The Unkindest Tide (October Daye #13) - Seanan McGuire Page 0,26

crooked smile before hooking a thumb toward the rest of my party, gathered on the edge of the pier and waiting for the next stage of our journey to begin. “Besides, I have these assholes to keep me out of the water. I’ll be fine.”

“I wish you didn’t have to go.”

“So do I. I appreciate you being willing to drive us. With Danny picking up Gillian, we needed a ride.”

Stacy’s mouth made a funny twisting motion. “I still say he could have fit you all in his cab.”

“We’re spending the next however long in the middle of the ocean together. We’ll have plenty of time to talk. Now get out of here before the Luidaeg shows up and decides you’re coming with us.”

“Open roads,” Stacy said.

“Kind fires,” I replied, and stepped back, letting her pull away from the curb. I stayed where I was, watching the taillights dwindle as she rolled down the street. Then she turned a corner and was gone, and I finally turned back to my boys.

As my squire, part of Quentin’s job is accompanying me when I do stupid shit; it’s a learning experience. Most of what he’s learning is how to get blood out of his clothes, but hey, at least it’s educational. There’d been no chance of my leaving him behind. As for Tybalt, normally his duties to the Court of Cats would have necessitated him remaining in San Francisco, no matter how much he disliked the idea. With Ginevra holding his throne, he could do as he liked, and what he liked was keeping me out of trouble.

Two more figures walked up to the pair. Quentin promptly swept the taller into a hug. I hesitated before approaching the now larger group.

“Dean?” I blinked as the second figure came more clearly into view. “Marcia?”

“Hi,” she said, with a quick wave of her free hand. She was hauling a suitcase that looked nearly as big as she was.

Quentin loosened his grip on his boyfriend enough for the other boy to lean around and offer me a sheepish smile. “Hello, Sir Daye,” he said. “Did Quentin not tell you we were coming?”

“Not in so many words, although I suppose I should have guessed about you, at least,” I said. “Is your mom meeting us there?”

Dean nodded. “She says it’s important to make a good entrance.”

“She would.” Dean’s mother, Dianda Lorden, was the Duchess of Saltmist, the nearest and largest Undersea demesne. It made sense for her to be present. It also made sense for Dean, as someone raised in the Undersea and now holding a title on the land, to be there.

I gave Quentin a sidelong look. His cheeks flushed red.

“I’m still your squire,” he said. “I don’t stop doing my job just because my boyfriend’s here.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Your boyfriend is always around, and you do your job!”

“She also puts herself constantly into mortal danger, which is why I need to be ‘always around,’ as you so quaintly put it,” said Tybalt. “Do you intend to distress your knight, your parents, and now your swain by putting yourself constantly into mortal danger?”

Quentin swallowed hard. “No, sir.”

“Good.”

I elbowed Tybalt lightly in the arm. “Don’t scare my squire.”

He grinned, showing far too many teeth, and said nothing.

“You’re a little more of a surprise,” I said, turning to Marcia.

She tossed her hair, which was long, blonde, and perpetually tangled, like it was considering an uprising against the tyranny of hairbrushes. “I’m always surprising.”

Marcia was Dean’s seneschal, which was part of my surprise. Normally, if he wasn’t in the knowe, she was, keeping things functioning in the absence of her liege. The rest of my surprise had more to do with what Marcia was than who. She was a changeling, but only technically, and needed faerie ointment to see our world properly. Under normal circumstances, she would never even have been offered the Changeling’s Choice.

I honestly had no idea how Marcia’s past had led her here, to a moon-washed pier at midnight, preparing to sail for a place that technically shouldn’t exist. We’d met when she was serving as a handmaid in the Japanese Tea Gardens, sworn to an Undine named Lily. After Oleander de Merelands arranged Lily’s death, Marcia had switched her fealty to me and Goldengreen. I’d given my title to Dean, and she’d stayed with him, making sure he was prepared for the challenges of leadership on land.

“There is that,” I agreed.

She smiled, bright and blithe and unconcerned, moonlight glinting off the rings of faerie ointment around her eyes.