Seanan McGuire - One Salt Sea

“M-Mom?” she whispered, her voice raspy and dry. “Is that—are you—Mom?”

“Oh, baby.” I took a step into the room, trusting the others to watch for any dangers. All I wanted was to get to Gillian as fast as possible, to cut her free and hold her, and never, never let her go. “It’s going to be okay, I promise.”

“Mom . . .” She swallowed hard, the gesture seeming to take everything she had. Then she whispered, in a barelyaudible voice, “Run.”

“It’s too late for that,” said Rayseline, her voice coming acid-sweet and oily from the hallway. We all turned, even the Luidaeg, to see her standing behind us with a longbow in her hands, an arrow nocked and ready to fire. Four Goblins stood behind her, their weapons raised. “It’s been too late for quite some time, don’t you think?” Her smile was radiantly bright. “I’m so glad you could come to my party. We’re all going to have so much fun together.”

“RAYSEL—” CONNOR BEGAN. “Shut up, Connor. I have nothing to say to you. As for the rest of you, stay where you are, or the girl dies.” Raysel took a casual step forward. “And you, sea bitch, you have no power here. I am a descendant of Titania, and I deny you the right to stand against me, or to aid those who would. Do you hear and honor my words?”

“. . . yes,” hissed the Luidaeg, fury dancing in her eyes. “I hear and honor your words.” The glance she cast in my direction confirmed my sudden fear: she wouldn’t be able to help us. Power like hers always comes with a price. The phrase Rayseline uttered was apparently part of the price the Luidaeg had to pay.

“Then stand to the side and hold your tongue. This is not your business anymore.” Raysel lifted her chin, jerking it imperiously toward the wall. Silently snarling, the Luidaeg moved as she was ordered, glaring daggers all the way.

“Rayseline.” I tried to put my body between her and my daughter without it being too obvious that I was doing it. If I’d had any doubts about her willingness to kill Gillian before, her own words had destroyed them. “Shut up or the girl dies” didn’t leave much room for argument. “We just want to talk.”

“Talk? You want to talk, so you come skulking through my new home in the dark, carrying weapons, damaging my things? I don’t know what kind of fool you think I am, October, but no one brings the sea witch and the King of Cats when they just want to ‘talk.’ ” Rayseline’s smile slipped, revealing the fury behind it. “You never had any intention of talking. You came to steal , and I don’t take kindly to thieves.”

It took a moment for me to realize that “damaging my things” meant freeing the captive pixies. My stomach rolled. The pixies had vanished the moment Raysel came into the room, diving for whatever cover they could find. One of them was hiding in my hair. Its body was plastered against my neck, wings vibrating with every anxious breath. As for the rest of them . . . I just hoped they could escape before Raysel bottled them up again.

“I don’t think we have the same definition of theft,” I said, struggling to keep my voice as level as possible. “Gillian’s my daughter.”

“She’s your daughter, and my honored guest.” Raysel took another deliberate step forward. “We have so much to talk about, after all. You failed us both. Why, we’re practically sisters, aren’t we?”

Gillian whimpered.

“Shut your mouth,” I snapped, all attempts at reason forgotten in the face of the sudden, fierce need to protect my little girl. “Don’t make this harder on yourself than it has to be. Put down the bow, call off your Goblins, and come quietly. I’ll ask the Queen to go easy on you.”

“That’s not an option. You know that, or you’d never have made the offer.” Raysel shook her head. I thought I saw a flash of regret in her eyes, there and gone in an instant. “Not even the High King could go easy on me now. Could he?” None of us said anything. Fury contorted her face as she turned to aim her bow at Quentin, shouting, “ Could he?!”

“No,” Quentin said. I shifted to get a look at him. He was standing with his chin up and his shoulders squared, staring down the length of his nose at Raysel. “But he could show clemency. You didn’t mean to kill the Selkie. You could be granted a sentence other than death.”

“A century decorating some garden as a marble statue doesn’t appeal to me,” she spat. “I chose this. I’ll see it through.”

“Did you choose it, Raysel?” I asked, shifting my weight to put myself a bit more solidly between her and Gillian. “Or did someone offer it to you? We know you didn’t do this alone. What did Dugan promise you? Did he tell you this would make everything better? It won’t.”

Raysel’s fury slipped as she turned back to me, and for a moment, I saw the little girl I used to know in her face, a child trapped within the prison of her own induced madness. “Whether this plan was wise or not, it’s mine now,” she said. “Something had to be. This will be enough.”

“Will it? Or is he just using you to get what he wants?” I shook my head. “No honor between thieves, remember? He’s going to clean up his loose ends, just like Oleander tried to do.”

“Then he’ll die. Just like Oleander did.” The momentary vulnerability passed, replaced by a smug little smile. “I have to thank you, October.” She put a poisonous spin on the word “thank.” “You’ve collected everyone I need to kill in one place. It makes things so much more efficient.”

I was surprised enough that I laughed out loud before I thought better of it. Raysel’s eyes widened, making her look like a startled child. “Do you really think this is everyone you’ll have to kill? Seriously? Oak and ash, Raysel, stop posturing and think . If you want to make this go away, you’re going to have to kill a lot more than just us.”

“There’s my nephew,” said Tybalt calmly, “and a large percentage of my Court.”

“The Duke and Duchess of Saltmist,” said Connor.

“Danny and Walther,” I said, even though I wasn’t sure Danny knew about the dead Selkie. The look of alarm on Raysel’s face was promising; I just had to make it worse. “Oh, and most of Goldengreen.”

“Shut up,” said Raysel, without conviction. She licked her lips, shifting her weight from foot to foot. Her Goblins murmured behind her, starting to look concerned. Maybe they were realizing how unlikely their promised payday really was. “All of you, be quiet.”

“Your parents,” I said.

That was the wrong card to play. Raysel’s eyes narrowed this time, and her grip on her longbow steadied. “They already chose you over me,” she said, pulling the bowstring tight. “They can rot for all I care.”

I froze. I may be faster than I used to be, but I knew better than to believe I could outrun an arrow. If she let go, I was going down—and worse. Elf-shot is normally small, sized to fit in a handheld crossbow . . . but the tip of Raysel’s arrow glittered poisonously. Clearly, she’d been making some adjustments.

Raysel smiled at the terror on my face. “So maybe killing you won’t make this go away. So what? I’m going to be Queen when the war is over, and there’s plenty of space on the battlefield to arrange for an ‘accidental’ death or two. You’ve given me a list to work from. I’ll just think of it as a challenge before my coronation.”

Still not daring to move, I asked the only question I could think of that might buy us a little more time: “How were you planning to kill the Luidaeg? She’s Firstborn. I only know one person who knows how to kill a Firstborn, and you’re talking to her. If you kill me, the Luidaeg lives.”