One Salt Sea od-5

by Seanan McGuire

  He hesitated before shaking his head. “No. My daughter is missing. I’m not going to risk you interfering with finding her.”

  Something inside me snapped. “She’s my daughter too, damn you!”

  “Maybe you should have thought of that sixteen years ago.”

  That stopped me cold. How could I tell him that he and Gillian were all I’d been thinking of back then? What words were there to make him understand? I realized I was shaking just as I felt the solid, comforting weight of Tybalt’s hand on my shoulder.

  “The mother has a right to help,” he said.

  Cliff looked past me to Tybalt for the second time, and I found myself considering how the King of Cats must look to him. Even covered by a human disguise, Tybalt is impressive. “Who are you?” asked Cliff.

  “A friend of October’s,” was Tybalt’s imperturbable reply.

  “Please,” I repeated. “I have to help.”

  “What if I don’t want you to?” Miranda asked abruptly. I blinked. I’d almost forgotten she was there. “How do we know you didn’t have some of your freak friends grab her so you could play detective and ride in to save the day? You were never a mother to her. You threw her away. Why should I trust you to bring her home?”

  “That’s enough.” Cliff put a hand on her shoulder in an almost ironic mirror of the way Tybalt’s hand rested on mine. “If you can find her, Toby, do it. Bring her home. But if you come here again, I’ll tell the police they should be questioning you.”

  I studied him for a long moment before nodding. He was giving me what his pride and panic allowed: he was giving me a chance. “Can I see where she was taken? Just to see if there’s anything that might give me a clue?”

  “The police are handling that,” said Cliff.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Marks?” called a voice from inside. “Is everything all right?”

  Cliff’s look didn’t waver. I sighed. “We’ll be going now,” I said.

  “Good,” he said, and closed the door. He didn’t say good-bye.

  I stared at the doorframe, trying to calm the frantic hammering of my heart. Gilly was missing. Gilly was gone. She hadn’t been part of my life for a long time, but when she was in danger I reacted like any other mother—with fury and with fear. I looked up at Tybalt once I was finally calm enough to speak, asking, “What did you find?”

  He shook his head, pulling his hand away as he stepped off the porch. I followed. Once we were on the sidewalk, too far away for the inhabitants of the house to hear us, he said, “I walked the bounds and spoke to my subjects. They say the girl was in her room when the window exploded. They led me there. There was blood on the carpet.” He paused, looking away. “It was hers.”

  “How can you tell?”

  “I know your scent, and her father’s. That’s enough to tell me whose she is.”

  “Is she alive?” He didn’t answer. I grabbed his shoulder, nails digging into his skin. “Tybalt, is my daughter alive?”

  “Yes,” he said reluctantly, looking back to me. “That may not be for the best.”

  I stared at him. “What in Oberon’s name do you mean by that?”

  “I smelled more than blood in her room. The air smelled of mustard flowers, and of wax.”

  “Rayseline,” I said numbly.

  He nodded.

  “Can you follow the trail?” Normally, I would have demanded to see the room myself, so Gilly’s blood could tell me her story itself, but there wasn’t time. Cliff would never let us in, and Tybalt knew the scent of Rayseline’s magic. His cats had been there; if there were any other clues, they would have given them to their King. All I could do by trying to get inside was waste time that we didn’t have.

  Tybalt looked mildly surprised by the question. “I can.”

  “Do it. Please.”

  He nodded again and closed his eyes, nostrils flaring. The Cait Sidhe are some of the best trackers in Faerie, no matter what shape they’re in. The cat never entirely leaves them. A moment later, he opened his eyes, and pointed west. “There,” he said, and started trotting toward the corner. I followed, pacing half a step behind and scanning the street for signs that Rayseline had been here.

  It was late enough in the morning that the residential streets around Cliff and Gilly’s house were practically deserted. A man with a pit bull jogged past us, and a few cars drove by, but that was it, at least for the first two blocks. In the middle of the third, Tybalt stopped, his face knotting in concentration as he tilted his head and sniffed the air.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked, stopping beside him.

  “The trail is . . . fuzzy,” he said, picking his words with obvious care. He probably didn’t want to upset me. I appreciated the effort, even as I wanted to shake him until he told me what the hell he was talking about. “I haven’t lost it, but something is obscuring it from me.”

  My heart dropped. “What are you talking about?”

  “Just give me a moment. I can find my bearings.” There was a note of uncertainty in his voice that made me want to tear my hair out and scream. Instead, I paced around him in a circle, head down, trying not to think about Gillian and what Rayseline might be doing to her. My poor little girl . . .

  The sound of a knife being drawn brought my head up in a second. I turned toward it, seeing Tybalt out of the corner of my eye as he did the same. All I saw in that direction was an empty lot, all dried brown weeds and broken bottles. I frowned, starting to unlock my shoulders, and stopped, a sudden, horrible thought occurring to me.

  “Tybalt?” I asked. “Why would there be a vacant lot in the middle of all these houses?”

  Tybalt frowned, sniffing the air. “It smells . . . wrong,” he said slowly.

  I can weigh the balance of a person’s blood by breathing deep and rolling some intangible part of their fae heritage across my tongue. I hadn’t tried it at a distance before. I opened my mouth, tasting the air, and felt myself go cold.

  “We have to run.”

  Tybalt looked at me, questioning but not doubtful. “What is it?”

  “Goblins.” As if that were some sort of sign, the veil of illusion that had been concealing the alley across from us shattered, revealing a cluster of Goblins. For an instant, we could only stand and stare.

  Goblins are the shock troops of Faerie, and they represent the worst of what our world can be. I’ve met representatives of almost half the races in our world, and none of them have ever had a good thing to say about the Goblins. Most go into mercenary work, selling their services to the highest bidder, and they have little respect for the sanctity of Oberon’s Law. Goblins kill the immortal without looking back.

  Twenty of them charged toward us, cloaked in a blurry haze that hid them from human eyes; if they caught us, no one would see us die. They were armored in uneven patches of beaten metal and leather that looked suspiciously like human—or fae—skin. Their ranks bristled with swords and spears, and they screamed at the tops of their lungs as they charged. It was meant to intimidate. It was working.

  Tybalt’s lips drew back from his teeth, and he snarled, a low, guttural challenge that cut through the howls of the Goblins. Their front ranks faltered, perhaps rethinking the wisdom of charging a Cait Sidhe.

  “There’s too many of them!” I shouted, drawing my knife.

  “I know!”

  Then the Goblins were upon us, and talking ceased to be a priority.

  Goblins are cheap labor; that was the one thing we had going for us. They had the advantage in terms of numbers and weaponry, but most of them were young and too inexperienced to have faced many real fights. An old Goblin is a retired Goblin. These were all young Goblins, and they didn’t realize what they were in for when they faced a cornered Cait Sidhe and a changeling knight with nothing left to lose.

  Tybalt fought like an animal, all teeth and claws and tearing fury. My own efforts were more restrained; I blocked and slashed with careful precision, aiming for throats and eyes. The Goblins laughed at my lack of a
rmor until they felt the bite of silver across their faces or knuckles. They learned fast. They started coming at me with spears and longer swords, forcing me back.

  A spear slipped past my guard, stabbing into the scar tissue on my shoulder. I screamed, slashing harder, and my attacker fell back, another immediately stepping up to take his place. It wasn’t until the first crossbow bolt whizzed past my head that I realized they were equipped for more than just hand-to-hand combat.

  “Tybalt!” I shouted. “Elf-shot!”

  He glanced over his shoulder at me, eyes wide and startled in a surprisingly pale face. Then he lunged, grabbing me around the middle and hauling us both backward, away from the closest tier of Goblins. An arrow zipped through the spot where I’d been standing only seconds before.

  “What are you—” I began.

  “Save your breath,” he hissed. “I’ll come for you.” Then his mouth was covering mine in a kiss as heated as the battle cries of the Goblins rushing up behind us. Everything seemed to slow for that one brief second, and I was all too aware of the heat from his skin, the press of his chest against mine, the faint pennyroyal scent of him. I started to kiss him back—

  —and then he was shoving me, hard, into the shadows. As I fell, I saw Tybalt wheel to launch himself at the Goblins, already snarling. Then the shadows closed around me, and I found myself in the endless dark and crushing cold of the Shadow Roads . . . alone.

  “Tybalt!” I shouted, before I could catch myself. The cold filled my mouth and flowed down my throat, making me feel like winter was devouring me from within. All the air seemed to rush out of my lungs, leaving me breathless and freezing.

  I dropped to my knees, unable to see what was under me, and unable to entirely care. The cold was making me dizzy, and I had no idea how I could find my way out of the shadows alone. I barely even noticed when my eyes closed, trading the endless dark of the Shadow Roads for the endless dark inside my own eyes, and the world fell away.

  NINETEEN

  I GASPED FOR AIR, clutching the blankets to my chest as I sat bolt upright in the bed. Wait—blankets? Bed? I looked frantically around, taking in my surroundings. I was in a large, white-painted room. The furniture was simple and sturdy, and the single window looked out on a gold-and-purple Summerlands sky. I blinked. We must have crossed the boundary into Faerie while I was unconscious, leaving the mortal world behind.

  We?

  “Tybalt?” I said uncertainly. The room didn’t answer. I was alone. Alone, and—I looked down at myself to confirm my first impression—wearing a cotton nightgown with the crest of Shadowed Hills embroidered on the bodice. I touched the embroidery with one finger, sighing in relief. I was in Shadowed Hills. That was something good, at least. The film of May’s magic that had covered me was gone; whatever happened after Tybalt threw me into the dark must have stripped away my human disguise.

  I stood slowly, keeping my hand on the carved oak bedpost to help my balance. My legs were wobbly, and my head felt like I was coming off a three-day bender.

  “When I find that cat, I am going to kill him dead,” I muttered, and stalked to the door, yanking it open.

  Jin was sitting in a wicker chair just outside, flipping through a large leather-bound book. She looked up when the door opened, and smiled. “You’re up,” she said. “How do you feel?”

  “Naked,” I snapped, before I could think better of it. “Where’s Tybalt? How did I get here?”

  “Are you having any muscle pain? Any difficulty breathing?”

  “Now I’m feeling annoyed. Where’s Tybalt?”

  Jin’s smile faded into a look of aggravated amusement. “It’s always good to see that severe injury doesn’t do anything to improve your manners. Tybalt’s in the Garden of Glass Roses. He’s been there since I kicked him out of your room, which I only did because I was afraid he was going to wake you.”

  “Why didn’t you let him?” I demanded. “What did he do?” The last thing I remembered was blacking out alone in the shadows—and if that wasn’t the sort of thing that nightmares are made of, I didn’t want to know what was.

  “He pushed you through to the Shadow Roads to save your life.” Jin shook her head. “He told me what was happening at the time. Do you have any idea how close you came to being elf-shot?”

  “I survived it once,” I said defensively.

  “Yes, because your mother rebalanced your blood and weakened the enchantment,” Jin shot back. “That sort of thing is a little bigger than elf-shot. If you’d been hit on the street, you would have died.”

  “He left me in the dark,” I said, more quietly than I’d intended to.

  Jin sighed. “Toby . . . he didn’t mean to. As to why I didn’t let him wake you, you needed the sleep more than he needed the reassurance. Healing as fast as you do doesn’t mean you need to find new and exciting ways to get hurt. Healing is hard on the body, and doing it all at once doesn’t make it any easier.”

  That statement gave me something new to worry about. “How long was I out?”

  “About five hours. It’s late afternoon.” Jin looked into my face, studying my pupils. “You were suffering from hypothermia, and had a minor concussion, as well as an impressive number of scratches and bruises. I sang away the worst of it; you healed the rest on your own. You’ll live, especially now that you’ve had some sleep.”

  “Good. Where are my clothes?”

  “Wouldn’t you like a sandwich? Maybe some coffee?”

  “That depends. Do you want me to go storming through the knowe in my nightgown while you’re making snacks?”

  Jin glared, shaking her head. “There’s nothing I can say that’s going to make you go back to bed and take it easy, is there?”

  “Jin, even under normal circumstances, getting me to ‘go back to bed and take it easy’ is borderline impossible. Right now, I need to go and yell at Tybalt until my throat bleeds, I’m working under contract for the Luidaeg, and we’re technically at war with the Undersea. If there’s ever been a time when I was inclined to ‘take it easy,’ this isn’t it.”

  “I could make you go back to bed,” she said.

  I paused. She probably could. I’ve seen Jin knock Sylvester out when he was in the middle of a full-blown panic attack, and he’s a pureblood. I could argue . . . or I could tell her the truth about why Tybalt and I were outside, alone, when the Goblins came.

  “Rayseline has Gilly,” I said quietly. Jin stared at me. I kept talking. “She broke into my daughter’s bedroom, and she took her. Gilly’s mortal parents are hysterical; I’m not much better. I think she’s probably with the sons of the Duchess of Saltmist, which means that if I want to find my daughter, I have to find them. If anyone’s going to stop this war, it’s going to be me.” I balled my hands into fists, wishing desperately for something I could hit. “Now, please, Jin. Where are my clothes?”

  She sighed, wings vibrating and sending a gust of glittering dust into the air. “They’re in the middle drawer of the dresser, along with your knife and the jacket you were wearing. You’re carrying some pretty potent magical items, you know.”

  “A girl likes to be prepared.” I was already moving toward the dresser. If Jin didn’t want to see me naked, she could leave.

  Jin sighed again, sounding defeated. “Just be sure to see His Grace before you leave. He’s worried about you.” With this dire statement hanging between us, she closed the door, leaving me alone.

  Jin wasn’t exactly telling the truth when she said “my” clothes were in the dresser. My jacket was there, along with my knife belt, but everything else was new, courtesy of the wardrobes at Shadowed Hills. At least whoever picked them out wasn’t trying to dress me like a girl this time, or an escapee from the Renaissance Faire—it was just a fresh pair of jeans and a dark green sweater too soft to be anything but cashmere.

  “I am not paying to have this dry-cleaned,” I muttered, yanking it on. Ignoring the door, I shrugged into my leather jacket and pressed my hand against a sm
all, decoratively-carved panel set into the wall.

  A door opened under my hand, and I stepped through.

  Like any large knowe, Shadowed Hills is riddled with back routes and servants’ halls, all tucked out of sight of the casual visitor. They provide the most direct routes through the knowe. Quentin uses the back routes through the knowe as much as he uses the main halls, and I’ve learned a lot about navigating quickly since I started paying attention to where he goes. Getting from the guest rooms to the Garden of Glass Roses would normally be a ten- or fifteen-minute walk. By cutting behind the bulk of the walls and major thoroughfares, I got there in less than five.

  The Garden of Glass Roses has always been one of my favorite parts of Shadowed Hills. Luna is a supernaturally skilled gardener, and nothing displays her skills as well as her living glass rosebushes. Not everything in the garden is glass—just the rosebushes and the butterflies—but the light that filters through them throws stained-glass shadows over everything, making the whole place seem like a cathedral. Few people go there; it’s a place for introspection more than casual strolls. Normal roses have thorns, but they don’t cut deep enough to leave you needing stitches. Glass roses are another story.

  The door from the servants’ halls was concealed behind a stand of love-lies-bleeding. I stepped through and eased the door closed before moving into the open. “Tybalt?”

  He whirled, eyes going wide. Then he smiled so broadly that it was like a second sunrise, starting toward me at a pace just shy of a jog. “October,” he said, relief naked in his tone. “You’re awake.”

  “It had to happen eventually,” I said. He reached for my hands. I pulled them away, crossing my arms until I was practically hugging myself, like somehow that would defend me. From what, I didn’t entirely know. “What happened back there?”

  “I—you were—I saw—” Tybalt stopped, and sighed, something unendurably weary in his eyes. “They almost shot you. I had to remove you from the line of fire.”