The Unkindest Tide (October Daye #13) - Seanan McGuire Page 0,106
skin is no concern of Faerie’s. Why in the world would you be willing to do this—why do you want to? You should be glad to know that there’s one more possible security flaw patched over and left to be forgotten.”
I took another deep breath. “Were you this terrible when you were living with the Luidaeg?” I asked. “Because if you were, I’m sort of amazed she didn’t turn you into something nasty and leave you for the seagulls.”
“She turned me into a bitter, broken-hearted drunk when she refused to tell me why she wanted me to turn away the birthright I’d been dreaming of for my entire life,” said Liz. “Is that crime enough, or should I go looking for something more direct that made me the way I am now? I gave her everything. I wanted to spend my life with her.”
“You gave her everything but the courtesy of leaving your back bare of her dead child’s skin,” said Tybalt mildly. “I have no living children: I’ve never been so fortunate. But if you appeared before me with my dead daughter’s pelt around your shoulders, I’d make you something other than a drunkard. I’d make you a corpse.”
“Okay, there’s going to be blood on the floor in a minute if we keep going down this road, and while that’s sadly tempting right now, it’s probably not the best thing for us,” I said. “Why do I care, Liz? Because when someone turned me into a fish and took me away from my family for a decade and a half, the Law said no crimes had been committed, and no one came to save me. The places where Faerie rubs up against the mortal world are unpoliced and unprotected, and Isla deserved better. You all deserve better. The fact that the Luidaeg is willing to let the Selkies steal each other’s skins for the chance to become Roane doesn’t mean she wants anyone slaughtering the defenseless.”
At least I hoped it didn’t. I didn’t think it could. The Luidaeg was one of Faerie’s oldest, weariest monsters, but she wasn’t cruel, not to children, not to the defenseless. The fact that she’d been able to love Liz before the other woman had draped herself in sealskin proved that. It was only the Selkies themselves who broke her heart, not their human kin.
Liz closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Finally, opening them, she said, “We should speak to Mathias. He isn’t my biggest fan—he’s always believed I owe my position to having been Annie’s lover, and maybe he’s right; maybe this was the best punishment she could think of for my many, many sins—but he knows I care for my clan, and he had reason to be well-inclined toward Isla. He’ll want to see her, and he’ll want to find the person who did this.”
“Excellent.” I hesitated, looking around the room, before I asked my next question. “Where’s Gillian?”
“I told you, she’s with the children,” said Liz. “They like her. She’s charmingly ignorant by their standards, and they get to feel clever when they teach her the things she doesn’t already know.” She looked at me levelly. “I’d strip that skin from her shoulders in a second to give to one of them, if she didn’t have Annie’s protection, and if she wouldn’t drop dead without it. Your girl doesn’t know how lucky she is.”
“Given the number of times Faerie has ruined her life, I’d say she knows exactly how lucky she is, and one day we’re all going to burn for it,” I said. “Take us to Mathias.”
Liz cast one last, longing look at her bottle of purple liquid. Then she sighed and started for the door. We followed.
The beach outside was as empty and silent as it had been when we approached. Even our footprints were gone, stolen by the wind blowing off the sea. It wasn’t hard to imagine that the place had been deserted for years—as it would be, after the time of the Selkies ended. Their human children would grow old and die even if they stayed here in the Summerlands, unable to ever truly touch the sea, and the strange, liminal culture the Selkies had crafted for themselves in the gap between humanity and the fae would be lost forever.
Had the Luidaeg known this was going to happen when she’d chosen to preserve the last pieces of her lost children by binding them to living bodies? Had she even suspected she was going to