The Unkindest Tide (October Daye #13) - Seanan McGuire Page 0,40
thought, well. I thought Titania’s children and Maeve’s children didn’t, you know. Get along.”
“We don’t, usually,” said Pete. “Mom encouraged her kids to be conquerors and kings. She wanted us to carve out empires in her name, and if we could do our carving through the bodies of our half-siblings, all the better, because it meant there’d be less competition. She wasn’t exactly what I’d call ‘nurturing.’ More ‘bloody-minded and dedicated to the idea that one day she’d be seen as the one true Queen of Faerie.’”
“She sounds like a nice lady,” I said, as carefully as I could.
The Luidaeg snorted. “She sounds like nothing of the sort.”
“Anyway, the ocean is mostly Maeve’s domain, what with her being the source of water magic and all, and I was Titania’s first child who actually took to the depths. Like a fish, some might say.” Pete took another sip of ale. “Mom saw me as a chance to start undermining Maeve’s interests, and hey, it might have worked, if not for the part where my full siblings treated me like some sort of unwanted spindrift washed up on their shores. I was wet, which meant I was less than they were, so they felt free to act like it. Whereas Maeve’s children . . .” She faltered, looking to the Luidaeg.
“We didn’t know at first,” said the Luidaeg. “My mother wasn’t a megalomaniacal bitch who thinks of her kids as useful pieces in a century-spanning game of chess, but that didn’t make her a great communicator, and sometimes she’d make children out of random stuff when Dad was away. When Pete showed up, she was just this skinny kid with kelp in her hair and fish guts in her teeth, and we all assumed Mom had fallen in love with the story of a shipwreck or something. It wouldn’t have been the first time. When we realized she was one of Titania’s get, it was too late; we were already fond of her.”
“Good thing, too,” said Pete, a look of deep melancholy settling over her face. “Maeve’s children were my brothers and sisters, too—most of them, anyway, the ones who didn’t have shipwrecks or stories for fathers—and they were kind to me, and they were dying. If I hadn’t been their little curiosity, I think they might have killed me, just to even the scales a bit.”
“Which would have been a pity, since I like most of the Merrow I’ve met,” I said. “Although speaking of Merrow, you want to explain why Dean’s still asleep?” I was starting to get nervous about that. He’d never been prone to fainting, and from the pinched, worried look on Quentin’s face, he was going to say something stupid if his boyfriend didn’t wake up soon.
“Sorry,” said Pete unrepentantly. “The Merrow think I’m dead. Most of them, anyway. The few who realize I’m still up here do their best to pretend I’m not, because if they admitted I was alive, they’d have to listen to me, and I’d tell them to stop tormenting the rest of the ocean to make my mother happy. Titania can go hang as far as I’m concerned.”
“That doesn’t explain why he won’t wake up,” said Quentin.
Pete gave him a thoughtful look. “You’re a prickly little spirit,” she said. “No merry wanderer of the night. What family line are you from?”
Quentin’s worry melted into an even deeper discomfort. “I’m not supposed to say,” he said. “I’m on blind fosterage.”
“Right now the only family line that matters is mine,” I said, before he could dig his way any deeper into the hole. “He’s my squire, I’m responsible for him, please don’t turn him into a school of sardines or anything else that makes it difficult for me to finish his training.”
“Presumptuous thing, aren’t you?” asked Pete. At least she sounded amused. “Your half-breed is unconscious because he wasn’t prepared to look upon my glory. Merrow tend to respond like that when they see me without warning. Or they get really, really pissed and try to kill me. It’s almost always one of the two. Does Eira know about him? Is it just killing her to know that one of her precious Daoine Sidhe went and lowered themselves to sport with a fish? Please tell me she knows. I’ll forgive you for being annoying if you do.”
“She knows,” I said. “Dean has a little brother, too. Their parents are very happy together.”
Now Pete looked surprised. “Wait, they did it more than once? Okay, my