The Unkindest Tide (October Daye #13) - Seanan McGuire Page 0,81

fight us. But if you want to see Peter Lorden safe and out of here until his parents can take their Duchy back, you need to take us to him.”

The Cephali hesitated. I held my breath until finally, she lowered her weapons.

“Follow me,” she said. “If we’re caught, I’ll slit your throats myself to show my loyalty to the invaders.”

“Must loyalty always mean blood on the floor?” I asked, already stepping toward her. “All right. Let’s go.”

She eyed me warily as she moved toward the door, not walking so much as undulating, her tentacles gripping and releasing so she flowed across the damp marble like something out of a dream. Quentin and I followed silently, letting her lead the way. It would have been a stretch to say we trusted her, but we didn’t have much of a choice. Time was short, for everyone.

I’m not sure how much of the average Undersea knowe is pressurized and filled with air. Because the Selkies are air-breathers, and several Undersea races are equally comfortable in both, I’ve always assumed air chambers were a standard feature: it’s easier to sip wine and preserve royal decrees when you’re not trying to do it underwater. The hall the Cephali led us along would have looked perfectly reasonable in Goldengreen or Shadowed Hills. It was laid out in a vaguely medieval style, its organic nature betrayed only by the places where the walls met the ceiling, which were gentle slopes of polished, bonelike coral rather than hard edges. The floor was pink; the walls were white; the décor was elegant, and almost managed to obscure the fact that the place had been grown rather than built.

“Is the knowe alive?” I asked, voice pitched low to keep us from being overheard.

The Cephali nodded but didn’t slow. “Grown from a seed by the Duchess Lorden’s grandmother,” she said. “My parents helped protect it when it was young and small and could have been easily uprooted. Now, it will outlive us all and remember our bones when they fade into its roots.”

Quentin and I exchanged a glance. It’s one thing to know that attitudes about life and death are very different between the land and sea. It’s another to hear a pureblood talking frankly about bones and mortality. Fae are supposed to live forever. That’s how they’re made. I’m a changeling, and I’ll still live for centuries if no one figures out a way to kill me.

Things in the Undersea followed their own patterns. Sometimes that was more jarring than I would have thought possible.

Voices echoed up ahead. The Cephali jerked back, and looked over her shoulder to us. “Hide,” she hissed. Then she was swarming up the wall, changing colors as she went, until she was the same white as the coral around her, wrapping her body around a decorative light fixture and fading utterly from view.

I turned to Quentin. “Hide or fight?” I asked.

He bit his lip. “What happens if we hide and they find us?”

“We fight anyway.”

“Can we try?”

I nodded. “We can always try,” I said. I started to grab for the air, then paused. “You’re the Daoine Sidhe. You should do this.”

Quentin nodded tightly before snatching the air and pulling it toward himself, whispering rapid-fire, “Hickory dickory dock, the mouse ran up the clock. The clock struck ten, the mouse didn’t care because rodents have no sense of time, hickory dickory dock.”

The smell of heather and steel rose around us, so strong that I cringed. Surely anyone who came down the hall would be able to smell it and guess where we were standing. Quentin didn’t look concerned. I tried to hold onto that. Daoine Sidhe are blood-workers and can detect the scent of a person’s magic when it hangs in the air, but they’re not as sensitive as the Dóchas Sidhe. If Quentin wasn’t worried, we’d be fine. We were going to be fine.

We had to be fine.

The spell settled around us like a fine mist and Quentin disappeared, becoming a part of the wall, much as the Cephali had. If I squinted, I could almost make out the shadow of his outline, but it was difficult, and I was only getting that much because I knew where he was. If he moved while I wasn’t looking, I’d lose track of him completely.

Good. A strong don’t-look-here should protect everyone involved, even from each other. I pressed myself hard against the wall, getting as far from the center of the hall as possible, and drew my