One Salt Sea

  “Not great, but they might be of use.” His gaze went distant as he tried to put his next words in order. “The Duchess—Dianda—has reigned in Saltmist since before I moved to the Mists. She used to be seen in the Courts quite often, when Gilad was King. She’s a traditionalist, of a kind, but unlike some, she’s never preached separation of land and sea. That’s part of why she married Patrick.”

  “Only part?”

  Tybalt gave me a half-amused, half-exasperated look. “They fell in love,” he said. “It does happen.”

  I was grateful for the fog surrounding us. I could at least pretend he couldn’t see me blushing. “Right. So what does that mean?”

  “It means she didn’t take it well when people started shunning him, or when he started having ‘accidents.�� King Gilad was an attendant at their wedding—he didn’t just approve, he gave his blessing—but things changed when the new Queen took the throne. It wasn’t acceptable to be a land noble married to a sea Duchess anymore. That’s when Patrick renounced his titles.” Tybalt started walking faster. I tightened my hand on his elbow.

  “Do you think you can find the Luidaeg’s on your own?” I asked.

  He eyed me. “No,” he admitted.

  “Then slow down.”

  Grudgingly, Tybalt slowed his pace.

  “That’s better. Now, back to the Lordens. You’re saying they had some resentment before some idiot decided to snatch their kids.”

  “They’ve had a long time to feel hurt and persecuted, and the Duchess has never forgiven easily.” He cast a sidelong look at me. “That’s something her Court and mine have always had in common.”

  I didn’t know how to answer that. I didn’t have to; we’d reached the Luidaeg’s door. It was open, flooding the surrounding fog with warm lamplight, and the Luidaeg herself was sitting on the threshold, eating Ben and Jerry’s Phish Food out of the carton. She stuck the spoon into the ice cream and stood when she saw us, flicking one electric-taped pigtail carelessly back over her shoulder.

  “I thought that was you,” she said. “And you brought a friend. It’s good to see you playing nicely with the other children, even if this isn’t the best time to develop a social life.”

  Tybalt folded a hand over mine as he offered her a cordial bow. “Milady of the Moors. It has been too long.”

  “No, it hasn’t,” the Luidaeg replied, mildly enough. The last time they’d seen each other, he’d been helping to steal me back from Blind Michael. Not exactly the sort of thing that inspires a lasting friendship. “Has the Court of Dreaming Cats declared alliance?”

  “Yes,” he said. He didn’t let go of my hand.

  The Luidaeg lifted an eyebrow, looking amused. “Is that so? Well, you’re here now. I guess you might as well come in.” She turned, heading into the hall. Tybalt and I exchanged a look before shrugging, almost in unison, and stepping inside.

  The door slammed shut behind us.

  The smell of brine and ashes was stronger inside the apartment, and golden lamplight seemed to radiate from the walls, probably anchoring the misdirection spell blanketing the neighborhood. The light made the mess in the hall seem less severe, blunting the edges into an abstraction, like the treasure in a dragon’s lair. The muck-colored carpet still crackled underfoot. I found that reassuring.

  The Luidaeg was settled on the couch in a disarmingly casual pose when we reached the living room. “Well?” she asked, around a mouthful of ice cream. “Why are you already back? Did you save the world or something?”

  “I’m still working on it.” I sat down on an old wooden chest. It creaked under my weight. “Tybalt’s here because the Cait Sidhe are going to help defend Goldengreen, if things come to that.”

  “Brave little kitty.” She watched Tybalt pick his way across the floor, her gaze as flat and cold as a shark’s. “You going to run out the moment things get difficult, cat?”

  “That isn’t my intention,” he replied, haughtiness warring with caution in his tone. Only the narrowing of his pupils betrayed how much her question annoyed him. “Cats may be fickle, but my word has value.”

  “Good.” The Luidaeg took another bite of ice cream, turning back to me. “You’d have called if that was all you had. What is it, and what do you want?”

  “I got some information from a Glastig I know. He says the Lorden boys were stolen by a woman with red hair and yellow eyes. Know anyone who fits the description?” She was silent. I nodded. “Thought so. I’m going to Shadowed Hills next, to tell the Torquills in person and search Rayseline’s quarters. There’s a chance, even if it’s a slim one, that she’ll have left something there that could give me a clue to why she’s doing this—and whether she’s doing it alone.”

  The Luidaeg’s eyebrows rose. “You’re thinking conspiracy?”

  “Does Rayseline strike you as smart enough to pull this off without help?”

  “Smart, maybe; stable, no. I’m surprised she can put her own shoes on without written directions.” The Luidaeg took another bite of ice cream. Finally, she asked, “What else?”

  I took a deep breath. “I need to meet with the Lordens. Can you arrange it?”

  “I can,” said the Luidaeg. “Your reputation may actually help for once, since everyone knows the Queen hates you. That’s still not enough to make you come here, instead of calling me.”

  “I missed your smiling face?”

  She lifted an eyebrow.

  So much for that. “I don’t think I’m going to be able to find the kids if I can’t search the place where they were taken. That means I’m going to need a way to travel to Salt-mist without drowning.”

  The Luidaeg nodded. “I hoped you’d figure that out before I explained it to you. It comes easier this way.”

  “Yeah. I guess so.” The Luidaeg knows how much I hate water. More, she knows how much I hate having anyone use transformation magic on me, and even the simplest water-breathing spell is a kind of transformation. She’d probably been expecting me to pitch a fit.

  “There are ways for an air-breather to survive underwater—Patrick Lorden proves that—but he gets his enchantments from his wife, and he doesn’t spend much time in the open sea without her. You’ll need something longer-lasting.”

  I’d worked out most of this for myself. That didn’t make hearing it any better. “Longer-lasting? You’re not coming with me?”

  “I can’t. If I enter the water right now . . .” She let the sentence trail off.

  “The sea witch traditionally owes her allegiance to the Undersea,” said Tybalt. His voice was studiously neutral. “I believe that, if she were to enter the waters, she would not be able to return until this conflict was done.”

  The Luidaeg nodded. “Bingo.”

  “As I thought.” Tybalt crossed his arms. “What, then, are you proposing?”

  “Can’t you guess?” asked the Luidaeg.

  I glared. “Could you just answer the damn question?”

  The Luidaeg sighed, throwing her half-empty container into the corner. It splashed ice cream across the wall as it fell. “Both of you, come with me.” Tybalt blinked. She sniffed, standing. “Yes, you, kitty-boy. I don’t leave anyone alone in my apartment without good reason.”

  “Besides, you’d just make me tell you what she says anyway,” I said, smiling weakly as I stood. “At least this way, we’re cutting out the middleman.”

  Tybalt snorted. “I suppose that’s true. Very well, then. Let us go.”

  We followed the Luidaeg to her bedroom. She knocked three times on the doorframe before opening the door, either to dispel some ward too subtle for me to see or to warn something inside to get out of view. Then she turned the knob, waving for us to follow her into the dazzling candlelight on the other side.

  If most of the Luidaeg’s apartment is decorated in “early decay,” her bedroom is more like a cross between a movie version of a medieval castle and an aquarium. Candles cover every available surface, and saltwater tanks filled with strange fish
and stranger creatures line the walls. A sea dragon the length of my arm swam in the largest tank, casting a disapproving pearl-eyed gaze over everything it surveyed. I couldn’t sleep in that room if you paid me, but the Luidaeg likes it; it’s the one room in her apartment that she bothers to take care of. The few times I’ve seen it, it’s been spotless, lit by those ever-burning candles . . . and candlelight is no comfort to me. Not since Blind Michael.

  The Luidaeg saw my shudder. There was a trace of sympathy in her expression as she closed the door, saying, “My little brother left his marks on people who knew him.”

  “You can say that again.” I tried to focus on a tank of orange-and-white-striped hippocampi—tiny, literal sea horses that chased each other in and out of the colorful anemones lining their tank, their miniature hooves lashing. “So what are we in here for?”

  “You need to go to the Undersea.” The Luidaeg opened a drawer in her nightstand, pulling out a long, wicked-looking pin crusted with pearls and loops of verdigrisstained silver. Straightening, she said imperiously, “Give me your hand.”

  “Is this one of those things where you injure me to make a point?” I asked, already extending my left hand toward her.

  “Yes.” She lashed out like a striking snake, burying the pin in the meaty part of my thumb. I’d been expecting the pain—I’ve learned to anticipate bleeding once the Luidaeg has a weapon—but I yelped all the same, jerking my wounded hand away from her. Tybalt hissed, suddenly beside me.

  “Settle down, kitty-cat; I’ll be needing your blood in a moment,” said the Luidaeg, right before she drove the pin into the palm of her own hand. Voice still calm, she continued, “It’s all a matter of getting the right mix. Toby’s not a shapeshifter, which is bad for our purposes, but she’s easily changed, which is good for them. It’s just a matter of telling her what to be—and how to come back to what she is.”

  “No big, then,” I said numbly, trying not to look at the pin sticking out of the Luidaeg’s hand. I hate the sight of blood.

  Tybalt’s hand was a heavy, welcome weight on my shoulder. “My blood only knows one transformation, and cats can’t breathe underwater,” he said.

  “True. But your blood knows what it is to go from one thing to another and back again.” The Luidaeg smiled, pulling the pin free. “Mine’s a bit more malleable, and I figure she’d like to go back to her semi-original shape when she’s done.”

  “The word ‘semi’ is a problem for me in that sentence,” I said.

  “Like you’re mint in the box right now? You are what you were made to be, you’re not what you’ve always been—your poor body is almost as confused as you are.” She walked to the tank where the sea dragon swam and knocked her finger against the glass. “Come to the surface, Ketea. I need you.”

  “What, precisely, are you attempting to do?” demanded Tybalt.

  “What I was asked to do. Send October down to the depths and bring her back again, with no nasty loopholes or conditions to complicate our lives.” The sea dragon stuck its head out of the water. The Luidaeg stroked it with a finger, cooing in what sounded like Greek before continuing, “Normally, I’d charge for something like this, but since you’re doing it for me—and it amuses the shit out of me—we’ll call this a freebie.”

  “That’s sweet of you,” I said blandly.

  “I know.” The Luidaeg stroked her dragon’s head one more time before pinching a scale between her thumb and forefinger and plucking it loose. The dragon hissed at her. “Hush, now, Ketea. You’re a good boy. I’ll bring you an eel tomorrow.”

  The dragon seemed to approve of this. It stopped hissing and ducked back beneath the surface of the water.

  The Luidaeg smiled indulgently as she turned back toward us. “He does love eels,” she said. Then her expression hardened, attention fixing on Tybalt. “Hand, kitty-cat.”

  Tybalt narrowed his eyes as he extended his hand toward her, but didn’t pull away as she drove the pin in her hand into the meaty part of his thumb.

  “Should we be getting worried about infection?” I asked, looking at my own hand to keep from seeing Tybalt bleed. The place where she’d stabbed me was already scabbing over. Bouncing back fast seems to be a Dóchas Sidhe trait. It’s hard to know for sure, since as far as I know, I’m the only one in existence. Amandine doesn’t count—she’s our Firstborn.

  “Give me a little credit, will you?” I looked back as she pulled the pin from Tybalt’s hand. She dipped it in the water of the sea dragon’s tank three times in quick succession before holding it, and the scale, out to me. “Here you go.”

  It’s always best to take what the Luidaeg offers you. I did so, holding pin and scale at arm’s length. “What do I do with them?” I asked.

  “When the time comes, you swallow the scale and jam the pin into your leg.” The Luidaeg mimed stabbing herself in the thigh, smiling in an unsettling fashion. “You’ll have five hours after that. Just don’t fight it.”

  I glanced uneasily at Tybalt, who was staring at her with such intensity that she would have been in danger if looks could actually kill. “What, exactly, will it do?”

  “What you asked for.” She opened the bedroom door. A thin stream of red-black blood from her puncture wound ran down the side of her hand, making the entire room smell like a marsh. “Now get out of here. I have a Duchess to contact, and you have a war to prevent. Time isn’t stopping while we stand around here like a bunch of idiots.”

  “I’m going,” I said. I slid the scale into my jacket pocket, sticking the pin through a fold of the lining. I wasn’t worried about losing it so much as I was worried about poking myself by mistake. “You’re not going to tell me what this is going to do, are you?”

  “No,” said the Luidaeg, and left the room.

  Tybalt slanted a glance in my direction. “Is she always this forthcoming?”

  “Oh, no.” I smiled wryly. “Sometimes, she’s downright obscure.”

  He actually laughed as we left the Luidaeg’s bedroom. It sounded so natural, so normal, that I found myself joining in. We kept laughing as the Luidaeg ushered us down the hall and out the door, back into the cool mist that blanketed the San Francisco night. War was coming, I was almost certainly going to wind up underwater before things were finished, but we could still laugh.

  That was nice.

  TEN

  THE LAUGHTER FADED once the door was closed. Tybalt waited until we were out of the Luidaeg’s alley before saying, “The first time we met, she was very properly formal. This time . . . she was very unlike what I had expected.”

  “She tends to have that effect on people.” I drew my jacket a little tighter, shivering. “I think she enjoys it.”

  “She is only the second of the First that I have met—that I know of. There may be others, hiding among us, choosing obscurity over infamy.”

  “I wouldn’t be surprised.” I gave him a sidelong look. “Who was the first?”

  “Your mother.”

  I grimaced. “I’ll never get used to that.” The car appeared in the mist ahead of us. I quickened my steps. “Come on. We need to hurry up and get to Goldengreen if we’re also planning to hit Shadowed Hills tonight.” I glanced up. “If you’re coming?”

  “We’ve been through this,” Tybalt said, somewhat sharply, and got into the car. I followed, occupying myself with buckling my belt before looking up to ask him to fasten his. Then I stopped, just looking at him.

  Tybalt was sitting stock-still, staring out the windshield like a man on the way to his own execution. It was clear he didn’t want to be there, but he wasn’t willing to leave or take the Shadow Roads to Goldengreen if I wasn’t willing to go with him. He might hate the car, but he was sticking with me.

  That sort of loyalty is rare. “You can ride as a cat if that would be better,” I offered. “I can listen to the radio.”

  He almost jumped before twisting to stare at me. I was on the verge of taking back the suggestion as a bad idea when he nodded. “That m
ight be . . . for the best. I don’t think I like the car.”

  “Okay,” I said, trying not to show my relief. I knew how much that admission must have cost him. “Go ahead and shift down, and we’ll get going.”

  Transformation is graphic and painful. Shapeshifting isn’t. The smell of pennyroyal and musk filled the car, and Tybalt was gone, replaced by a tabby tomcat with one tattered ear. He stretched, tail twitching as he dug his claws into the upholstery. Then he curled up, watching me intently.

  Sometimes I envy shapeshifters. They make it look so easy. I flashed Tybalt a smile as I started the engine. “Besides, you’re quieter this way.”

  If he had a response, he wasn’t willing to return to human form to deliver it. He yawned instead, displaying his teeth before closing his eyes. I smiled to myself and started the car.

  No rest for the wicked.

  Riding in cat form really did seem to soothe Tybalt’s nerves; he stayed curled on the seat, alternately grooming himself and feigning sleep. Traffic in the city was light, and we made good time to the San Francisco Art Museum. All the lights were off inside. I’d been expecting that. It was way past closing time, after all.

  I parked the car in the deepest shadows I could find before prodding Tybalt. He rose and stretched, giving a few cursory licks to one paw. Then he looked at me expectantly. I raised an eyebrow. “What?”

  He looked from my door to his, flattening an ear.

  I sighed, unfastening my belt. “Yes, O master.” I got out of the car, walking around to open the passenger side door. “Just hurry it up, okay?”

  Tybalt leaped out onto the blacktop, the smell of pennyroyal and musk already gathering. He reared up onto his hind legs and was suddenly a man again, variegated hair in disarray. Slicking it back with one hand, he offered a fang-baring smile before snapping his fingers and clothing himself in the glittering film of a human disguise. “You were right; that was much better.”