The Unkindest Tide (October Daye #13) - Seanan McGuire Page 0,86
gray eyes, and a tail that shaded from slate gray at the hips to silvery-white at the flukes.
Peter Lorden stared at us, hiccupped, and began crying. He seemed angry with himself for not being able to keep the tears in, but that didn’t stop them from coming. Helmi put her arms around him and glared, not at me or Quentin, but at the other Cephali.
“Your loyalties have shifted,” she accused.
“The knowe has been taken,” the Cephali replied. “We cannot raise forces against the Merrow; we would surely die. But we have not served them. They can’t command what they cannot see.”
“Okay, this is a great little window on Undersea politics and all, but can we maybe hurry up and skip to the part where you let us take Peter, please?” I spread my hands. “Dianda’s been arrested, Patrick’s panicking—and rightly so, since this all sucks—and I don’t trust Torin not to order Peter’s execution to solidify his own claim. So, please, if you could just come on, we’ll get out of here.”
“We?” Helmi looked surprised.
“Of course ‘we,’” I said. “I’m not leaving you here for Torin’s guards to capture. You serve your liege best by going to your liege. That goes for you, too,” I added, to the Cephali at my side. “Hell, that goes for all the Cephali in Saltmist. If your people would rather hide than be forced to serve Torin, they can come with us to the Duchy of Ships.” Hopefully, Pete wouldn’t mind that I was offering the hospitality of her home to someone else’s vassals. At the end of the day, I didn’t actually care. Let her be pissed at me. I’d tangled with the Firstborn before. I could take it.
The unnamed Cephali stared at me for a moment before executing an elaborate bow that mostly involved her tentacles going in what seemed like an impossible number of directions at the same time. “My name is Kirsi,” she said. “I am honored to meet you.”
“Nice to meet you, too, and if that’s not the right form, I’m sorry; we don’t have time for a lot of etiquette,” I said. Shifting my focus to Peter, I asked as gently as I could, “Do you feel up to changing forms? I know you’ve been dry for a while now, but this will be easier if we don’t have to carry you.”
“My . . .” He sniffled, wiping his nose with his forearm, exactly like teenagers the world over, before trying again: “My mom and dad are really okay? They’re not . . . they haven’t stopped their dancing?”
“Your father is fine, if worried about you; your mother has been arrested for treason, which isn’t the same as ‘okay,’ but means she’s probably causing a lot more problems for the people holding her than they expected. She’ll come back with bruised knuckles and cracked ribs and a smile on her face.” I forced a smile to my own face, trying to look as encouraging as possible. “Right now, you’re the one we need to worry about. Your uncle Torin has Saltmist, and that means we have to get you out of here. Can you walk?”
Peter nodded, sniffling again, and pulled away from Helmi, standing at the same time. Most of his scales shimmered and fell away, or maybe shrank back into his body—it was impossible to tell, it all happened so fast. In less than a second, a skinny boy in rough homespun trousers was standing, still shirtless, where the Merrow teen had been. A few scattered scales shimmered on his wrists and ankles. Peter looked at me shyly, chin tilted downward, so he was staring up through the long fringe of his lashes. It was a soft, vulnerable expression.
He was still Dianda’s son. I raised an eyebrow. “Are you planning to stab me, or just punch me in the throat?”
Peter allowed his chin to raise, softness becoming stubbornness in an instant. “My mother says never to trust anyone who’s offering you something for nothing.”
“Your mother is pretty smart that way, but trust me, this isn’t something for nothing,” I said. “I’m a hero of the realm in the Mists. That means anything that might disturb the Kingdom’s peace is my problem. We like having your parents in charge of Saltmist. They’re allies, and they don’t attack us for no reason. I don’t trust your uncle to show the same restraint. I also don’t trust your mother not to start breaking spines if she finds out you’ve been