The Unkindest Tide

by Seanan McGuire

  “Wait,” I said. “You were able to send Quentin into Blind Michael’s lands to find his girlfriend, and the Daoine Sidhe are children of Titania, too.”

  “Quentin came to me of his own free will. I did him no harm, only offered him the knife and told him how to cut himself. It’s not the same thing. It might look like the same thing from the outside, but it’s not.” She shook her head. “I have no power here, October. The Merrow keep the Law in their own way, and I am not invited to intervene.”

  “Okay, fine. You said Pete wouldn’t let Torin leave with his sister. I’ll just go to her and tell her what happened, and—”

  “You won’t find her.”

  I stopped, blinking. “What?”

  “I said, you won’t find her.”

  “But you just said—”

  “I know what I said. She leaves instructions when she sails, and they usually include keeping people where she wants them. There’s no way Torin leaves before she gets back.” Somehow, the Luidaeg seemed to be growing wearier by the moment. “Dianda’s brother came here to arrest her, which means he came with guards, which means Pete sailed on the next tide. She’s neutral ground. That’s how she keeps herself from needing to face off against Palatyne.”

  Palatyne. I seized on the name, demanding, “Why doesn’t she face off against Palatyne?”

  “Because we agreed, all of us, to fade back. To let Faerie govern itself in the absence of our parents. We’re not gods. We’re not perfect. Even the sister I can’t name has held by the agreement. She tries to take power whenever she can, but she does it as a part of Faerie, not as something held above it. Pete isn’t going to save you.”

  “Then I’ll go to Palatyne,” I said. “If she’s allowing Dianda to be arrested for treason just because I’ve overthrown a couple of monarchs, she’s not a good queen.”

  For the first time since this conversation started, the Luidaeg looked almost amused. “Are you really going to stand there and tell me Dianda doesn’t deserve to be punished for spending time in a king-breaker’s company—your company—and say in the same breath that Palatyne isn’t a good queen? Because that sounds like sedition to me.”

  I scowled. “That isn’t what I meant.”

  “What you mean and what you say should be similar, or you risk people not understanding you.” The Luidaeg sighed. “Look. I know you aren’t trying to be insulting when you challenge me on the things I say, I know you’re just . . . really fucking young by the standards of anyone as old as I am, and you’re trying to make sense of things. I get that, I truly do. But I said I couldn’t help you—any of you—and I can’t lie to anyone except for the Selkies. I. Can’t. Help. You. Whatever happens next is on your shoulders. Figure it out. But know that I won’t allow you to get yourself killed in a stupid way. We have a Convocation to complete.”

  She turned and stalked back into her apartment, slamming the door behind her. Silence fell. I knew what I would see when I turned around, and so I didn’t turn around, instead taking a moment to catch my breath.

  The silence was broken by the sound of a fist slamming into something solid. There was a horrible cracking sound, like bone giving way. I spun around before I had time to think better of it, and clapped my hands over my mouth when I saw Patrick clutching his right hand against his chest, eyes closed and cheeks red. The table that had been in front of him was on its side. No one else had moved. No one else even seemed to be entirely breathing. Poppy’s wings were moving so fast they were a blur, leaving her hanging a foot off the ground, watching him with bleak dismay.

  I lowered my hands. “Did the furniture say something mean about your mother?” I asked.

  “My mother is safe at home in Boston, and hasn’t spoken to me in over a century,” said Patrick. His voice was calm and measured, as it almost always was. There was blood coming from between the fingers of his left hand. He’d probably split the skin on several of his knuckles, assuming he hadn’t managed to do something even worse. He chuckled darkly, not opening his eyes. “She didn’t like me marrying a mermaid. Said it was ‘beneath me.’ I suppose that’s something she and Dianda’s family can agree on.”

  “Dad,” said Dean desperately. “Please, let me see your hand.”

  “Why? It’s only blood. As pure as hers, but that doesn’t matter, because I can’t breathe water, and she can’t be happy on the land.”

  “It’s only blood, but if I have to stand here smelling it, I’m not going to be able to get anything done.” I started back toward the group. “Marcia? Did you pack a first aid kit?”

  “The Count’s as clumsy as a newborn lamb, so yes, I packed a first aid kit. I don’t go anywhere without one.” Marcia stepped out from behind the tomatoes, looking relieved to have something to do. “I’ll be right back.”

  “Great.” I walked toward Patrick, moving slow and careful. He couldn’t see me, but he could hear me, and I didn’t want to startle him. Under the circumstances, it seemed like a very, very bad idea. “Patrick, Marcia’s going to take a look at your hand. You want to sit down while she does it?”

  “This was a trap.” He finally opened his eyes, turning to face me. “He would never have come here without first securing Saltmist. Do you understand?”

  “Helmi—”

  “Is one Cephali. One guard we know is completely loyal. I . . . I know our staff, I know most of them wouldn’t turn against us for no good reason, but this is the Undersea. You yield to the strongest hand in the room.” Patrick’s despair was written clear for anyone to see. “Torin must have had someone there, waiting for the day when we left without Peter. Someone signaled him. And then, once his forces took the knowe, all the people who were loyal to us would have changed allegiance to him and not thought for a second that they were doing anything wrong. This is how things are done in the depths. The peace is maintained because once it’s broken, everyone shifts sides.”

  “Helmi wouldn’t,” I said firmly.

  “No,” said Patrick. “She’s been with Dianda too long. She’s sworn to her in a dozen different ways, and she would never betray our family. Which is why I fully expect to hear that only two people from our household died in the fighting.”

  I began to open my mouth to ask who he thought the second casualty would be. I caught myself, barely, before I could speak.

  Peter. He was talking about Peter.

  Quentin looked from Patrick to Dean, who was shivering, barely seeming to hold himself together. “I don’t understand,” he said, and finally looked to me, like he thought I’d have all the answers. And maybe he did. I’d been his knight for years, and he’d learned he could depend on me to know what to do, even if I thought “bleed” was the correct solution.

  When none of us said anything, he repeated, louder, “I don’t understand. How can Torin just walk in here and arrest Duchess Lorden for treason? She didn’t do anything wrong. And you can’t really be saying he would . . . he wouldn’t break the Law to take Saltmist. No war has been declared. He doesn’t have the authority to break the Law.” Quentin sounded almost desperate.

  I understood why. The Law is supposed to be absolute: that’s why we call it the Law, even though everyone knows it’s not the only thing a person can be punished for. Kidnapping, theft, treason—even if Faerie doesn’t have hard and fast laws forbidding them, doing those things is likely to make a lot of people angry. Nobles have the power to punish their own subjects for breaking the social code, and even outside of noble households, people police themselves fairly tightly. The one Law, the one inarguable rule of Faerie, is that purebloods don’t kill each other.

  The Law doesn’t cover changelings; it’s always been perfectly acceptable for someone to kill me and then claim they did it because I’d looked at them funny, or because I’d been in their way, or whatever. Because Sylvester became my liege when I was remarkably young, as such things go, anyone who’d tried that
would have found themselves facing a pissed-off Daoine Sidhe Duke demanding satisfaction . . . but they technically wouldn’t have broken the Law.

  Peter’s parents were both fae. He might be a blend of Merrow and Daoine Sidhe, but that wasn’t enough to set him outside the Law. I looked to Patrick, hoping for an explanation.

  I got one.

  “The Undersea chooses to abide by the land’s ideas of what is and is not a war, when they have to interact; it’s easier, given how often they can avoid air-breathers, not to force a discussion of what exactly it means to go to war. But the Merrow, much like the Cait Sidhe, have been allowed to develop their own definitions of certain things. During a fight for succession, it’s totally acceptable to . . . to . . .” He stopped then, putting a hand over his eyes. Not fast enough to stop a tear from running down his cheek, visible and utterly damning.

  “Oh,” I whispered. I bit my lip, watching Patrick. He wasn’t supposed to cry. It wasn’t right. “Okay. We have to . . . don’t jump straight to assuming the worst, okay? Helmi’s smart, she knows Saltmist, and she’s loyal. If she had any warning, she’ll have gotten Peter out of there.”

  And if she hadn’t received warning, if Torin’s people had been quick and careful enough, she and Peter were both lost forever. I couldn’t dwell on that. If I did, I’d be useless to everyone, Peter included. He was just a kid. He didn’t deserve to be swept up in all this.

  “Where will the trial be?” A dire thought occurred to me. “There is a trial, right? Torin isn’t going to haul her off and have her executed as part of this succession thing? Because if that’s the plan, we need to organize a jailbreak right now.” The Lordens could be exiles in the Mists, if it came to that. King Gilad had been a friend of theirs. His daughter would never refuse to offer them sanctuary.

  Dianda would be miserable on land, but she’d be alive. We could get her a saltwater swimming pool or something. She could be safe. All the Lordens could be safe. Assuming it wasn’t already too late for the youngest of them.

  No. Screw that. I wasn’t going to think that way. I turned and walked to the Luidaeg’s apartment, rapping lightly. There was no response. I knocked harder. There was still no response. I started knocking even harder, hammering on the door until the side of my hand ached. The others watched silently, clearly not understanding what I was trying to do—or if they did understand, not seeing a way to help.

  That was fine. As usual, I was making this up as I went along.

  “Yo, Luidaeg!” I yelled, over the sound of my own hammering. “I heal like it’s a contest, remember? I can break my hand on this damn door and keep right on going. So open up, before you get a headache to go with the rest of your problems.”

  There was a long pause. I kept knocking. Maybe my first appeal hadn’t worked, but my second would, or my third, or my fifth—however many it took. We didn’t have a lot of time, but this was still where things needed to begin.

  The door swung open without warning. I was already in the middle of my next knock, and for one horrible moment, I thought I was going to punch the Luidaeg square in the face. She was capable of forgiving me for a great many things, but even so, that would be pushing it.

  She caught my hand. Effortlessly, stopping me in mid-motion, sending a bone-jarring shock up my arm and into my shoulder.

  “What,” she said flatly. It wasn’t a question. I would have liked it better if it had been a question. Irritable, artificially annoyed Luidaeg was something I knew how to deal with. This . . .

  She looked exhausted. She looked resigned. Worst of all, she looked sad, like she’d already considered all the ways this might play out, and had found absolutely no happy endings.

  Screw that. She was bound not to act against the children of Titania. I had no such restrictions. The Lordens weren’t mine the way Tybalt and Quentin and even Marcia were, but they were my friends. They had put themselves at risk for me before, and I’d be damned before I failed to do the same for them.

  “You said we had two days before the Convocation would conclude and the Selkies would be bound to their skins,” I said. “Is there anything else you’re going to need me to do between now and then, or am I free to wander around as I like?”

  She blinked once before saying warily, “You’re free to wander, although with Pete gone, there’s not a ferry back to the Mists. And that’s not an invitation to steal a ship and go by yourself. I don’t want to answer to Pete when she demands to know why you’re commandeering her ships.”

  “No, that’s going to be you.”

  “What?”

  I took a deep breath. “We pass debts back and forth between us like some kind of toy. Now I owe you, now you owe me. This, helping you bring back the Roane, it clears the debts I incurred from you when you helped me to save Tybalt’s life. We’re square. Right?”

  “Right,” she said, sounding even warier.

  She was probably right to be suspicious. What I was about to ask for existed somewhere in the strange hinterland between ridiculous and suicidal, and honestly, it wouldn’t even have been that reasonable if I hadn’t been so difficult to kill.

  “Luidaeg, I need your help.”

  “What happened to leaving me alone because I was here to bury my children?” she asked.

  “If I leave you alone, he buries his son.” I gestured behind me, toward Patrick. “That changes things. Please, Luidaeg. We’re both parents. We can’t let someone else lose a child.”

  She started to answer me. Then she stopped, sighed, and asked, “What are you planning to do?”

  “Do you remember the time you turned me into a Merrow so I could go to Saltmist? I need you to do it again, so I can go save Peter Lorden. And while I’m doing that, I need you to commandeer a ship and go find your sister.”

  The Luidaeg cocked her head hard to one side, a genuinely baffled expression on her face. “Why the fuck would you want me to do that? Self-sacrificing behavior from you, sure, I expect that, and we’ll loop back in a second, but why are you sending me after Pete? So we can drink mimosas and talk about how annoying our father’s other kids are? And his grandkids? Because believe me, you’re annoying on a level I doubt Oberon ever conceived.”

  “Patrick says the Merrow have their own interpretations of the Law,” I said. “He says they don’t require a formally declared war to kill each other.”

  She nodded. “That’s right. They worked that out with Dad and Pete a long time ago, back when everybody was still in play. The Merrow are . . . volatile. I think it’s because Titania’s brand of magic doesn’t like to be submerged, and they’re inherently damp people. So they got the rules changed for them. Why?”

  “Peter Lorden,” I said again, with as much patience as I could muster. We were wasting time. I needed to be gone. But I needed the Luidaeg to help me—willingly—and that meant making sure she understood what I was asking her to do. “He’s just a kid, but he’s Merrow.”

  “Ah.” She looked at me gravely. “He’s worse than Merrow in their eyes. He’s a Merrow who can’t completely transform. He always has scales, like a common Suire—you’ve never met one,” she added, seeing my confusion. “They’re not shapeshifters. They don’t come to the surface much anymore. Peter is weak as far as the Merrow are concerned. He shows them in a poor light. Normally, I’d expect a conqueror to keep him alive to show they aren’t monsters, just people who have a better claim to ruling the local demesne than the old rulers did. Given Peter’s limitations, however . . .” She hesitated, eyes flicking past me.

  She was looking at Patrick. I knew she was. And that was part of how I knew that the Luidaeg was not and could never be the monster some people believed her to be. She was a parent. She cared enough not to say certain things where another parent could hear them.

  “Right now, Torin’s forces have Saltmist, but they haven’t had it long; there’s still a chance,” I said, dragging th
e Luidaeg’s attention back to me. “I’m a hero of the realm, Dianda and Patrick Lorden are friends of mine, and the charges Torin is levying against his sister are trumped-up at best, completely false at worst.”

  “If he wins, you’re committing an act of war against the Undersea,” said the Luidaeg.

  “If he wins, I’m pretty sure he’s committing an act of war against the Mists, since Patrick and Dean are considered nobles on the land.” Patrick had given up his title when he married Dianda, but that didn’t matter. If Torin messed with his family, Arden would find a way to justify striking back.

  That would be bad. That would be really, really bad. I needed to fix this as soon as possible, and not just for Peter’s sake. For everyone’s.

  The Luidaeg pinched the bridge of her nose. “And so you want me to turn you into a mermaid, while I leave the Duchy of Ships to convince my sister to do what none of us has done in centuries, and actually command a member of her descendant race to do something. Specifically, ‘stop bullying your sister.’”

  “Right.”

  “Even for you, this is ridiculous.”

  “Again, right.”

  “You know I can’t . . . I can’t do this for free. This is too much. I might be able to drape you in scales a second time without charging, because I know how much you hate the water, and that makes it a punishment as much as it is a gift. But you want me to do you a favor that involves risking myself, that I can’t spin in any way that turns it into a cruelty.” The Luidaeg glanced away, adding, in a softer voice, “Some days I wish I knew where she was, because then I could die trying to kill her for what she’s done to me.”

  “I’m not a big fan of Titania’s, either,” I said. “Will you do it?”

  “I’ll need three things from you, if I do, and if you refuse me any of them, I give you nothing.” She looked back to me. Her expression was agony. “I’m sorry. I’m fighting it as hard as I can, but I’m sorry.”

  “I thought you could charge whatever you wanted,” I said, hating how afraid I was of whatever she might say next; hating the whine in my own voice. Not much scares me anymore. The things the Luidaeg could potentially ask for . . .