Quentin shot me a grateful look. Connor nodded.
“Sure.” Looking back over his shoulder, he called, “Bill! Three seafood stews and a fish and chips platter to the back.” He glanced at Quentin and added, “And a chocolate milkshake.”
“Large,” said Quentin.
“Got it,” rumbled Bill. “Herself has already been here for a while. I’d move it if I were you.”
“We’re moving,” said Connor. He pushed open the door to the back, shooting me a pleading look before stepping inside. I’d have had to be blind to miss the “please behave” in his expression.
I rolled my eyes, following him into the room, and stopped dead. “Holy . . .”
We could have been standing in the main dining room of a five-star restaurant, the sort that tourists would sell kidneys to get reservations with. The opposite wall consisted of three sets of massive sliding glass doors, leading out to a balcony that might, on a warmer night, have been a pleasant place to nurse a cocktail or two. They were open, letting a breeze blow in to circulate the air. The other walls were varnished redwood, and the tabletops were gray slate shot through with veins of white. An appetizer in a place like this would cost me a month’s rent. Maybe two.
Dianda Lorden sat alone at the sole occupied table. A half-empty plate of seafood linguine was pushed to one side, and she was sipping from a wineglass of cloudy liquid. Whatever she was drinking was probably heavily laced with salt. Merrow shunt salt almost as fast as they take it in. Normally, just breathing underwater would replenish her body’s supply. Up here, she needed to find other ways to add it to her diet.
The other local Duchess of my acquaintance, Luna Torquill, nearly died from salt poisoning not that long ago. The irony didn’t escape me.
Dianda seemed to be wearing a long blue dress and sitting in an oddly low chair. I looked again and realized that it was actually a short blue blouse; she was sitting in a wheelchair. That made sense. The wheels would give her a certain amount of mobility out of the water without the strain of being bipedal—and she was definitely
She looked up, gaze going from me to Quentin, and finally to Connor, before she raised her eyebrows in silent question.
If anyone was going to justify Quentin’s presence, it was me. “He’s my squire, Your Grace.” On land, any invitation issued to a knight automatically includes their squires. I didn’t know if things worked differently in the Undersea, but Connor hadn’t said anything, and I trusted him to keep me from sticking my foot too far into my mouth.
Dianda’s attention swung to me. “Countess Daye,” she said, raising her wineglass for another sip. “Patrick couldn’t join us. He was afraid you’d decide to knock him over again.” A slight quirk of her lips told me she was joking. Maybe.
“I could have decided not to, Your Grace, but then he’d probably have been out cold until sometime next century.” Elf-shot won’t kill a pureblood, but it’ll put a major crimp in their social life. “I appreciate your seeing me on such short notice.”
“When the Luidaeg asks me to do something, I try to oblige.” She set her glass aside. “Besides, I know you. You’re Sylvester’s changeling knight, or you were, until they decided to give you the Winterrose’s County. You’re the one who killed Blind Michael. The Undersea owes you a debt of gratitude for that. He took from us, too.” She paused before adding, more quietly, “You’re Amandine’s daughter.”
“All true,” I admitted, walking over to her table. “May we sit?”
Dianda looked at me appraisingly before turning to Connor. “Take the kid to the front and feed him. Feed yourself, too. Those landers let you get way too thin.”
“Quentin, go with Connor,” I said, still facing Dianda.
“But—”
“You’ll be between us and the door. Now go eat your fish. We’ll be out in a minute.”
“Come on,” said Connor. Quentin doubtless wanted to stay and argue more, but his training won out; arguing with me in front of a Duchess would have been inappropriate. Two sets of footsteps moved away.
Dianda’s flukes slapped the floor as the sound of the closing door echoed through the room. “Now you may sit.”
“Good.” I took the chair across from her. “Nice, um, fins.”
“Legs are tiring when the water is distant. I need to save my strength.”
“Right, about that . . . I want to find your sons. I need your help for that.”
“Why don’t you try asking your queen?” she asked mildly.
“Because I don’t think she has them.” I shrugged. “Everyone knows the Queen of the Mists hates me. She wouldn’t let me anywhere near this investigation if she had your sons, because she knows that if I find them, you’ll get them back. Not her, not anyone else,
Dianda reached for her wineglass, picking it up and turning it in her hand. She seemed to reach a decision, because, without looking up, she said, “Their names are Dean and Peter. Dean’s older—he’s almost eighteen—and he’s less willing to trust strangers. He lost his best friend to a fishing boat a few years back, and it’s made him cautious.”
“There’s no way he’d have gone willingly?”
“Not unless it was someone he knew, and my demesne has been searched. We deal with conspiracies quickly and permanently in the Undersea. If it were one of my people, the boys would be home by now.”
“What’s Peter like?”
“Innocent. Sweet. He’s twelve.” Dianda’s expression was pained. “He likes the sun. Says it’s pretty. He takes more after my side of the family.”
“Takes after . . .” Dianda was Merrow, but Patrick was Daoine Sidhe. Daoine Sidhe can’t breathe water. “How do you keep Dean alive?”
Her wince told me I’d guessed right. “The Court alchemist brews a special potion for him and for his father.”
“How often does the dosage need to be refreshed?”
“Once a day.”
If Dean was being held underwater, he was either dead already or would be soon. The son of a mermaid, drowning. There was a sort of horrible poetry to the idea. “So we don’t have much time. Do you know anything that might help me find them?”
She paused, studying me as she put her wineglass down again. “You mean it, don’t you? This isn’t some crazy attempt to stall for time. You’re serious.”
“Even if you said that proving the innocence of the land Courts wouldn’t make you call off the attack, I’d look for your kids.” I shook my head. “Children aren’t pawns. They deserve better than this.”
Dianda offered her hand across the table. “That’s what I needed to hear.”
“Good.” I took her hand. Her skin was chilly; almost cold. I let go. “I’d like your permission to visit Saltmist. I need to see the place the boys were taken from.”
Dianda nodded. “How, exactly, were you planning to manage that?”
“I’d say ‘scuba gear,’ but I have something a little better.” I opened my jacket, showing her the pin. “The Luidaeg made this for me; she says it should let me visit your land safely. Well. Assuming we count ‘capable of surviving’ as safety. I guess you could still have me shot on sight.”
“The Luidaeg gave you that?” said Dianda. Her expression was torn, half-dubious, half-hopeful.
“More like made it for me, but yeah. She used my blood, her blood, the blood of the local King of Cats . . . it was a production. Things with her generally are.”
“I . . . she said I should meet with you. She didn’t mention that.” Her flukes slapped the floor again before she nodded. “All right. You are welcome in my waters.”
It was a ritual phrase, and that meant it carried the weight of law. I nodded the thanks I couldn’t give her. “Good. Now, I was wondering if—” I paused, eyeing the glass doors with sudden suspicion. The fog outside reduced visibility to mere feet. I was getting real sick of fog. “Did you hear that?”
“Hear what?”
