The Unkindest Tide (October Daye #13) - Seanan McGuire Page 0,30

Convocation. The rest of you are convenient at best and inconsequential at worst, and if you offend or bother me in any way between here and the Duchy, if you try my patience while we’re in open waters, I’ll throw you over the side without thinking twice.”

Dean paled. Quentin patted his arm, clearly trying to be soothing.

He was just as clearly failing. Quentin didn’t think of the Luidaeg as a threat, but Dean had grown up in the Undersea, and he understood how dangerous she could be.

“That’s a ship,” said Gillian.

“Sure is!” chirped Marcia.

“It’s . . . it’s huge, and no one’s coming over here to take pictures or point at it,” said Gillian.

“Nope,” agreed Marcia. “They can’t see it. Or if they can see it, they know it’s not here for them, and they don’t want to mess with anybody powerful enough to summon an Undersea vessel to a mortal pier.” She moved closer to Gillian, patting the other woman on the arm. They looked like they were roughly the same age. When had my daughter become a woman? When had the world changed?

Oblivious to my staring, Marcia continued, “I’m Marcia. You must be Gillian. You have your mother’s chin. Anyway, I’m Dean Lorden’s seneschal, and I’m happy to answer any questions you have. You’ll probably come up with a million, and I think I’m the least intimidating person here.”

“The man who picked me up was seven feet tall and gray like a boulder,” confessed Gillian.

“That would be Danny McReady,” said Marcia. “He’s a friend of your mother’s. He’s a Bridge Troll, and a very nice guy. Did he give you his business card? It can be really useful to have someone you can—”

“Please stop calling her that,” interrupted Gillian.

Marcia stopped, blinking wide, confused eyes at her. “Calling who what?”

“Calling October my mother,” said Gillian. “She is, I know, but . . . it’s complicated.”

Marcia looked from Gillian to me and back again before she said, “Got it. Anyway. He’s a friend of October’s. Good number to have.” She turned away, shoulders stiff, and moved to retrieve the suitcase she’d abandoned next to Dean, fussily checking the latches.

Gillian grimaced. “I didn’t mean it like that,” she said.

The Luidaeg clapped her on the shoulder with one hand, snapping the fingers of the other. Gillian’s human disguise dissolved in a whiff of fennel, the underlying seawater drowned out by the proximity to the ocean.

“I am the last person who should lecture you about family, except for maybe my sister, may piranhas strip the flesh from her poisonously pretty bones,” she said. Her teeth seemed sharper than they’d been a few seconds ago: she looked like she could chew through diamond. “But technically, you’re part of my family as long as you wear that skin, and once you can’t take it off anymore, you’re going to be part of my family forever, so I’m going to give you this advice for free: hate your mother as much as you want to. Loathe her. Raise up armies to destroy her and everything she cares about. But for the love of my father, don’t go saying it. She’s a fucking hero of the realm, and you’re a brand new Selkie who most of these people will be looking at as a possible tool to use against her. The more dissent they see, the more they’re going to aim their designs on you. Be dull. Be unwanted. Be the daughter who broke the chain of Amandine’s line, and make yourself seem as placid and pointless as possible. Do you understand me?”

Gillian glared at her, jaw set in a stubborn line. Finally, sullenly, she said, “Yes.”

“Good. Because your first test is almost here.”

The great ship had sailed closer as we talked among ourselves; now it was almost to the pier. It shouldn’t have been able to fit there. It should have run up against hidden obstacles, ancient, rotting support beams and fresh-poured concrete pylons. It did no such thing. It sailed, straight and true, until it pulled up along the pier and a voice called from above, “’Ware below!”

“That means step back,” said the Luidaeg.

We stepped back, watching as a gangplank dropped from the side of the ship and landed, neat as anything, against the pier. It was perfectly dry, with ropes along the sides to keep passengers from falling off the ship and into the water as they boarded.

A Satyr appeared at the top of the gangplank, dressed in a long black coat that wouldn’t