Seanan McGuire - One Salt Sea

May’s silence told me she knew I was right. Finally, she sighed, and said, “Just be careful.”

“If I can,” I said, and hung up. I turned to look at Connor.

“I’m not leaving you, so don’t ask,” he said quietly.

I smiled. “I wasn’t going to. Let me make one more call, and then we’re out of here.” I started to raise the phone again, and stopped as the half-forgotten shell in my jacket pocket began to vibrate. I pulled it out, looking at it in bemusement for a moment before lifting it to my ear. “Hello?”

“Come get me,” said the Luidaeg.

I blinked. “So what, you call me now? This is new.”

“I thought you might appreciate skipping the headache.”

“That’s uncommonly considerate.”

“I have my moments.” The Luidaeg sounded tired. “You’re going to want me for what happens next.”

“Luidaeg, what are you—”

“Did you really think I wouldn’t start keeping tabs on you after the night-haunts came and complained to me about you summoning them again? I heard everything that happened in that apartment, and I’m telling you to come and get me. Now .”

The Luidaeg had neglected to mention her shell could be used as a two-way listening device. Oh, what fun it is, to live in a world where “full disclosure” is something that only happens to other people. “I thought you couldn’t be directly involved.”

“In stopping the war, no. In bringing those kids home . . . yeah. Now stop screwing around and get over here. Don’t worry about the traffic. I’m taking care of it.”

That simple statement was enough to raise a hundred horrific images, some of which wouldn’t have been out of place in a movie about a giant rubber monster rising out of the San Francisco Bay and starting to lay waste to everything in sight. “Luidaeg . . .”

“Not like that. What do you take me for?”

“The sea witch.”

It was her turn to pause, before allowing, “Fair enough. I’ll be outside when you get here. Make it fast.” With that, she was gone. I scowled at the shell before shoving it back into my pocket.

“Looks like we’re making a pickup,” I snarled, and started the car.

“Oh, what fun,” said Connor, deadpan. “Adding the sea witch to today’s field trip is probably the only thing that could make it even better .”

I scowled at him. He shrugged, expression so innocent that I couldn’t help laughing. “Jerk,” I said.

“I have to do something to make you keep me around when this is over.”

I was still laughing when Quentin stuck his head into the front seat, tapping my shoulder to get my attention. “Toby?”

“Yeah?” I glanced his way.

“What you did back there—have you done that before?”

I’d been hoping to put this conversation off for a while. Say, maybe, forever? Forever would have been nice. “Yes,” I said. “Why?”

“It was . . . it was . . .” He paused, clearly searching for the words. Finally, he said, “It wasn’t honorable.”

Oberon spare me from pureblood honor. “I didn’t break the Law, I didn’t really hurt him, and I got the information we needed. He wouldn’t have given it to us any other way. Sometimes, when your options are limited, honor takes a back seat to necessity.” And it had felt good. That was probably the worst part: that I used the things Devin taught me, the way he taught me to use them, and it felt good .

Sometimes I lie to myself a little bit, and pretend that Sylvester was the only man who taught me to grow up. Then things happen—things always happen—and I remember that nothing was ever that simple.

Quentin nodded, expression thoughtful. “Am I going to have to do that?”

“That’s up to you. Someday, you may find yourself in a position where you feel like you don’t have a choice. When that happens, it’s better if you have a way to deal with it. You can only repair your honor if you survive.”

“I guess.” He pulled back into his own seat, brooding. I just drove.

The Luidaeg’s apartment wasn’t far from Bucer’s. She was waiting for us on the corner, looking as human as I’d ever seen her, with her curly black hair bound in untidy braids. Her cable-knit sweater was too big, bagging around her waist and making her look even younger than her human mien normally did. She could have passed for an awkward nineteen year old still getting used to her own skin, as long as whoever she was trying to fool never saw the almost-infinite age in her dark brown eyes.

I pulled up to the curb, idling the engine while Connor opened his door and climbed out, clearly intending to get into the back seat. Quentin was already getting out, grinning as he threw himself toward the Luidaeg. “Luidaeg!” he said, any lingering tension washed away by his joy at seeing the sea witch.

She caught him in a one-armed hug, returning his smile. It was a sincere expression, made all the sweeter by the knowledge of how rare her smiles tended to be. “Hey yourself, kiddo,” she said, letting him go and ruffling his hair. “Dad’s teeth, you’re getting huge. They need to stop feeding you. Dead kids don’t grow much.”

“Sometimes I consider it, but I don’t want to fill out the paperwork for a replacement,” I said. “Come on.”

Connor stayed where he was, blinking as the Luidaeg followed Quentin into the back seat. He looked at me for guidance. I shrugged, and motioned for him to get back in the car. We needed to get moving, and if the Luidaeg wanted to sit with Quentin, that was her business.

Quentin met the Luidaeg after Blind Michael stole Quentin’s human girlfriend. The Luidaeg was the one who gave him the chance to save her . . . by giving her up. He could have hated her for that. I probably would have. Instead, she wound up added to his personal pantheon of people worth trusting. Boys are weird.

I met the Luidaeg’s eyes in the rearview mirror. Her irises were a plain human brown, and mine were the no-color mist gray I inherited from my mother. I scowled, mostly at my own carelessness. Until that moment, I hadn’t actually thought about the fact that I wasn’t wearing a human disguise. Getting Gillian back would be a pyrrhic victory if I betrayed the existence of Faerie in the process.

The Luidaeg lifted her eyebrows, waiting for me to speak.

“Buckle up,” I said, and pulled away from the curb.

“I’ve cleared the roads between here and Muir Woods,” said the Luidaeg. “You can go as fast as you need to. No one’s going to stop us.”

“This is probably where I’m supposed to say ‘neat trick,’ but I can do that with a don’t-look-here and a little fancy driving.” Still, I hit the gas, accelerating to a speed that bordered on unsafe. True to the Luidaeg’s word, there were no other cars in sight as we drove out of her magically-generated mist. “Where is everybody? Please don’t tell me you’ve turned the entire mortal population of the city into pillars of salt. I really don’t know how I’d explain that to the Queen.”

“There’s more than one way to get almost anywhere,” said the Luidaeg. Her tone was dismissive, like casting spells on half the city was no big deal. “People are just choosing those alternate routes tonight. That’s all.”

“What . . . what about the ones who were going places that didn’t have an alternate route?” asked Connor uneasily. He sounded like he didn’t really want to know the answer to his own question. That made one of us.

“They decided to do something else with their time,” said the Luidaeg. “The movie theaters are doing excellent business. Now drive , October.”

Her command was sharp enough that I sped up another ten miles per hour. The buildings outside the car windows were starting to blur and blend together, flickering past too quickly for me to make out individual details. “How do you know you’re going to be needed tonight?” I asked, raising my voice to be heard above the engine.