Chimes at Midnight

There was a large room at the bottom of the stairs, maybe half the size of the central courtyard, with a high ceiling inlaid in quartz and mother-of-pearl. I wondered whether Dean had noticed how similar it was in design to the ceiling in his mother’s arrival chamber, or whether he’d dismissed it as being some sort of architectural standard for rooms like this.

The floor was treated redwood, which required more upkeep than marble but would be less slippery when wet. That was a good thing, since only two thirds of the room actually had a floor. The wood ended at a narrow strip of clean white sand, and then the water began, extending out into the ocean. Everything smelled of clean saltwater and the Summerlands sea, much like the Luidaeg’s apartment.

Tybalt sniffed the air, and smiled. Quentin looked curiously around. “This is a neat room,” he said.

“Yes, it is,” I replied, directing my comment toward the distant ceiling. Everyone deserves a few compliments. Even a building.

The surface of the water rippled, and the sleek black-haired head of Duchess Dianda Lorden of Saltmist broke through. Her husband was a few strokes behind her. Patrick lacked his wife’s natural advantages where swimming was concerned. Honestly, I was impressed he could make the trip at all, even with the aid of the water-breathing potion her Court alchemists brewed for him. Dean grinned and waved when he saw his parents, looking less like a Count and more like an ordinary teenage boy living on his own for the first time.

Patrick stood, waving back, and began wading through the waist-deep water toward us. Dianda remained low, swimming until the water got too shallow, and then pulling herself the rest of the way to the sand. Instead of legs, she had a jewel-toned tail, scaled in shades of purple and blue, which she stretched out as she reclined. Her flukes barely broke the surface.

“Your Grace,” I said, bowing to her. “Patrick.” He was technically the Ducal consort and not the Duke, which made formality a little less important with him.

Not that Dianda looked that formal. Without legs, she didn’t need pants, and her top was made of blue cotton, embroidered around the neck and cuffs with stylized green kelp. “Hello, October,” she said, sunny smile entirely at odds with her sour disposition the first time we met. Then again, at the time, her children were being held hostage, so I couldn’t blame her. “Forgive me if I don’t get up. It’s harvest season for us in the Undersea, and I’ve been in the fields every night for tides. I’m too tired to deal with having legs right now.”

“It’s cool,” I said. “Just don’t expect me to come into the water and say hello.”

“You need to get over your hydrophobia.”

“Hey. I’m standing next to the ocean, talking to a mermaid, not freaking out. I think I’m on my way to recovery.” Just to prove my point, I sat down cross-legged on the edge of the wooden dock, putting us on the same eye level. Quentin did the same. Dean, meanwhile, splashed out into the water and sat down next to his mother, not seeming to care that his jeans were getting drenched. Tybalt stayed a few feet back, well away from the shoreline.

“Dean said you wanted to talk about King Gilad.” Patrick sat down on the dock as well, although he chose the other side of his wife. We made a funny little line, like a beach party gone weirdly wrong. “I’m a little confused about why you’d need to. Gilad was a great man, and a good friend, but he’s been dead for a long time.”

“Yeah, I know. That’s why I wanted to talk to the two of you. And, well. There’s another thing.” I took a deep breath. “I’ve been banished from the Mists.”

Dianda frowned. “What?”

“The Queen banished me for trying to get her to stop distributing goblin fruit. I went to the Luidaeg, and she told me to ask about King Gilad. I don’t know what talking about the Queen’s father is supposed to accomplish, but . . .”

“It would help if he had been her father,” countered Dianda, frown fading into her more customary scowl.

I stared at her. “Wait—what?”