The Unkindest Tide (October Daye #13) - Seanan McGuire Page 0,124
ME ungrateful, or that I wouldn’t follow you to the very ends of the Earth if given the opportunity, but where, precisely, are we going?” asked Tybalt.
There are no true days or nights in the Summerlands, which exist in an eternal, tangled twilight, but time still passes, and we’d been in the Duchy of Ships long enough that most of the people who’d been awake when we arrived were in bed by now, leaving the docks and byways largely deserted. Not entirely: there’s always someone awake in Faerie, no matter what the clock tries to say. Humanity has their night owls, and the fae have their morning people.
Some of them looked at us curiously as we passed, but none reacted as if they knew who we were. Either the news of the Luidaeg’s presence—and entourage—had failed to spread, or they simply didn’t think it mattered. Interesting.
“Pete’s quarters,” I said. “She’s not there, but she didn’t give me the impression of being a lady who likes to live alone. She’s a pirate queen, right? Well, they have crews. I want to talk to her crew.” Specifically, I wanted to talk to Rodrick, her so-called first mate. If anyone would know what was going on, it would be him. With Pete gone, news of any mysterious deaths would land squarely in his lap.
Maybe sending the Luidaeg—our biggest threat, and biggest dissuasion for anyone who wanted to make trouble—to find Pete had been the wrong call. But Pete wasn’t Evening. Pete had promised to minimize her impact on Faerie, and that meant leaving when Dianda and the others showed up. And without Pete, we weren’t going to get Dianda’s name cleared, and if Torin successfully seized Saltmist, it would destabilize the region. The Mists had enjoyed multiple centuries of relative peace. A war would risk everything. Our people, our ability to hide from humanity, everything.
The thought hit me with such force that I actually stopped walking, eyes going wide as I stared into the middle distance. I was dimly aware of Tybalt also coming to a halt, turning to look at me with bemusement and no small amount of concern.
“October?” he said. “What is it?”
“I think we’ve been looking at this the wrong way,” I said. “I think it’s not about the Selkies at all, except for the part where it’s entirely about the Selkies. Who knew—”
That was as far as I got before a fist slammed into my jaw, sending me reeling. My assailant hit me again before I could do anything more than see stars and blotches of vivid blackness dancing across my vision, like my head had suddenly become the site of the most exciting rave in the Westlands.
Tybalt roared, rage and—I suspected—relief: here was something he could deal with. Here was something he could hit. I took another step back as I heard the distinctive sound of an enraged Cait Sidhe slamming into whoever’d been foolish enough to attack me. My jaw felt broken. I touched it gingerly, trying to will the bone to knit back together faster, before the situation got worse.
Pain is not my friend. Neither are broken bones, which may bleed, but mostly do so internally, where it doesn’t do me any good. My body is full of blood all the time, and it never helps. Only blood in the open air helps me.
Tybalt snarled again. The flashes of light and darkness were clearing, enough that when I raised my head, I saw him duck a blow from Torin. The burly Merrow had a wicked-looking knife in one hand, a jagged thing clearly designed for gutting whatever it hit. His other hand was empty, although I was living proof that he didn’t need a weapon to do damage.
He and Tybalt seemed to be evenly matched. Tybalt was faster, and technically better armed, thanks to his claws, but those claws didn’t give him the ability to split his opponent open with a single blow. Torin was already bleeding from several minor wounds, none of which seemed to be slowing him down. He looked like he could do this all day. So did Tybalt.
I had my own knife. It wasn’t enough, especially not with that fishing knife in play. Being gutted wouldn’t kill me. It would definitely slow me down.
Sometimes the right answer is not to play. “Tybalt! Come on!” I shouted, and ran toward the end of the dock.
Did he understand what I was doing? Maybe. Maybe not. It didn’t matter, because as soon as he saw