One Salt Sea: An October Daye Novel

“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.