One Salt Sea: An October Daye Novel

It traced a glittering arc through the air before hitting the water and vanishing without a trace. I stared at the place where it had been like I expected a miracle to happen. There were no miracles. Not here; not tonight.

Raj and Quentin were watching me with wide, worried eyes when I turned back to them. Sylvester and his knights were a little farther back, clearly worried, and just as clearly giving me my space. That made me want to start crying again. Rayseline was gone. Not dead, but asleep for a long, long time. What right did I have to expect her father to be here, with me, and not with her?

“Are you okay?” asked Quentin.

“No. Not really.” I wiped my eyes surreptitiously as I turned to look down the beach toward the Luidaeg and the Lorden boys. Peter was standing on his own two legs now, hugging his older brother fiercely. “We found them.”

“I knew you would.” There was absolute conviction in his tone.

I glanced his way. “You never doubted me?”

“No.” Quentin shrugged. “I know better.”

“We all do,” added Raj.

I couldn’t quite manage a laugh, but I dredged up a small, sad smile. For the moment, that would have to be enough. I walked out of the water, offering my hands to the boys—to my squires, one official, and one not. Together, we walked back to Sylvester and his knights, and settled in to wait.

We didn’t have to wait for long. We were all sitting on the sand, watching Dean and Peter splash around at the edge of the water, when the surface of the water in the distance exploded upward in the strangely-familiar sight of a pod of Cetacea breaching. I recognized Anceline—and the green-tailed, black-haired woman who pushed away from her as they both fell back toward the water. I stood.

Almost everyone else did the same, until only the Luidaeg was seated. I looked at her curiously, and she shrugged. “I can’t intervene directly in the waters, remember? Go tell them it’s okay. Go tell them what comes next. I’ll stay here.”

“I understand,” I said, even though I didn’t. I raked my hands through my wind-tangled hair and went trudging down the beach, with the others close behind me.

We had barely reached the water’s edge when Dianda came running through the surf, a look of pure, electric joy transforming her features into something so beautiful it hurt. “Boys!”

“Mom!” shouted Peter and Dean, and threw themselves into her arms. They were still embracing when Patrick came walking more sedately out of the waves, water streaming from his hair, a corked bottle in one hand—Dean’s breathing potion. Magic was the only way a Daoine Sidhe could survive in the Undersea. That was what Dean had to look forward to: a life of depending on other people’s magic for his survival.

I watched Patrick join his family, the four of them holding onto each other like there was nothing else in the world, and felt the slow tendrils of an idea uncurling in my mind.

Quentin stopped next to me, tilting his head back so he could look in my direction. “I think we did okay,” he said.

“Say that again next week,” I said.

Dianda raised her head, cheeks gleaming wet with more than sea spray, and started wading toward us. Peter came with her, holding onto her arm like he was afraid one of them would wash away. “You found them,” she said, once she was close enough to be heard over the waves.

“I told you I would.”

“But you actually did.” She said the words like they were some sort of miracle. In a way, I guess they were.

“I did.”

Dianda paused, frowning. “Where’s Connor?”

This time, when the tears came, I didn’t fight them. I just let them fall, letting them say all the things I couldn’t bring myself to voice.

“Oh. Oh, I am sorry.” Dianda reached out, putting her hand on my shoulder. “The tides sing a threnody of sorrow for your loss.”