One Salt Sea: An October Daye Novel

The sound of Raysel’s bow hitting the floor was surprisingly loud, given everything else that was happening in the room, and the smell of her blood—Daoine Sidhe and Kitsune and Blodynbryd; a mixture that should never have been possible, made possible by Luna’s desperation and a Kitsune girl’s sacrifice—filled my mouth for an instant before it was chased away by another, more urgent flavor. Human blood, spiced, ever so slightly, with Dóchas Sidhe.

Her arrow should have gone wild. Every ounce of logic, of fairness, in the world said that her arrow should have gone wild. Raysel was still falling as I stumbled to a halt, feeling myself go cold. I recognized Gillian’s blood the second it hit my tongue, even though I’d never tasted it before. Quentin shouted something, and another Goblin hit the floor a split second before Raysel did. I barely noticed.

I was too busy staring at Gillian, and at the arrow protruding from her left shoulder. Her eyes were still closed, and her head was lolling forward until her chin brushed against her chest. All the tension had gone out of her, leaving her collapsed like a boneless doll.

And it didn’t look like she was breathing.





THIRTY-ONE


“GILLIAN!?? I SCREAMED HER NAME so hard it hurt my throat, and kept screaming it as I ran back across the room to drop to my knees beside her. Only the fact that I hadn’t finished cutting the rope was keeping her in the chair; her body was completely limp, and my fumbling attempts to find a pulse did nothing. If she was alive, I couldn’t tell.

“October.” The Luidaeg’s voice was pitched low and gentle. That just made it harder for me to breathe. She only sounded like that when things were really bad.

I shook my head, cupping Gillian’s face in my hands and lifting it until her closed eyes were pointed toward me. “It’s okay, baby, it’s okay. Open your eyes, okay? I’ll take you home, if you’ll open your eyes . . .”

“October, you have to get the arrow out.”

“What?” I twisted around to glare fiercely at the Luidaeg. “That’s the worst thing I could do. We need a healer before we take the arrow out. We need—”

“She’s been elf-shot. The longer you leave it in her, the less chance she has.” The Luidaeg moved around to my left. “She’s too human for this. If you want her to have any hope at all of surviving, you need to take the arrow out.”

“She can’t die,” I whispered. “She’s my daughter.”

“Death doesn’t care.” The Luidaeg’s words hit me like a blow. She was right. Oberon damn her, she was right.

I let go of Gillian’s head, bracing a shaking hand against her shoulder. “I’m sorry, baby,” I whispered, and grabbed the shaft of the arrow with my other hand, pulling hard.

Gilly moaned as the arrow came free. It was a soft, sighing sound, more like a whimper than a genuine cry of pain, but it was there. I stiffened, arrow slipping from my nerveless fingers to clatter on the floor.

“Gilly . . . ?” I whispered.

“Changelings can’t survive elf-shot,” said the Luidaeg. The sympathy in her tone was almost buried under a calm, commanding practicality. “It didn’t have to be that way, but my eldest sister took it upon herself to improve the original design, and she had her own opinions about such things.”

“Shut up,” I snapped, raising my head and glaring at her. “She’s going to be fine. She has to be.”

“That’s up to you, October.” The Luidaeg knelt, putting a hand on my shoulder. I tried to shrug it off. She tightened her fingers, keeping me where I was. “You can do for her what your mother did for you. You can give her a chance. If you change her blood—”

“No.” I shook my head, tears threatening to blind me. “I can’t. I don’t know how.”

“That’s never stopped you before. If you change the blood, you’ll burn away the poison.” She clucked her tongue, gesturing to the chair. Quentin stepped into view, my bloody knife in his hand. He moved to crouch behind Gillian. I heard him saw through the rope, and then she was pitching forward into my waiting arms. There was no tension to her at all. It was like holding something that was already dead.