put it,” said Tybalt. “Do you intend to distress your knight, your parents, and now your swain by putting yourself constantly into mortal danger?”

  Quentin swallowed hard. “No, sir.”

  “Good.”

  I elbowed Tybalt lightly in the arm. “Don’t scare my squire.”

  He grinned, showing far too many teeth, and said nothing.

  “You’re a little more of a surprise,” I said, turning to Marcia.

  She tossed her hair, which was long, blonde, and perpetually tangled, like it was considering an uprising against the tyranny of hairbrushes. “I’m always surprising.”

  Marcia was Dean’s seneschal, which was part of my surprise. Normally, if he wasn’t in the knowe, she was, keeping things functioning in the absence of her liege. The rest of my surprise had more to do with what Marcia was than who. She was a changeling, but only technically, and needed faerie ointment to see our world properly. Under normal circumstances, she would never even have been offered the Changeling’s Choice.

  I honestly had no idea how Marcia’s past had led her here, to a moon-washed pier at midnight, preparing to sail for a place that technically shouldn’t exist. We’d met when she was serving as a handmaid in the Japanese Tea Gardens, sworn to an Undine named Lily. After Oleander de Merelands arranged Lily’s death, Marcia had switched her fealty to me and Goldengreen. I’d given my title to Dean, and she’d stayed with him, making sure he was prepared for the challenges of leadership on land.

  “There is that,” I agreed.

  She smiled, bright and blithe and unconcerned, moonlight glinting off the rings of faerie ointment around her eyes. “I like adventures,” she said. “This is going to be an adventure. Besides, Count Clueless here,” she indicated Dean, who wrinkled his nose at her, “needs someone to make sure he wears the right things and uses the right fork. He’s come a long way, but he’s not attending this soiree as a member of the Undersea, he’s doing it as the Count of Goldengreen. That makes a difference.”

  “I do much the same for my knight,” said Quentin. Marcia and Tybalt both laughed, and we were fine. This was a good group of people. Together, we could handle whatever the Luidaeg—and the Undersea—wanted to throw our way.

  A brief, companionable silence fell, finally broken by the sound of footsteps from the street. Tybalt and I exchanged a glance before the whole group turned, silently waiting to see whether it was something we’d need to worry about.

  In a way, it both was and wasn’t. The Luidaeg stepped out of the fog, followed by a woman whose orange ha
ir and eyes could never have let her pass for human, even without the wings. They were large and filmy, colored like stained glass windows bent on representing the whole of the harvest. Her face lit up when she saw us—not as literally as it would have when we’d first met—and she ran over, bare feet slapping against the wood of the pier, to throw her arms around my neck and spin me around.

  “We’re having an adventure, aren’t we?” she asked. The question was clearly rhetorical, since she was cutting off most of my air supply. “Out to sea! Out to see the mermaids and the mermans and all the rest! Oh, this is an adventure bigger than any I thought I’d be having, and that’s for certain!”

  “Hi, Poppy,” I wheezed, and patted her on the shoulder in the vain hope that it would be enough to make her let go. “What are you doing here?”

  “Right now, she’s acting as my apprentice. If she ever wants to have a way to pay me to send her home, she’ll need to make herself useful. This seemed like the sort of place where she could find useful things to do.” The Luidaeg shrugged. “And I didn’t want to leave her in my apartment. She has a nasty tendency to touch things, and she could get seriously hurt.”

  “What about Officer Thornton?” asked Quentin.

  Officer Thornton was a human policeman who had been accidentally swept into Annwn for a while, and was currently recovering at the Luidaeg’s place. Mortal minds aren’t meant for the deeper realms of Faerie. It was anybody’s guess whether he was ever going to wake up, and what condition his mind would be in if and when it finally happened.

  The Luidaeg shrugged again. “He’s not going to wake up while we’re gone.”

  Poppy loosened her grip on me, pulling back and beaming. “It’s going to be grand.”

  “Sure,” I said, stepping away before she could grab me again.