The Unkindest Tide (October Daye #13) - Seanan McGuire Page 0,99
Peter. Between the two of them, he was as safe as he could possibly have been.
That didn’t make me feel any better about walking away from him. Which meant it was time to go. I turned before I could come up with another excuse to stay, walking away from the little corner where I’d done my examination, heading into the maze of docks.
“We could take the Shadow Roads,” said Tybalt, matching his pace to mine. “It would be swifter.”
“I want you to conserve your strength, and my hair is wet,” I said. “My body heals. My hair doesn’t.”
“Vanity, little fish?”
“Practicality. I’m practically sure Stacy will murder me if I wind up bald this close to the wedding. She’s looking forward to braiding things into my hair, and I know better than to disappoint her.”
Tybalt blinked, looking startled. “You think . . . you truly believe we’re close to our marriage?”
“Well, yeah.” I glanced at him. “You said you didn’t want to wait forever. I mean, I don’t think we’re going to elope tomorrow, but I figure I wouldn’t have time to grow my hair all the way back.”
“You better not be eloping,” said Quentin. “The High King has offered to host the ceremony. You don’t run off and leave the High King with an outstretched hand and no vassal to hold it. It’s not done.”
“I am a King of Cats,” said Tybalt. “Your High King has no authority over me.”
“Maybe not, but he has authority over me, and I’d rather not piss him off.” Making an enemy of the High King of North America would be impressively stupid, even for me. He could call Quentin back to Toronto any time he wanted. That meant keeping him happy was essential.
“I suppose I accepted certain complications when I elected to tie my future to a daughter of the Divided Courts,” said Tybalt without rancor. He sounded oddly pleased, and was smiling as he reached over to twine his fingers with mine.
The Duchy of Ships bustled around us as we walked, and if some people cast curious glances in our direction, they were smart enough, or well-mannered enough, not to say anything. I surreptitiously checked my shirt, and was pleased to see there wasn’t any blood from my earlier fight with Torin’s guard. The water had washed it all away.
“Don’t think you’re escaping judgment quite so easily,” said Tybalt, in a pleasant tone. “I can still smell it. Not strongly, but enough that I know it’s your blood, and not the poor drowned woman’s.”
“Also there’s a big hole in your shirt,” chirped Quentin.
I shot him a baleful look. “You’re not helping.”
“Sure I am. I’m making sure there are consequences when you let yourself get stabbed in the stomach. Maybe that way, you’ll do it less, and I’ll have fewer nightmares. Everyone wins.” Quentin shrugged, unrepentant. “You’re the one who taught me how to cheat. Just think, if you’d been more scrupulous about following protocol, I might not be betraying you now.”
“I can’t believe you’re using the ‘I learned it from watching you,’ excuse,” I muttered. “I can’t decide whether I’m proud or pissed off.”
“See, I’m happy either way,” said Quentin.
I huffed and kept walking.
The shops we’d seen before were open now, and the marketplace bustled with people—merchants hawking their wares, customers sorting through them, looking for the perfect pearl, or lobster, or pearl-encrusted lobster. Everything I could think of needing was for sale somewhere, with the obvious exception of electronics; this far into the Summerlands, even April’s modified cellular service didn’t work. That was sort of nice, since it meant she had actual limits. It was also sort of vexing. It would have been nice to be able to call home and summon as much backup as we could cram into a rowboat.
I narrowed my eyes and focused on the people. Most belonged to the Undersea races, Merrow and Sirens and people with pearlized eyes or shimmering scales dusted across their skin, whose heritage teased my tongue with signals I didn’t quite know how to puzzle out. I might be a walking encyclopedia of magical signatures, but that doesn’t give me the ability to recognize types of fae I’ve never seen before. They were a mystery to me, their shoulders draped in fishnets and strings of coral beads, their brows covered with bandannas or graced with curving seashell horns that grew directly from the bone.
Every time I breathed in, the part of my magic that was dedicated to tracing the magic of others