The Unkindest Tide (October Daye #13) - Seanan McGuire Page 0,90
“Is anyone else hurt?”
“You fought like a fool who thought themselves a sacrifice,” said Helmi. Somehow, coming from her, it wasn’t an insult. She sounded genuinely awed. “No warrior of the land has ever been willing to risk themselves so for one of the water.”
“I want to be there when you tell Patrick that.” I pushed myself back to my feet, using the wall for balance when the world spun.
Helmi scoffed. “The ducal consort is a good man and a better father, but he’s no fighter. He never has been.”
“Semantics.” I took my hand off the wall. The world spun again, but this time Quentin was there to keep me from toppling over. Why did I ever resist having a squire? They’re so useful. “We need to get out of here.”
“We’re at war,” repeated Peter, entirely too calm for a teenager who’d just seen a man stabbed in the throat until he died. Like mother, like son. “You haven’t broken the Law, Sir Daye. My parents will reward you for this.”
“Okay, see, that’s a weird thing to say and I don’t like it, but that’s not why we need to get out of here.” I started moving, keeping my grip on Quentin’s shoulder. The wound in my stomach was almost healed, but the itching hadn’t stopped, for all that it was mostly beneath the surface now. That made it almost worse. When my skin itches, I can scratch it, even if I’m sensible enough to choose not to. When it’s my liver that itches . . .
Complaining that my ability to heal from injuries that should be fatal isn’t comfy enough feels sort of like a jerk move. That’s never stopped me before.
Together, we made our way down the hall to the storeroom where we had entered. It was thankfully still unoccupied; if any more of Torin’s forces had come down here looking for us, they hadn’t seen the signs of our arrival, and hadn’t decided to stop and lie in wait for our return. The surface of the pool that led to the outside was untroubled, inviting us back into the depths.
I hate swimming. I eyed the water mistrustfully as I said, “Okay. Quentin and I don’t speak whatever language it is you use to communicate underwater; once we dive, we’re basically going to be incommunicado. You need to follow us to the gateway to the Duchy of Ships. The Luidaeg isn’t there right now, but she’ll be back soon, and she’ll be pissed if I come back without you after putting her to all this trouble. If you have any questions, ask them now.”
Peter, Helmi, and Kirsi all stared at me, united in their stunned silence. Bands of color washed across the two Cephali, briefly tinting their skins in sickly pallor.
Peter was the first to find his voice—there was his mother’s influence again, teaching him that rushing in was always better than the alternative. Eyes wide and round, he whispered, “You’re taking us to see the sea witch?”
This thing where the Undersea was still radically impressed by her would have been charming, if I hadn’t been trying to get them into the water and out of the knowe before someone noticed the mess out in the hall. I’d just killed a man. Yes, he’d been trying to kill me at the time, and no, I wasn’t sorry I’d done it, but wow did I want to get out of here before the night-haunts came.
“I’m not taking you to see the sea witch,” I said, with as much patience as I possessed. Which was, admittedly, not as much as I might have liked it to be. “I’m taking you to the place where the sea witch is currently planning to be. She doesn’t have a lot of patience under the best of circumstances, and trust me when I say that these are not the best of circumstances. Are there any other questions?”
There weren’t. Peter gave me a small nod, his jaw still clenched and his eyes still wide, and I stepped into the open circle of water in the floor, and let the ocean take me.
THIRTEEN
THE TRANSFORMATION WAS NO less nerve-racking the second time. It was still someone else’s magic dictating the shape of my body, pulling me into a new form and fixing me there, like a butterfly trapped under glass; it was still dropping me into the crystalline depths of my worst fears and leaving me there. I grasped the walls of the narrow tunnel, pulling myself