One Salt Sea: An October Daye Novel (48 page)

“Perhaps—” began the Queen.

“He said everyone would forgive us because we’d make things so much better!” The sounds of a scuffle came from behind me, “Raysel” trying to break away from her captors. “Tell her, Dugan! Tell her what you promised me! You
swore
! You said—”

“Shut
up
!” snarled Dugan. He vaulted himself onto the dais, grabbing the Queen by the hair before she had a chance to react. The crowd gasped. He pulled a knife from inside his tunic, yanking her head back and pressing the blade against her throat. The metal gleamed dully. Even as far back as I was, I could feel the waves of sickness coming off of it.

“Okay, I didn’t consider the possibility of iron knives,” I muttered. “Get down. I need my hands.”

The boy in my arms opened his eyes. “Okay,” he said. The voice was Quentin’s, even if the face was Dean Lorden’s. The illusion held as he let me set him on his feet. When Garm disguises something, it damn well stays disguised.

“Don’t do anything stupid, Dugan,” I said, stepping forward. “Regicide is not a party game.”

“You did this,” he snarled. “Everything would have been perfect without your intervention.”

“Yeah, I know, me and my meddling kids. I’m sorry I don’t have a dog. Now
think
about what you’re doing, Dugan. You didn’t kill anyone. You’re going to be in trouble, but until you drew an iron knife on the Queen—”

“I will not be made a fool of!” Dugan yanked the Queen’s head back farther. “You little mongrel bitch, prancing about like you belong with the nobility, just because your mother is a legend. You’ve never had to work for anything! I worked for everything, and I still had to make nice with abominations like
you
. I still had to watch as you wormed your way into the company of your betters.”

“But you didn’t kill anyone,” I repeated. “Maybe you hurt my feelings a little just now, but Oberon’s Law doesn’t concern itself with that sort of thing. No, you let Rayseline do all the killing, didn’t you? A crazy woman who might as well have been a child. Faerie failed her, and then you used her. You’re a real asshole, aren’t you, Dugan?”

“Shut up,” he snarled.

I took another step forward. “Still, you’re not guilty of murder—not unless you mixed the elf-shot Rayseline was using. You had to know it was a murder weapon disguised as a normal tool, right? If you didn’t make it, you shouldn’t have anything to worry about. All the other deaths since this conflict was declared have been in self-defense.”

The look of fury on Dugan’s face confirmed my suspicions. “You’re next, you half-blooded whore. You’re next, and I’m going to—”

We never found out what he was going to do. Etienne appeared beside him on the dais, yanking the arm holding the iron knife away from the Queen’s throat. The Queen ducked away, whirling to face her attacker, who was having issues of his own: Etienne had finally been given a target for his anger, and since Dugan was holding an iron knife, Etienne was no longer bound by the concept of the fair fight.

I winced. “See, Quentin, that’s why you should wear a cup before trying to assassinate someone.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Quentin said.

Dugan was a conniving asshole and a bigot. What he wasn’t was a very good hand-to-hand fighter. It took Etienne only seconds to get the knife from his hand and pin him to the dais. The Queen knelt, hissing something in Dugan’s ear, and he went limp, eyes wide and staring at the ceiling. I didn’t know what she’d said. I didn’t want to.

Sylvester and the others walked forward to form a group around me. Garm waved a hand, dispelling the illusion that had cloaked Quentin in the form of Dean Lorden, and Dianda in the form of Rayseline Torquill. I looked toward her.

“Are you content that justice will be done?” I asked.

She nodded. “I am.”

“Good.” I turned back to the dais. Several of the Queen’s guards were there—too little, too late—and were carrying a catatonic Dugan away. Raising my voice, I asked, “Is this a good time to talk about canceling the war?”

The Queen’s attention snapped to our motley lineup, eyes widening as she took in the changes among our group. Patrick moved to stand beside his wife, no longer disguised as one of Sylvester’s knights. “I suppose it should be, shouldn’t it?” she asked, tone somewhere between amusement and bitterness.

“Saltmist is willing to stand down,” said Dianda. “Our sons have been returned. The land has shown good faith, and we believe that you were not involved in their abduction.”

“How kind of you,” said the Queen. “What if the Mists will not stand down?”

“Then I guess we go to war,” I said. “Do you really want to be the one that makes that happen, Your Majesty? Over a problem that one of your own courtiers started?”

The Queen hesitated.

I took advantage of the pause, jumping in to say, “I have a proposal. A way for both land and sea to show their willingness to maintain the peace.”

“And what is that, Countess Daye?” asked the Queen wearily. She sat on her throne, eyeing me with deep suspicion. “Would you take my throne for them?”

“No. Mine.”

The Queen clearly hadn’t been expecting that. She sat upright, demanding, “
What
?”

This was it: the big plan. I took a deep breath. “I never asked to join the nobility. It’s not something I’m prepared for. But the sons of Saltmist . . . they
have
been prepared. They’ve been trained. Patrick Lorden was a noble of the land before he left for the Undersea. I propose Goldengreen be granted to Dean Lorden, to bring unity to the land and sea. How can we be divided, when our children can move between the realms?”

The Queen hesitated, glancing around the Court. Every eye was on her. The purebloods and nobility, who’d always hated having a changeling Countess in their Kingdom. The guards, who would be the first to die if she pressed for the war to go forward. I was willing to wager that what she found in those gathered eyes was a lot of support for my plan, and none at all for her damned war.

“Is this acceptable to Saltmist?” she asked.

“It is,” said Dianda.

I smiled. We’d already discussed my requirements for giving Dean the county. Marcia had to stay on as his Seneschal, and none of Lily’s people could be turned away. The bargain with the pixies and bogeys had to stand, since it was really their knowe, not mine. He’d agreed to every one of them before we left for the Queen’s Court, leaving Dean and Peter to return to Saltmist with Anceline and the others.

“Then I suppose there are no objections,” said the Queen. “You win. Again.”

“It’s not about winning. It’s about doing the right thing.”

“Call it what you like. Goldengreen will pass from you, and you can return to the servitude you so clearly desire.” She turned her attention to Sylvester. “I apologize for returning her to your care.”

“I can manage her,” said Sylvester mildly. “I’ve had a measure of practice.”

“I’m tired.” The Queen stood. “Court is done. You may all go.” Then she was gone, leaving a haze of rowan-scented smoke floating around the dais.

I let out a breath. “Well. That wasn’t so bad. I mean, beyond the attempted regicide and the part where I just pissed the Queen off again. Let’s get out of here. I need coffee in the worst way.” I needed coffee, and to cry until my chest stopped aching. Somehow, coffee seemed like the more achievable of those two goals.

“Why am I not surprised?” asked Sylvester. He clapped an arm around my shoulders, and we walked, all of us, out of the Queen’s Court and into the sweet embrace of the mortal night.

T
HE NIGHTS TRICKLED BY, turning slowly but inevitably into weeks. After the first mad flurry of activity—explaining the situation to Marcia and the pixies, introducing them to Dean, whose awkward pleas for guidance did more to smooth over the situation than anything I could have said; waiting by the phone for Cliff to call and tell me Gillian was safely home, and the police were looking for her abductors—everything sort of went numb, fogging into an endless stream of people offering their condolences. They were so sorry. Everyone was so very, very sorry.

You know what “sorry” does? Sorry doesn’t do a damn thing. They called my phone and they showed up at my door, they sent pixies and rose goblins and a dozen other, stranger forms of messenger, they delivered casseroles and cakes—like calories were somehow the answer to the ills of mortality? Who the hell decided
that
made sense? And none of it did a thrice-cursed thing. Connor was still dead. Faerie could endure until the end of time. I could burn out enough of my mortality to watch the sun die. And Connor would still be dead.

I spent a week in my bedroom, emerging only to get more coffee and to clear another bevy of people out of my living room. To be fair, May handled most of the ones who decided they actually needed to show up rather than sending a pixie; my friends understood why she was screening my calls, and everybody else could go hang for all I cared.

Quentin stayed at the apartment the entire time, leaving only when he had lessons on fighting technique or magical theory to attend. On those occasions, Etienne picked him up and brought him back, and he didn’t try to talk to me. Shadowed Hills was sunk deep in its own strange form of mourning—Raysel wasn’t dead, just sleeping . . . for now. Dugan’s elf-shot recipe contained a slow poison nasty enough to be one of Oleander’s creations. All we could do was hope that Walther would be able to counter it before it killed her.

I was dimly aware that I needed to talk to Sylvester about Rayseline. Her blood was a blend that could never have existed without magic; maybe my magic could help her. If her blood was less mixed-up, there was a chance she might be less mixed-up, too. In the meantime, Dianda was willing to place the blame for Margie’s death on Dugan alone. He mixed the elf-shot and put it in the hands of a woman who didn’t really understand the consequences of her actions. If everything came together right, maybe we could give Raysel another chance. As for Dugan . . .

Dugan was the Queen’s problem now, and she didn’t strike me as the kind of woman who would go easy on someone who’d been planning to depose her. I just hoped he was enjoying his stay in the Queen’s dungeon. Oberon knows, I was never going to forget my time there.

And Connor was still dead.

Gillian was going to live. I had to hold onto that. She was going to grow up, and become the amazing woman I knew she was destined to be. She was just going to do it without me. Eventually, growing up would turn into growing old . . . and I was no longer human enough to grow old with her.

Most changelings are abandoned by their pureblood parents when it becomes apparent that mortality is the one disease magic won’t cure. Changeling children are cute. Changeling adults are a constant reminder that anything that begins in the human world will eventually end there. I ran away from Amandine before she could start looking at me the way the other pureblood parents I knew looked at their own changeling children. Was I going to look at Gilly that way someday, when she was old and I wasn’t?

Maybe it was for the best that she didn’t want anything to do with me. All we could do—all we could ever have done—was break each other’s hearts.

And Connor was still dead.

Tybalt had taken his jacket with him when he carried Gillian back into the mortal world. I didn’t even realize it was gone until later, and then I was too busy grieving over the people I’d lost to really miss it. May brought it in with the mail one evening, hanging it on the inside of my bedroom door without a word. The leather smelled like pennyroyal and musk, the way it was supposed to. As for Tybalt himself, he didn’t appear, but this time, it didn’t feel like an abandonment. It felt like respect for my loss, and for the ones who hadn’t made it out alive.

And Connor was still dead.

I was curled under the covers on my bed, both cats and Spike nestled against me, when the door to my bedroom banged open. I stuck my head out, ready to tell May I didn’t want anything to eat, and stopped, briefly stunned by the sight of the Luidaeg standing at the foot of my bed.

“L-Luidaeg?”

“Good guess.” She leaned down and yanked the blankets away, throwing them onto the floor. “Get up and get dressed. We’re going out.”

Thank Maeve I don’t sleep naked. “I’m not going anywhere,” I informed her, trying to find the shards of my dignity. It wasn’t easy.

“Yes, you are,” she replied, voice calm. “Your only actual
choice
here is whether you’re doing it in socks and a nightshirt.”

I glared at her, taking note of her attire for the first time. She was wearing a long black skirt and a loose, somehow old-fashioned blouse in peacock blue. Her jewelry—necklace, earrings, even a matching bracelet—consisted of driftglass, seed pearls, and verdigris-tinted copper wire. I’d never seen her wearing jewelry before. She’d even taken the tape out of her hair, leaving it hanging loose in thick black waves.