The Unkindest Tide (October Daye #13) - Seanan McGuire Page 0,56
flinch. “Are you seriously going to stand there and talk about my tits when things are this messed up?”
“Be reasonable, October; I could have been talking about your ass.” Tybalt looked at me haughtily. “My interests are far more versatile than you give me credit for.”
I blinked at him slowly. Then, almost against my will, I started laughing, great, gasping gales of laughter that evolved, a bit at a time, into sobs, until he stopped smiling smugly and gathered me close, surrounding me in the comforting musk and pennyroyal scent of his magic, which always clung to his skin like mist.
“Ah, little fish, I would take this from you if I could, you know I would,” he murmured, holding me so that his mouth was close to my ear, and his words were mine alone. “You never deserved any of this, and neither did she. It seems the sins of our parents are forever destined to be laid upon the shoulders of our children, generation on generation, until we grow weary of the whole affair. But you will do your best to do right by her, no matter how fiercely she rejects you, and I will be here throughout the whole sordid affair, by your side, to cheer you on.”
I sighed, pressing my face into his shoulder and letting the warm fabric of his shirt absorb my tears. Then I pulled away and offered him a wavering smile. “We should catch up with the Luidaeg before she decides we’ve been kidnapped and comes looking for us.”
“As if anyone here would dare?” Tybalt waved a hand airily. “More likely she’ll decide we’ve gone off to have sex somewhere, and come looking for us solely so she can interrupt at the worst possible moment.”
That startled another laugh out of me. I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand. “Well, then, we definitely want to catch up with her. The last thing I need today is for one of the Firstborn to see me naked.”
“Indeed.” Tybalt offered his arm, and I took it, letting him guide me down the rickety wooden walkway. I knew the path as well as he did—we’d each walked it exactly once before, in each other’s company—but it made him feel better to take the lead sometimes, and I was willing to let him, for my peace of mind as well as for his. If Tybalt was relaxed, I wasn’t worrying about him. If I wasn’t worrying about him, we could both get more done.
Like worrying about Gillian. When this was over, and she was safe and home and Roane, part of Faerie forevermore, the Luidaeg and I were going to have words about how casually she’d endangered my daughter. I refused to consider any future in which Gillian wasn’t going to wind up safely in her own bed, with Janet trying her best to keep her away from me. Our family was already fractured. This wasn’t the way it would break.
Trailing this far behind the Luidaeg was an interesting experience. It hadn’t been obvious before just how much her presence had shut down the normal activity of the stalls around us. Now that Tybalt and I were on our own, people were appearing from all directions, swarming up and down ladders to get to specific shops, leaning out of windows, bartering for wares. A woman who looked like a more delicate version of a Merrow, all the way down to the long, furling flukes of her silver-scaled tail, rode a wicker basket between levels, clinging to the ropes and laughing to the Tylwyth Teg sailor who worked the pulley. Children scampered past, playing some complicated, old-fashioned game with a hoop and a weighted net.
These people were living entirely outside of the mortal world, in the closest thing I’d ever seen to a full reflection of Faerie. Maybe the deeper realms had been like this, dotted with maritime homesteads and private communities that set their own rules and kept their own tempos. Or maybe this was the social equivalent of a changeling, something created from the necessary meshing of two worlds.
The Luidaeg was waiting for us at the end of the marketplace. Her eyes flicked coolly from Tybalt’s face to mine before she raised a brow and asked, “Trouble in paradise?”
“Is this paradise?” I asked. “I hadn’t noticed.”
“It’s as close as you’re going to get any time soon,” she said. “Where were you?”
“Can we not do this now?”
She tilted her head, studying me with more care. “You’re