especially for someone who knows, all the way down to her bones, that she’s a small, breakable creature moving through a society filled with much larger predators.
“Is that so?” Pete stopped, cocking her head and looking thoughtfully at Marcia before she said, “You have the protection of my principality until such time as you choose to leave our borders. The next time someone tries to take advantage of you during simple barter, tell them as much. They may sing a different chantey after that.”
Marcia bobbed her head in grateful acknowledgment, holding up her tray as she asked, “May I take this to the Count? He’s my liege, and I’d really rather not give him a reason to think I’m not doing my job.”
“As you were,” said Pete, with a casual wave of her hand.
Marcia curtsied quick and shallow, and continued across the room to Dean, settling on the edge of the bed. Quentin moved to join her—not, I noted with amusement, asking anyone’s permission—and together they shifted Dean into a sitting position and pressed the brim of a rough ceramic mug to his lips. Quentin pinched Dean’s nose closed and tilted his head as Marcia raised the mug. A moment later, Dean sputtered and reared back, opening his eyes.
“Oh, good,” said Marcia. “You’re not dead. Drink this.”
“What is it?” asked Dean, so fixated on the contents of the mug that he didn’t seem to realize the rest of us were in the room. That was probably for the best, since Pete was watching the whole scene with faintly malicious amusement.
“No idea.” Marcia sounded entirely too happy about that. “I know there’s honey in there, and saltwater, but the rest? Who knows. I bought it from a man who said it would wake you up, and—hey presto—it worked. He also said you needed to drink the whole thing if you wanted to be ‘inured to the majesty,’ which sounds like a good plan to me.”
“It is,” said the Luidaeg. “Trust me, and drink the damn tincture.”
Dean briefly looked like he wanted to argue—but Dean was a son of the Undersea, and the understanding that arguing with the Luidaeg was a swift, not necessarily painless form of suicide had been all but baked into his bones. He grasped the mug with both hands and drained its contents in a long, pained-looking gulp, dropping it back onto the tray with a gasp.
Marcia picked up the bowl that had also been on the tray and thrust it at him. “Here.”
“What’s this?” he asked. He still took the bowl. He had long since learned that doing what his seneschal said was easier than the alternative. Clever boy.
“Kelp and salmon stew,” she said. “There’s potatoes in there, too. How does a floating duchy in the middle of the Pacific get potatoes?”
“We grow them,” said Pete. “We have special bubbles anchored to the bottom of the sea, keeping the water out, and we grow all sorts of things that air-breathers like to eat, because we take care of our own. Hello, little half-Merrow. Ready to look at me now?”
Dean paled as he raised his head and met her eyes. Then he blinked, looking baffled. “I’m still awake.”
“You’ve been inured to the majesty,” she said, with amusement. “I’ll be honest, you surprised me when you went down like that. Most Merrow attack me on sight. The fainters have almost been bred out of the line. By which I mean, the fainters never get the opportunity to breed, because the other Merrow kill them for being weaklings.”
“You’re going to like my Mom,” said Dean, in a dazed voice. He paused before asking, “Are you really my . . . ?”
“One of them,” said Pete.
“I met the other one, too,” said Dean. “The Daoine Sidhe Firstborn. I didn’t like her.”
“Congratulations: you are now a member of a large and not at all exclusive club,” said Pete. “Eat your soup and I’ll show you all to your quarters. Welcome to the Duchy of Ships. Don’t make trouble, don’t pick fights with people who don’t deserve it, and for the love of Oberon, don’t make me regret letting you in.”
“Would we do that?” I asked.
She raised an eyebrow, looking at me flatly. “You, Amandine’s daughter, hero, king-breaker? In a damn heartbeat. So let’s at least pretend you respect my authority, shall we?”
“Yes, ma’am,” I said.
The Luidaeg laughed, and Dean drank his soup, and the world had never been stranger, or safer, than it was in that moment. I was surrounded by water