The Unkindest Tide (October Daye #13) - Seanan McGuire Page 0,136
of doing something terribly important.
“Quentin, go after her.”
He looked at me like I’d just said something entirely unreasonable. “Sort of busy here,” he said, still hanging off René’s arm. René, for his part, had yet to stop screaming at the unmoving Torin. I couldn’t tell whether Dianda’s brother was dead, but even if he was, René seemed perfectly willing to stab him a couple of times on general principle.
“I’ve got the man,” said Tybalt, standing and moving to grab hold of René. “Do as your knight tells you. Aren’t squires meant to be obedient?”
Quentin rolled his eyes, let go of René, and trotted after Gillian. I turned back to Pete and the Luidaeg.
“So,” I said. “You came back.”
“So,” said Pete. “You decided that in our absence you could, what, throw a massive rager of a party? Enterprising. I mean, I’m not your mother or anything, but this is pretty classic, I’ll admit.”
“You’re technically my aunt,” I said. “If I’m trashing the place, it’s probably allowed.”
“Only in a John Hughes movie.”
I decided not to ask why Pete knew who John Hughes was. The answer would only hurt my head, and Firstborn are allowed to have cable. I didn’t know how she got it to work out here. Piracy, probably, which was both fitting and mind-boggling.
“Right.” I took a deep breath, trying to recover some sense of my equilibrium. “If you’ll excuse me for a moment, I’m going to go find out whether the man who caused all this trouble is dead.”
“If he is, see if you can bring him back.” The Luidaeg’s smile bristled with teeth far too sharp to be friendly. “It’ll be good practice for later.”
I shivered, doing my best to hide it, and turned away.
René was running out of steam. While he was still jerking against Tybalt and Patrick, he was starting to repeat himself; I recognized most of the words he was using, even if I didn’t know what they meant. I ignored him as much as I could as I moved to kneel next to Torin, pressing the first two fingers of my right hand against his throat.
“We have a pulse,” I announced. Glancing at Tybalt, I asked, “What did you do?”
He shrugged. “Pulled him into shadow, as I’ve done many times before with those who needed to be calmed somewhat.”
“And?”
“And it’s possible I also hit him a few times in the stomach, to remove any oxygen he might have thought to set aside for later use.” Tybalt looked down his nose at Torin. “I doubt his gills served him very well in a place with neither air nor water.”
“Gills, of course.” I rolled Torin’s head to the side. His gills were raw and inflamed, standing slightly open despite the fact that he was in the open air. They looked like they’d suffered a bad case of frostbite. “He must have panicked and tried to breathe any way he could. He probably did some damage to his throat.”
“Good,” snarled René, and spat, before resuming his struggles.
This was getting old. I stood, stepping forward until we were nose-to-nose, and said calmly, “The sea witch is right there. I’m standing in front of you. I think I speak for both of us when I say you’re embarrassing yourself, and I need you to stop, right now. Please. Unless you want her to explain to you why you need to stop.”
“Happy to,” called the Luidaeg.
René stared at me, mouth working silently. Then he sagged, apparently trusting Tybalt and Patrick to hold him up. All the fight seemed to have gone out of him like a branch being broken, leaving him wrung-out and empty.
“She was my sister,” he said. “My sister. She knew me better than anyone else in the world. She took my place when I wanted to marry Mathias. She was my sister, and she’s dead, and nothing is going to bring her back to me, but he’s still breathing. He’s still here. It’s not right, that he’s still here and she’s gone. I should be allowed to make things right.”
“You should, but you’re not,” said the Luidaeg, walking toward him. She touched Tybalt on the shoulder; he let go of René’s arm and stepped aside. She moved smoothly into his place, taking René’s hand in hers. My breath caught. I’d never seen her voluntarily touch a Selkie. Not even Liz. She’d played at being their cousin, but she had always held herself apart from them, keeping her distance, in anticipation of this day.