One Salt Sea: An October Daye Novel (21 page)

Dianda offered her hand across the table. “That’s what I needed to hear.”

“Good.” I took her hand. Her skin was chilly; almost cold. I let go. “I’d like your permission to visit Saltmist. I need to see the place the boys were taken from.”

Dianda nodded. “How, exactly, were you planning to manage that?”

“I’d say ‘scuba gear,’ but I have something a little better.” I opened my jacket, showing her the pin. “The Luidaeg made this for me; she says it should let me visit your land safely. Well. Assuming we count ‘capable of surviving’ as safety. I guess you could still have me shot on sight.”

“The Luidaeg gave you that?” said Dianda. Her expression was torn, half-dubious, half-hopeful.

“More like made it for me, but yeah. She used my blood, her blood, the blood of the local King of Cats . . . it was a production. Things with her generally are.”

“I . . . she said I should meet with you. She didn’t mention that.” Her flukes slapped the floor again before she nodded. “All right. You are welcome in my waters.”

It was a ritual phrase, and that meant it carried the weight of law. I nodded the thanks I couldn’t give her. “Good. Now, I was wondering if—” I paused, eyeing the glass doors with sudden suspicion. The fog outside reduced visibility to mere feet. I was getting real sick of fog. “Did you hear that?”

“Hear what?”

“I’m taking that as a ‘no.’ ”I rose, starting for the wall. “Stay where you are.”

“Why?” She pushed herself back from the table.

“No, really, I—” She was already wheeling herself in my direction. I sighed. “Suit yourself.”

I stepped onto the balcony, noting the gate and three broad steps connecting it to the sidewalk below. The wood had been treated with some sort of varnish that kept it dry despite the fog, and made it easier for me to keep my footing. There are advantages to being in an establishment owned by the Undersea. Nothing gets wet unless they want it to.

The angle was all wrong, and the surrounding buildings were unfamiliar. It took me a moment to realize why; I was facing away from the direction my internal compass said I should be facing. Somehow, the balcony was oriented entirely in opposition to the rest of the building. If I squinted, I could make out the word “Leavenworth” on the nearest street sign. I shot a glance back at Dianda. “Leavenworth? That’s a mile from where we came in. And on the other side of the street.”

She shrugged. “We like our privacy.”

A lot of people like their privacy. Few like it enough to put the front and back rooms of a diner several streets apart. I was considering the geography when I heard the sound again, more clearly this time: a short, crisp snap, like a branch breaking . . . or a crossbow bolt being slotted into place.

“Your Grace?” I took a step back. “Do you have any guards here?”

Dianda stiffened, expression registering mild alarm. “Just Bill and Connor. I was trying to be subtle.”

Bill and Connor were up front, which meant—issues of geography aside—they were probably distracted by Quentin, the appetite that walks like a squire. “You managed it,” I said. The fog was getting thicker. “Can you please stay where you are?” This time, she did as I asked. That was a small mercy . . . or maybe it was just that she was starting to pick up on the growing air of something not quite right.

My only warning before the shot was fired was an eddy in the fog to my left, a swirl of motion that could have been natural if not for the light glinting off something at its center. I hit the deck—literally—as the arrow whizzed through the space where my head had been a moment before. Dianda gasped. I lunged to my feet and ran back to her, scanning the room.

The corners were full of fog that was too thick to be natural. There were three more small snaps from the room behind us, as more bolts were slotted into place.

“Right,” I said, and leaned over to grip the handles of Dianda’s chair. “Your Grace, I just want you to know that I’m really, really sorry about this.”

“What?” she asked. Another snap sounded behind us. There wasn’t time to explain. I started to run.

Dianda was shouting for me to let go and stop acting like a crazy woman when we hit the balcony. I turned the chair to face the room while I fumbled for the latch on the gate, and her shouting got even louder, turning frantic. I glanced up to see what she was yelling about, and swore, redoubling my efforts to find the latch as four men stepped out of the fog. Three were Goblins, one was strange and bat-eared. They weren’t wearing the colors of any fiefdom I knew, but that mattered less to me than the loaded crossbows in their hands.

The latch wasn’t
there
. I kicked the gate as one of the Goblins opened fire. Dianda shrieked and ducked to the side of her chair, letting the bolt embed itself harmlessly in the padding. I boosted myself up and hit the gate with both feet as hard as I could. The gate swung open.

“Brace yourself!” I shouted, and stepped off the edge.

Going down a short flight of stairs is easy. Doing it while pulling a wheelchair full of agitated mermaid is a little harder. We thumped hard down to street-level, and I danced rapidly backward to keep Dianda from overbalancing. She was clinging to the arms for dear life, barely keeping her head from knocking against the back of the chair.

Shouts from the balcony told me we didn’t have long. I backpedaled into the middle of the street. Dianda twisted around to stare at me, face white, eyes wide.

“Hold on,” I said.

She must have realized what I was doing, because she shouted, “Are you
insane
?!” as I started to run, pushing her along in front of me.

Like many major streets in San Francisco, Leavenworth runs up one side of a hill and down the other. It’s at an angle sharp enough to discourage all but the most dedicated walkers, and joggers regard it as one of the lesser circles of Hell. We picked up speed at an impressive pace. The sound of feet behind us told me our lead was getting narrower, despite momentum and gravity combining to keep us moving ever faster.

The marina stretched out at the bottom of the hill, sparkling dimly in the darkness. I only saw one way we were going to reach the water alive. I just had to hope Dianda would forgive me for the indignity. Still clinging to the right handle of the chair, I moved to one side and sped up until I was running alongside it.

Dianda stared at me. “What are you doing? This thing doesn’t have any brakes!”

I didn’t have the breath left to shout. Leaning over her, I grabbed the left arm and hoisted myself onto her lap. Freed from the drag of my feet, the wheelchair started to accelerate, plunging straight down Leavenworth. Crossbow bolts zinged past. I folded my arms over Dianda’s head, keeping her down, and ducked my own head as low as it would go. If we could avoid getting shot until we reached the bottom of the hill . . .

This entire escapade was breaking several rules of life in the mortal world, chief among them the injunction to never,
ever
go out in public without wearing a human disguise. I was still wearing my illusions. Dianda and the Goblins, on the other hand, were totally exposed. There wasn’t time to worry about it. Hopefully, anyone who saw a woman riding a screaming mermaid in a wheelchair down Leavenworth at a quarter to five in the morning would just think they’d had too much to drink.

We were still accelerating. Gasping, I managed to ask, “Is this a good time for that visit?” Dianda stared at me, eyes widening in understanding, before she nodded.

We were almost to the bottom of the hill when I fumbled the scale out of my pocket and shoved it into my mouth. It dissolved like spun sugar, leaving my tongue coated in a gummy film that tasted like strawberries. A taxi blared by, horn blazing as we hit the dock, shooting forward. Dianda screamed again, the sound magnified by proximity to my ears, and I heard a crossbow bolt whiz by as I yanked the pin from the lining of my jacket and jammed it into the meaty part of my right thigh with all the force I could muster.

Then we hit the water, and everything went black.

I
ONLY LOST CONSCIOUSNESS for a moment. Then the cold shocked me awake, and I started thrashing, trying to find the surface. A crossbow bolt pierced the water next to my face, missing me by inches, and I froze, only to have Dianda grab me from behind and yank me deeper into the water. She stopped when we hit the rocky seabed, and we huddled there, with crossbow bolts flashing around us and failing, thankfully, to find their marks.

A wooden arrow the length of my arm sliced through the water like it was air. Dianda visibly relaxed, hair waving in front of her eyes like a strange new type of kelp as she pushed away from the seabed, pulling me with her. I didn’t struggle. There’s almost nothing I hate more than being in the water, and I’d expected to have a little more time to prepare myself before I let the Luidaeg’s spell do whatever it was it was going to do to me. I just wasn’t anticipating Goblin assassins with crossbows pushing me into a situation where the only viable exit involved riding a mermaid’s wheelchair into the marina.

Sometimes I think my life is too complicated.

I gasped as we surfaced, more out of reflex than an actual need for air; we’d been under for several minutes, but my lungs didn’t hurt. That was probably a bad sign. “Can you keep yourself above water?” asked Dianda, from over my shoulder. She was still holding me up, her chin nearly brushing the side of my neck.

“I have no idea,” I said honestly, and shoved my sodden hair out of my eyes with one hand. Then I stopped, blinking at the scene in front of me. “. . . Whoa.”

We were surrounded. Archers lined the dock on all sides, longbows raised. About half of them faced away from us, scanning for threats. The other half faced the water, arrows notched and pointed directly at . . . me. At least they were aiming for the center of my body, where they’d be least likely to hit Dianda. The glitter of their human disguises couldn’t stop me from breathing in the taste of their Selkie heritage: Dianda’s previously absent guard.

“Where were you guys a few minutes ago?” I muttered.

“Milady?” asked one of the archers.

Dianda murmured, “I’m letting go of you now. Try not to sink.” Then her arms were unwinding themselves from around my waist and she was swimming toward the dock, her flukes brushing my hip as she passed me. Those fins weren’t just for show; a Merrow moving at full speed can overtake practically anything else in the ocean. In the water, in her native form, Dianda was the one in control.

Speaking of native forms . . . when she let me go, I bobbed a few inches lower in the water before recovering my equilibrium, and I realized, without any real surprise, that I couldn’t feel my legs. Oh, I felt
something
, but I didn’t have the necessary frame of reference to know exactly what it was. I raised my hand and spread my fingers. Thin webs connected them to the first knuckle, turned translucent by the harbor lights.

“Yeah,” I said, to myself as much to anyone else. “That’s about what I thought.”

“Send half your men up the hill looking for the men who were shooting at us, and stand the rest down, Aine,” said Dianda. The tallest of the female Selkies nodded and turned, gesturing toward Leavenworth. Half the archers turned and ran into the night, while the other half lowered their bows. That was a relief, anyway.

Dianda sounded wearier than I expected. I dropped my hand, studying her. I didn’t see any blood. The gills lining her neck were open, revealing the pearly fringe inside. I sighed, relieved to see that our emergency trip down the hill hadn’t been enough to get her hurt.

She must have heard me. She looked back over her shoulder, smiling thinly. “In case you were wondering, I am uninjured.”

“Good.” I looked down at the water. It was dark enough that I couldn’t see what it might be hiding. That wasn’t particularly reassuring. “Not to be alarmist or anything, but do you know where my feet are?”

Dianda’s smile broadened, becoming genuinely amused. “You mean you don’t
know
?”

“Not as such, no. The Luidaeg didn’t tell me exactly what her charm would do, just that it would give me five hours to visit your Duchy without drowning.”

“Take a look.” She grabbed the edge of the dock, flukes flashing just below the surface of the water as she pulled herself into a static position.

In for a penny, in for a pound. It wasn’t like I could change my mind at this point, even if I wanted to. Taking a breath I was starting to suspect I didn’t actually need, I stopped trying to stay above water, and went under.

It was easier to see than I expected, my eyes sorting through the darkness of the waves the way they would normally sort through the darkness of the world above. I could even see colors—green clots of kelp, mossy barnacles clinging to the pilings, the jewel-tone sweep of Dianda’s tail. And beneath me, in the space where my legs should have been, the crimson-and-copper scales covering my own tail. It wasn’t a surprise. That didn’t stop my heart from dropping into my stomach, and for a brief, terrible moment, I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to swallow my panic.