One Salt Sea: An October Daye Novel

Turning my head, I bent as far to the side as I could, and threw up.

Patrick didn’t move. His eyes were saucer-wide in his pale face, and his hands were clenched in his lap, knuckles gone white from the pressure. “Did it work?” he asked.

I wiped my mouth with one shaking hand as I turned back to him, barely managing to keep from snapping, No, I threw up because I realized what I was putting in my mouth. Dean’s love for his parents had been almost as prominent in his mind as his love for his brother. Patrick didn’t deserve to hear something like that.

“It worked.” I wiped my mouth again, only spreading the sticky taste of blood. My head was pounding. I hadn’t had a headache this bad since Amandine shifted the balance of my blood. Apparently, I still had limits. That wasn’t as reassuring as I’d expected.

“Is he . . .” Patrick stopped mid-sentence, and just looked at me.

“He was alive when the finger was taken. They’re keeping him in a stone room, above water. There’s straw on the floor, but the stone is rough, like it wasn’t milled or worked at all.” I shook my head. “There was no iron in the air. Whoever has him, it’s not the Queen. I’ve been in her dungeon, and the iron is everywhere down there.”

Patrick nodded. I could see the hunger in his eyes, the burning need to know everything there was to know about the place his son was being held. I didn’t blame him. I just wished that Dean had been held in the same room as Gillian, so that I could have some reassurance of my own. “Is he hurt?”

“Other than the missing finger? I think they used at least one knock-down spell on him. He’s in a lot of pain, but there are no other serious injuries.”

“Was Peter there?”

“No. I’m sorry. He was alone.”

“Did you see who was holding him?”

I lowered my hand, looking up. He stared back with eyes that were suddenly cold and implacable, filled with a deep fury that I was glad wasn’t directed at me.

“It was Rayseline,” I said. Picking up the finger, I put it gently back into the box. That made me feel a little better. “She can’t be working alone, but she’s the one who . . .” Somehow, I couldn’t bring myself to say “cut off your son’s finger.” “. . . hurt him,” I finished lamely.

Patrick’s expression darkened further, something I hadn’t been sure was possible. “That little bitch will regret the day of her birth by the time I’m finished with her,” he growled, in a voice like waves crashing against the shore.

“You’re not the only one who’s lost a child here, Patrick,” I said, as calmly as I could. “Rayseline has my daughter, too. So you’ll forgive me if I don’t agree to go in swinging. I’d like half a chance in hell of getting Gillian back alive.”

The darkness parted, replaced by a grimace of apology. “I’m sorry. I forgot.”

“Most people do.” I handed him the box before I stood, wiping my hands against my jeans. It wasn’t enough to wipe away the feel of phantom blood. Very little ever is. “I’m scared as hell about what they might be doing to her. Her father was human.”

“Ah,” said Patrick, sympathetically. “I’m sorry.”

“She doesn’t know how to defend herself. I never had the chance to teach her.” Something about that bothered me. Patrick wouldn’t have known Gillian existed if I hadn’t told him. She was never a part of my life in Faerie. Rayseline knew that she existed, had even met her before, but . . . how did she know where to find her?

“If anyone can find her, I believe that you will,” said Patrick.

“Somehow, that’s not comforting,” I muttered. More loudly, I asked, “Shall we go reassure your subjects that I haven’t shoved you off a balcony?”

“You have balconies?”

“Not in this room. But we have a few.”

“In that case, we should definitely reassure them.” Patrick looked at me gravely as he stood. “We are in your debt for this.”