The Unkindest Tide (October Daye #13) - Seanan McGuire Page 0,55

clan leaders, only Liz seemed to realize what the Luidaeg was saying. She gasped, a small, sharp sound, and looked to me, like I could somehow stop this. I couldn’t. All I could do was stand with the rest of them and listen in numb, mounting horror.

“From now until I stand with you once again, I swear that I will neither intervene nor demand satisfaction over any accusation of theft between Selkies. Knock each other down and steal the futures from one another’s shoulders. It does no harm to me. The only limit is this: you will not touch the children, and you will not involve any other Selkie’s human kin. They aren’t yours to endanger. Run and hide and rob each other down to the bones. You have two days. Pass your skins willingly or pass them because you can’t protect them. I no longer care. The Convocation is called. When I return, I will have my satisfaction.”

The Luidaeg turned on her heel and began marching away down the beach, leaving the rest of us standing stricken and silent.

Liz broke free of the spell first. She ran forward, seizing my hands in hers like she thought she could make me see things her way if she just held on tightly enough.

“Gillian,” she hissed. Before I could ask her to clarify, she continued, “Gillian is a damn Selkie now, and she’s the least of us, you understand? She is the least of us. She doesn’t understand her powers, she doesn’t swim fast enough to get away, she doesn’t know the rules. She has no family among the clans. If this goes forward, she’s a target for anyone hoping to settle a skin upon a second child, and if she loses her skin, she dies. You have to make Annie realize what she’s doing to us. You have to make her understand what she’s doing to your daughter.”

I was still gaping in open-mouthed horror when Joan and Mathias stepped up and pulled Liz away, yanking her backward until she lost her grasp on my hands. Still she reached for me, straining against the empty air.

“Please,” she said. “Please, you have to make her understand, please.”

“This is no concern of yours,” said Mathias, eyes settling on my face. “The Lady is leaving. Her protection goes with her.”

“A true Firstborn would find a way to protect her people, no matter what,” muttered Isla. Liz was still staring at me, silently imploring me to take her warning seriously.

And I did. I just wasn’t sure what I could do about it without offending the Luidaeg. Not that offending the Luidaeg had ever stopped me before.

“Oh, to hell with it,” I muttered, and took a step forward, back into the reach of Liz’s hands. Mathias was taller than me, but I still did my best attempt at looming over him, drawing myself up straight and arrogant, just like my mother taught me. “Gillian Marks-Daye, of the Ryan clan, is my daughter. She’s a Selkie, and I swear to you, if anyone touches her, I will rain down fire upon whichever clan has done it. I’ll make you regret ever choosing the sea, because I will drown you in blood. By the root and the branch, the fruit and the thorn, you will regret having ever been born if you so much as look at her too long. Have a nice day.”

I smiled, broad and bright and borderline feral, before I spun on my heel and stalked off after the Luidaeg. Tybalt followed me, leaving the Selkies alone with their own problems, standing in the shadow of their own future.

NINE

WE WALKED AWAY FROM the artificial beach in silence. Only once the surface beneath our feet had shifted back to bare dock did Tybalt say, “That was impressively vicious of you. Had I not fallen in love with your ladylike charms long since, I think I might fall in love now, out of sheerest self-defense.”

“You’re cute when you’re trying to placate me.” The Luidaeg was up ahead, in sight if not yet in hearing range. “Why the hell did she need to change my clothes if that’s all we were going to do? I could have stood there and listened to her make threats in a T-shirt and jeans. I’m good at standing around in a T-shirt and jeans. I’ve had practice.”

“Yes, but a T-shirt wouldn’t have been nearly as flattering to your figure.”

I stopped walking in order to fix him with a baleful eye. He didn’t even