The Unkindest Tide (October Daye #13) - Seanan McGuire Page 0,113

me and hold me up, one hand under my right arm and the other clamped around the curve of my waist, supporting and stabilizing me. I clutched at his arms, eyes still closed, and breathed in again, even deeper this time.

The magical assault on my nose and lungs was actually, physically painful. I swallowed, forcing myself to keep going. This shouldn’t be so hard, I thought, reeling under the assault. This is what I was made to do.

The Dóchas Sidhe. Faerie’s bloodhounds—literally. We’re more attuned to blood than any other kind of fae I’ve ever encountered, and that includes both the Daoine Sidhe and the Baobhan Sith. We can bend it to our desires, shifting a person’s body along the scale between immortality and the grave, and since magic is a function of the blood, we can track individuals by the scents they leave behind as they walk through the world. But there was so much, and it was so thick—

Not letting myself think too hard about what I was about to do, I closed my teeth on my tongue, wincing against the bright bolt of pain that followed. The wound was already healing by the time I unclenched my jaw, flesh knitting back together with a distracting, tingling itch. Hot blood filled my mouth. I swallowed as much as I could, hoping it would be enough to prevent me from needing to do that again. I’ve gotten over a lot of my issues with blood—it helps that I’ve been covered in the stuff so many times at this point that I’d never get out of bed if I hated it like I used to—but it’s always better when I can avoid bleeding more than absolutely necessary.

The world seemed to slow as the blood reached my stomach, amplifying my magic in an almost indescribable way. How it can work when the blood is my own doesn’t make sense; I shouldn’t be able to use my magic to fuel my magic. But it does work, and that’s what matters, especially when I need to find the place where an innocent woman died.

I breathed in, and the magic flowed around me, neatly separating into its component parts, saltwater and freshwater and kelp and roses, always, always roses. I kept breathing in, looking for anything that sang to my memory of René’s magic. Chicory and phlox, that’s what he’d said; chicory and phlox.

There. It wasn’t much, barely more than a whisper, but it was enough. I let go of Tybalt’s arms and started walking forward, eyes still closed, trusting him and Quentin to stop me before I could walk over the edge of the ship. With my luck, the Luidaeg’s spell would wear off between the dock and the water, and I’d get to enjoy drowning. Again.

I hate drowning.

Chicory. Not René’s chicory, which was sweet, mellow, well-aged, like a spice that had been sitting in a kitchen cupboard for years, waiting for the chance to be used. This was sharper, more bitter on the tongue, fresh-wrung from the root and still grieving for its marshy home. I followed it across the sand, and when the scent told me to turn left, I did, feeling Tybalt’s hand briefly clamp down on my shoulder to protect me from some unseen danger. It was good to have people I could trust like this. There was a time when I wouldn’t have been able to make this walk, because there would have been no one to stop me from going over the edge of the world.

Had Isla been alone when she’d walked this way? She’d been bleeding magic, but that isn’t uncommon for fae in fae spaces. We’re as twitchy and unfocused as the humans are, when we’re not forced to stay on edge to protect ourselves from discovery. She had probably been making illusory balls to toss from hand to hand, or filling the air with small sparkles. Selkies have limited magic by pureblood standards—most of their strength goes into their skins, into keeping them alive and capable of transforming—but they have enough to fidget with.

Had Isla known she was heading toward her own death? I hoped not. I hoped she’d been calm and casual, maybe a little nervous, since the Luidaeg had essentially declared open season on Selkie skins, but confident in her own ability to keep her skin safe. I couldn’t bring her back, and so I had to believe she’d been caught unaware, that it had happened quickly and completely and left her