Seanan McGuire - One Salt Sea

Danny hesitated. When he spoke again, it was slowly, with the sort of tone one might use when talking to a crazy person. “Uh, Tobes? Are you really askin’ me to make a rock your star witness?”

“Yeah. You have a problem with that?”

“Fuck, no.” He laughed merrily. “This is the best thing I’ve done all month. I’ll getcha your answers. Count on me.” The line went dead.

I sighed, looking at the phone for a long moment before tucking it away in my pocket. “I sort of think I am counting on you,” I said, to no one in particular.

“Toby?”

“Huh?” I looked up, meeting Connor’s eyes. He held my long-neglected Thermos out to me.

“Coffee,” he said. “For the road.”

“Oh.” I took it, smiling a little. “Good thinking.”

“Yeah. I guess I know you pretty well.” He took a deep breath. “I need to tell you something.”

“Connor, this really isn’t the best time. Gilly’s missing, and we need to—”

“I’ve asked Duchess Lorden to release me from my service to Saltmist. After what you did today, I’m pretty sure the Duke will support my request.”

That got my attention. “Wait—what?”

“I said, I’m leaving Saltmist. I’m leaving the protection of the Undersea. Patrick left one Kingdom for another in order to be with the woman he loved, and so can I.” He smiled uncertainly, looking through his eyelashes at me. “I know I said I didn’t want to be banished, and I still don’t, but I’m staying with you, October. If you’ll have me, I’m yours. I won’t fight against you, and I won’t let them take me away from you again.”

“Connor . . .” I stopped mid-sentence, too stunned to know how to continue. The world was falling down around us, my daughter was missing, and now Connor was giving up the Undersea to stay with me . . . and that didn’t even begin to touch the topic of Tybalt, and the kiss he’d given me before he threw me into the shadows. It was all too much to process.

A look of deep uncertainty flickered across Connor’s face. “Don’t you want me to stay?”

That, at least, was something I could answer. “With all my heart,” I said, stepping forward, and then I was kissing him, and he was kissing me, and for a few beautiful seconds, everything else fell away. Maybe everything else was a mess, but here, finally, was something I could hold onto. Connor was staying.

Unfortunately, like most good things, the moment couldn’t last. I pulled away from him, reluctantly. “Come on,” I said. “It’s time to get to work.” Oberon preserve us all.

IDROVE THE LENGTH OF the docks with my windows down, letting the wind blow through the car. It carried the scent of a hundred deaths—mostly fish and pigeons, although the city’s human police were going to have at least one homicide case on their hands by the end of the night—but none of them was our Selkie. I snarled something wordless under my breath, earning a concerned glance from Connor, and rolled the windows up. Time to head for Bucer’s.

Having a full car kept me from needing to talk much, which was a relief, since my head was pounding and I couldn’t stop coming up with nightmare scenarios, all of them ending with Gillian’s death. Connor sat next to me in the front, while the back was filled with over-excited teenage boys. Raj was better at riding in cars than his uncle was, which wasn’t saying much, and Quentin was grumpy because he couldn’t get to the radio when he was sitting behind me.

“Can you please change the station?” he begged. “I think my eardrums are melting.”

“I would very much like to see that,” said Raj. He sounded sincere enough to make Quentin stop complaining for a moment. Then Raj started to snicker, Quentin smacked him, and the cycle started up again.

“I swear to Oberon, I will turn this car around and nobody will get to talk to the creepy underworld jerk,” I said, turning off the nice, ostensibly well-maintained main road and starting to make my way into one of the city’s less reputable neighborhoods.

“You can’t do that,” said Quentin, reasonably. “You need to talk to Bucer, remember?”

I muttered something nasty under my breath, and tried again: “Don’t make me duct tape your wrists and ankles together and shove you in the trunk while I deal with Bucer on my own.”

The silence that followed my statement lasted twice as long as the one that followed Raj’s joke about melting eardrums. Finally, Raj said, “I honestly believe she’d do that.” His voice was hushed, like he thought I’d courteously fail to hear if I thought he was whispering.

“So do I,” said Quentin.

My teenage passengers were silent for the rest of the drive. Quentin didn’t question my taste in music even when the DJ announced a thirty-minute block of Bruce Spring-steen songs without commercials. Connor was also silent, but for different reasons; anyone who looked at him could see that he was as tired as I was, and he wasn’t nearly as accustomed to running on empty.

Bucer’s neighborhood was on the line where “shabby” gave way to “slum.” Perfectly reasonable single-family homes that needed nothing but a coat of paint and some new windows sat side by side with decrepit apartment buildings whose inhabitants might well view fire as a viable means of home improvement. I parked between a rusted Volvo and a pickup truck that seemed held together with bungee cords.

“The ground rules,” I announced, twisting to eye my passengers sternly. “First, whatever I say goes. If I say we’re leaving, we’re leaving, and you’re not arguing with me. Got it?”

Quentin and Raj nodded enthusiastically. Connor frowned.

“I’m taking silence to mean ‘yes’ right now. Second, none of you raises a hand unless it’s in self-defense—with the stress here on self . The odds are pretty good that he’ll swing at me if he’s holding something back. I need to deal with him myself.”

Connor’s frown became a scowl. “Are you saying I’m supposed to sit back and let you get beaten up by a thug?” he asked.

“No, you’re supposed to sit back and let me mop the floor with a thug stupid enough to throw down with me. I can take Bucer O’Malley. What I can’t take is the hit my reputation will take if it looks like someone else is fighting my battles for me.” I smiled, trying to look comforting. “I know it’s hard, but trust me; I didn’t learn to fight from people like Sylvester and Etienne. They fight fair. I learned to fight from Devin and his lieutenants, and none of them ever started a fair fight in their lives.”

Devin’s biggest advice about fighting always involved the proverbial “bringing a gun to a knife fight.” That was sort of what I was doing. Bucer remembered me as an untried changeling with a lot of dumb luck that she could use to maneuver herself into the positions she needed to be in. I’m not quite that girl anymore. Oh, I still do my share of relying on luck—why mess with a good thing?—but these days, I back it up with a lot more actual skill.

And I still don’t fight fair.

Connor didn’t look happy. Quentin seemed confused but willing to go along with it. Raj, on the other hand, looked delighted.

“Is that all?” he asked. “Because if it is, can we get on to the part where you kick this guy’s butt all the way back to Market Street?”

“There’s one more thing.” I unbuckled my seat belt, reaching for the door. “Dealing with Bucer isn’t like dealing with the Luidaeg. He doesn’t just cheat when he fights. So don’t make any bets with him, don’t take anything he offers you, and for the love of Maeve, don’t eat or drink until we’re out of his apartment.”