One Salt Sea

used to rule in Silences didn’t like the proclamations our new Queen was making, and when diplomacy failed, they decided to overthrow her. What they didn’t count on was the Mists having an army of its own.

The war lasted six days.

Hundreds died on both sides: when Faerie goes to war, the night-haunts eat very, very well. When the dust cleared, the ruling family of Silences was broken, their heirs scattered and their army banished by the man who took the throne—a man who, coincidentally, used to be a Baron in the Court of the Mists. We’ve had good relations with the Kingdom of Silences ever since.

Of course, it’s not that hard to have good relations with a puppet government. It’s also easy to let your army fall into disrepair when your nearest neighbors would never dream of raising a hand against you. Silences might get the last laugh after all.

“That fight ended long ago,” said Sylvester. “Now it falls to us to keep the next war from beginning.”

I reached across our small circle to take his hand. “It won’t,” I said. “Not if I have anything to say about it.”

SEVEN

STARLIGHT FROSTED THE BEACH in gilded silver as we stepped from the shelter of the cave and waded through the water to the beach, all of us emerging perfectly dry, courtesy of Connor. Sylvester gave me a fierce hug and turned to walk, hand-in-hand with Luna, toward the parking lot.

April watched them go before turning back to me. “Is there anything else I can do?”

“Just get home safely, and tell your people to stay out of danger.” I allowed myself a brief smile. “I don’t have time to save their butts right now.”

“Acknowledged,” she said, and vanished in a haze of static, presumably returning to her escort.

Connor cast a quick don’t-look-here over the both of us, the briny smell of his magic blending into the smell of the waves. He took my free hand once the spell was complete, his eyes going to the water. “Toby . . .”

“I know.” I followed the direction of his gaze. “If it comes to that, I won’t blame you.”

“That’ll make one of us.”

“Connor . . .” The Luidaeg’s shell was getting steadily colder, reaching the point where “freeze” becomes “burn.” I shivered. “I shouldn’t have let April leave without asking if she had a phone. Do you have a phone?”

Connor blinked, apparently thrown. “Uh . . . no? I spend half my time underwater. They make diving watches, but they don’t make diving cell phones yet.”

“Oh, root and branch.” May’s been trying to get me to start carrying a cell phone for ages now. I hate it when she’s right. “Do you mind taking a detour? I think the Luidaeg’s trying to get hold of me.” I didn’t want to pull the shell out while I was standing on a public beach, don’t-look-here or not. It might do anything, from transmitting her voice to exploding, and I didn’t want to deal.

“I . . . guess not.” Connor looked uneasy. I couldn’t exactly blame him for that. If the Luidaeg is a legendary monster to most of Faerie, she’s a well-known, and very real, danger in the Undersea. “If she wants you.”

“Good. Come on.”

The parking lot was empty by the time we reached my car. I passed Connor the arrow, still wrapped in Patrick’s vest, and unlocked the doors. He offered the arrow back once we were in the car. I shook my head.

“Keep it while I drive. Try not to stab yourself.”

Connor snorted. “There’s a real vote of confidence.”

“Stick around. Maybe you’ll get another one.”

He smiled a bit at that, setting the arrow across his knees with the pointy end toward the door. If anything got stabbed, it would be my poor car, which was better than the alternatives.

Jokes aside, the enormity of what was ahead of us was staggering. For Connor, this was a choice between loyalties. For me, it was just too damn much to think about. My mind kept skipping tracks, too overloaded to settle on which was more important—the Lorden children or the threat of war.

From the look on Connor’s face, his thoughts were equally grim. I cleared my throat. “Are you sure you’re okay with coming along on this?”

“I have to be.”

“Why?”

“Because I’d rather deal with the Luidaeg than risk winding up on different sides of the battlefield.”

I grimaced. “We’re not going to war. I just need to find the kids, and this all goes away.”

“That’s assuming your Queen didn’t kidnap them herself.”

I didn’t miss his choice of pronouns. The Undersea is technically part of the system of Courts and Kingdoms established by Oberon, but “technically” is a big word. There’s a King somewhere in the Pacific Ocean. If Saltmist wanted to claim to belong to his Kingdom instead of to the Mists, nobody could really stop them. “I don’t think she did, and anyway, it’s not a good thing to say,” I said carefully. “She was ready to banish me for suggesting it.”

“Yeah, well, the Queen’s not here now, and I don’t trust her.”

“There’s something we have in common; neither do I. I get a little wary when people try to kill me.”

“And I get a little pissed when people try to kill either one of us.” He sighed. “Toby, you know what’s going to happen if things get bad. I—”

“Do you really want to talk about that right now?”

“No.”

“Did you kidnap the Lorden kids?”

“What? No!”

“Then calm down until we get to the Luidaeg’s. We’re going to stop all this from happening, and then it won’t matter.” I flashed him a smile. “That’s the beauty of the future. We get to change it. Okay?”

“Okay.” Connor put his hand on my knee. I put my own hand over it, squeezing gently before returning my focus to staying on the road. It was only eight-thirty—were we really only at the Queen’s Court for an hour? It’s amazing how quickly things can fall apart—and there was too much traffic for me to safely get distracted.

The streets cleared once we moved into the less-reputable stretch of the waterfront, and the smell of the docks slipped in through the vents, filling the car with a familiar mix of fish and sweet decay. Weird as it seems, I found myself relaxing. The Luidaeg was one of Faerie’s monsters, but she was also a friend, and I trusted her.

The Luidaeg’s neighborhood looks like it might topple into the ocean at any moment. The people who live there tend to be the poorest of the poor, the ones who don’t have any other choice. And it’s probably one of the safest places in the city. I looked it up in the police department records once, after using a quick don’t-look-here to keep the police from realizing I wasn’t supposed to be there. Sure, you’ll find drug dealers in the shadows and hookers on the street corners, but no one ever seems to actually get hurt. All the crimes are victimless ones, and even the poorest children don’t go to bed hungry. There’s something to be said for living in the haunt of a fabulous monster.

I parked a block away from her apartment, taking the arrow from Connor before I got out of the car. He scanned the deserted street as he stood. “Um, Toby? Are we in the right place?”

“Not what you expected?”

“From the sea witch? Not really.” Connor shook his head. “I don’t know what I expected. But it wasn’t this.”

Oberon preserve me from purebloods and their expectations. “Just follow my lead, and try not to touch anything.”

I led him down the alley to the Luidaeg’s door, a flat rectangle of rotting wood set in a crumbling frame. The door swung open before I could knock, revealing the Luidaeg herself. Connor froze. That’s a natural response when confronted by the sea witch.

Good thing all my natural responses were burned out years ago. “Hey,” I said.

“What in my mother’s name took you so long?” she snarled, stepping out of the way as she gestured me briskly inside. “I expected you twenty minutes ago.”

“Traffic,” I said. The shell stopped radiating cold as soon as I was over her threshold. I rubbed my thigh