One Salt Sea: An October Daye Novel

“I can’t,” I whispered again, too terrified to think of anything else. If I tried, if I failed . . . “Where’s my mother? I want my mother.”


“Amandine isn’t coming to save you this time. This time, you have to save yourself.” The Luidaeg stood, taking her hand away from my shoulder. “Do it, October, or say good-bye to your daughter. Those are your choices.”

I took a shuddering breath before raising my head, looking around the room until I saw Tybalt crouching next to Connor’s fallen . . . next to Connor. He had his hand resting lightly on the Selkie’s arm, and was watching me with grave, sorrow-filled eyes.

I had to make a decision. I had to choose. Oberon forgive me, but I made my decision based on who needed me more. Connor would be fine when he woke up. I’d just have to wait for him until then. “Get over here,” I said, as firmly as I could. “Help me get her comfortable.”

Tybalt nodded, and rose, and came. Quentin was close behind him. The four of us working together stretched Gillian out on a relatively clean patch of floor, using our sweaters and jackets to provide a degree of padding. I folded my own leather jacket into a pillow, sliding it under her head. She didn’t moan again. For all the signs of life she’d shown since the arrow was removed, it might have already been too late.

I looked to the Luidaeg. “You said I could do what my mother did. What did she do? What do I do?”

“I don’t know,” she said, voice soft. “My sister’s ways aren’t mine. I don’t know how her line works its magic.”

“That’s what I was afraid of.” I held my hand out to Quentin. “Give me my knife.”

“Are you sure?” he asked, biting his lip. “It’s all gory.”

“And I’m going to get it gorier. Please.”

He nodded, holding it out to me hilt-first. I took it, not bothering to wipe it clean before laying the blade across the inside of one wrist.

“Wait.” The Luidaeg grabbed my arm before I could start cutting. I looked up to see her offering her own wrist. “You’re going to need more power than you have on your own.”

“You can’t be serious.”

She didn’t say anything. She just looked at me, waiting. I took her hand, pulling it toward me, and ran my knife down the skin of her wrist. I cut deeply enough to bleed her, but not so deep as to do any permanent damage; I’ve gotten pretty good at gauging my cuts over the last few years. Her blood welled to the surface, silver-red and glittering like the sea.

The Luidaeg nodded, motioning for me to continue. I closed my eyes, raising her wrist to my mouth, and drank.

Most blood magic involves the blood of the dead, or at least the blood of the missing. It’s very rare for a spell to require drinking directly from the source, unless the spell includes the transfer of another’s power. The Luidaeg’s blood was colder than I expected, cold enough that I was able to take several mouthfuls before I realized that the taste was changing, going from the normal sharp copper of blood to the sweet sharpness of frost covering the fens, the distant hint of loam, the smell of bonfires in the autumn night—

I jerked myself out of her memory and dropped her hand at the same time, taking a gasping breath. Suddenly, all the spilled blood in the room was singing to me, not just of what the wounded were, but of who they were. Rayseline’s blood smelled of roses and frost, of fox-fur and longing, a little girl so lost she couldn’t find her way home. Connor smelled like sweet eucalyptus and hot, dry sand, golden afternoons and laughter. The Goblins, strangely, smelled like baking cookies and burnt popcorn. And Gillian . . .