One Salt Sea

Cephali move more slowly in water than Merrow—then again, so do most speedboats. Keeping up with Helmi was easy. Not even the green dress slowed me down, although it probably looked pretty silly, especially with the leather jacket. Mermaids in skirts are not likely to be the next big fashion trend.

The question of why Anceline didn’t come into the knowe to meet me was answered when Helmi led me out one of the palace windows and into open water. A pod of Cetacea was waiting there, causing me to stop and simply stare. Anceline was reasonably normal-sized, as the fae measure such things; her human half was bigger than any human, but still smaller than a Bridge Troll, and even with her tail, she was no more than twelve feet long. Two of the other Cetacea matched her in coloring and size. The other four were almost twice as large, and resembled gray whales, not orcas.

Helmi gave me an amused look, hooking my wrist with a tentacle as she swam past. I let myself be towed, beginning to swim under my own power once it became clear she was planning to pull me all the way over to the pod of waiting Cetacea.

Anceline swam forward to meet us, executing an odd rolling curtsy before gesturing for me to grab her dorsal fin. I blinked. She repeated the gesture with more urgency. Time was ticking past, and while I didn’t think I was quite to the point where the Luidaeg’s spell would break, I didn’t want to risk it. Besides, it wasn’t like I could argue with her while we were underwater. I motioned for Helmi to release my wrist before swimming the last few feet to where Anceline waited and grabbing the indicated dorsal fin with my right hand, holding my clothes against my chest with my left. My tail stretched down the length of her body, my own gauzy flukes lying over the top of her powerful black-and-white ones.

I should probably have expected her to take off like, I don’t know, a killer whale with a mermaid hanging onto her back end. For some reason, I didn’t expect it to be that fast. Merrow move at a speed that seems unrealistic. Cetacea make them seem slow.

Anceline and the others cut through the water like they were running a race with themselves, hauling me in their wake. I would never have been able to keep up on my own. I doubt Dianda would have been able to keep up. As it was, I held on as hard as I could and kept my head down, praying I wouldn’t inhale a fish or something while we were on the way up.

We passed through the changes in temperature almost too fast to feel them. The water around us darkened as we moved back into the mortal seas, then started growing rapidly lighter as we approached the surface. The Cetacea weren’t slowing down. That probably should have worried me, but I was too busy hanging on for dear life to really think about it.

More things I didn’t expect to do first thing in the morning: get hauled out of the water by a breaching Cetace who felt like translating her momentum into a wave-shattering leap. I had just enough time to realize that the sun being up would mean humans on the docks before we fell back to the water, Anceline laughing all the while. The other Cetacea were breaking the surface all around us, laughing with her. At least some of us were having a good time.

I let go of Anceline, popping back up to the surface and swimming a few feet away to avoid being hit by falling Cetacea. I turned to look toward the docks as soon as I was clear, fully expecting a throng of humans to be pointing in our direction, shouting about mermaids.

No one was even glancing in our direction. Oh, the dockworkers and passing tourists were there. They just didn’t seem to realize that we were there, too.

Anceline laughed again as she swam over to me. “They do not see us,” she said. I didn’t recognize her accent, something sweet and lilting and entirely foreign. “We cast our look-away as we rose.”

It took me a moment to realize that she meant a don’t-look-here spell. I must have been too distracted by being hauled through the water to notice the casting. “Nice trick,” I said.

The rest of the pod finished their leaps and swam over to surround me in a wide circle, their faces still contorted with mirth. Anceline smiled and gestured for me to follow her as she began swimming toward the shore.

The other Cetacea swam after us, although the larger members of the pod stopped when the water began getting shallower. Anceline continued farther than any of the others, but even she stopped well before we reached the dock. “This is as close as I can go,” she said. “Can you finish the journey on your own?”

“I think so, yes,” I said. “I appreciate the escort.”

She waved a webbed black-and-white hand. “An excuse to visit the surface is rare and should be seized. We swim in blessed seas.”

“Um, sure.”

“Open waters and sweet tides, little land creature.” Anceline smiled, not unkindly. “If we see you again, we shall go swimming fast.”

“Right. I’ll look forward to that.” In my nightmares, I’d be looking forward to that. Probably every night for the foreseeable future.

Anceline turned and whistled. The other Cetacea nodded, and waved to me before ducking beneath the waves. In a matter of seconds, I was alone, bobbing in the water a few hundred yards off the San Francisco shore.

Never let it be said that I don’t know how to live an interesting life.

I swam for the shore as fast as I could, fighting the waves as I tried to keep my head above the water. The weight of my leather jacket and the bundle of clothing I was still holding didn’t help matters, but I wasn’t letting them go after hauling them this far. None of the dockworkers looked my way as I swam by, but I wasn’t pushing my luck. I chose a deserted pier as my destination, one that seemed to have the least amount of human activity.

I had reached the dock and was trying to figure out how to climb out of the water when I realized what my next problem was going to be: with Connor in Saltmist, I didn’t have a ride home, and with Quentin back at the apartment, I didn’t have a phone.

“Oh, Titania’s ass,” I grumbled.

“You kiss your momma with that mouth?” asked a rumbling voice. Something I’d taken for a stack of fishing crates unfolded, resolving into the craggy, familiar form of Danny McReady, cab driver. Even wearing a human disguise, he was big enough to block me mostly from view. “I mean, not recently, I guess.”

“Danny!” I waved with my free hand. “Thank Oberon you’re here. I really didn’t want to steal a car today.”

“That’s my favorite paragon of law an’ order,” said Danny fondly. He walked to the edge of the dock, squatting to peer down at me. “You want some help getting out of there? Never took you for a distance swimmer, you know.”

“Believe me, I’m really, really not.” I heaved my clothes onto the dock, where they landed with a wet “splat.” I held my hands up toward him. “Pull me out. Don’t make a scene, and don’t drop me.”

“Oh, see, now you’re hurtin’ my feelings. Why would I drop—Titania’s tiny titties, girl, you’re a fucking fish!”

I hit the water hard. That shouldn’t have been a surprise. “Dammit, Danny, I told you not to drop me!” A few dockworkers looked our way. I scowled. “And could you yell a little louder? I don’t think the reporters from the Weekly World News heard you.”

“You didn’t tell me you were a fucking fish!”

“How else was I supposed to visit the Undersea? Rent a submarine?” I was going to shake Quentin for letting Danny come to pick me up without a warning. Literally shake him.

“Oh, ’cause growing some fins was a much more obvious solution.” Danny bent to offer me his hands again, grumbling all the while. “Warn a fella next time you’re going to do something crazy-ass like that.”

“Next time, I’ll make sure you get a written note. Hang on.” I grabbed his hands, focusing on trading fins and scales for legs and functional feet. “Now pull me up.”

“If you’re sure . . .” he said, and pulled me, legs and all, up to the dock. “Much better.”

“I thought so, too,” I said. I barely had my feet under me when a sharp pain pierced my upper thigh. I dropped to my hands and knees, clamping my right hand over the source of the pain. The Luidaeg’s pin was sticking out of my flesh, the metal slick with blood. I barely managed to keep from driving it farther in. “Ow, dammit!”

“What’s wrong?” Danny demanded.