One Salt Sea: An October Daye Novel

“Is that all?” he asked. “Because if it is, can we get on to the part where you kick this guy’s butt all the way back to Market Street?”


“There’s one more thing.” I unbuckled my seat belt, reaching for the door. “Dealing with Bucer isn’t like dealing with the Luidaeg. He doesn’t just cheat when he fights. So don’t make any bets with him, don’t take anything he offers you, and for the love of Maeve, don’t eat or drink until we’re out of his apartment.”

“He enchants the food he serves his guests?” Quentin sounded mortally affronted.

“No. I just don’t want you getting salmonella.”

My ragged little parade made its way up the walkway to a gate that was probably state-of-the-art, once upon a time. These days, it offered no more than the illusion of security. Someone had long since broken off a key in the keyhole lock, and the deadbolt was open. The only thing the gate did right was creak when I pushed it open, rusty hinges wailing our arrival to anyone and everyone in earshot.

No one came to investigate as we stepped into the narrow, cabbage-scented entry hall. There was barely room for the four of us, and there wouldn’t have been any room at all if one of us had been bigger. According to Bucer, he was living in Apartment #4 on the second floor. I looked at the rickety stairs, frowned, and turned to push my way past Raj and Connor as I moved back toward the door.

“What now?” asked Connor.

“Hang on a second.”

The names of all the current occupants were written in faded, painfully neat ballpoint pen on little slips of off-white paper that had been taped next to their respective doorbells. According to this primitive directory, the person in Apartment 4 was actually named “K. Lyons.” Apartment 7, on the other hand . . .

“B. O’Malley,” I said, mostly to myself. I turned around again, facing my confused escorts. “We go up.”

“Up?” echoed Quentin.

“The stairs. We’re heading for the fourth floor.”

He groaned. “I was afraid you were going to say that.”

The stairs creaked with every step, and the banister was basically a haven for wayward splinters that would just love to go home lodged in our flesh. The original color of the threadbare runner was obscured by decades of ground-in mud, and the wallpaper wasn’t much better off. “I don’t think even the Luidaeg would willingly live here,” I muttered.

“What?” asked Connor.

“Nothing.” I grabbed the banister, getting two splinters in my palm for my troubles, and kept climbing.

Rickety and filthy as the stairs were, they didn’t collapse under our feet. That was about all I felt I had the right to ask, given the overall condition of the building. We reached the fourth floor without encountering anything nastier than a few exposed nails at the base of the banister.

Half the lights were out, casting the whole hallway into a deep shadow. “Follow me, and watch your step,” I said, mostly for Connor’s benefit. Out of the four of us, he had the worst night vision. He muttered something under his breath. I didn’t ask him to repeat it, and he didn’t volunteer.

Bucer’s apartment was the one closest to the outside wall. I clapped a hand over the peephole and knocked briskly, picking up more splinters from the half-shredded wood of the door in the process.

Footsteps—or something like them—approached the door from inside the apartment, followed by a scuffling sound as whoever was inside tried to get a look through the blocked-off peephole. After a few seconds of this, the sound stopped, and the steps retreated a few feet.

I knocked again.

This time, no one moved. Seconds stretched out in the silence, sliding into each other until they threatened to become minutes. I knocked a third time, pausing longer between each thud of my knuckles. There was more scuffling from inside, followed by silence.

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