One Salt Sea: An October Daye Novel

“The sea witch doesn’t parley with Selkies,” he said. There was some ancient, wounded longing in his voice, like the sound of the tide rushing out. “Don’t ask me why. I can’t tell you.”


“All right,” I said. “I just . . . all right. Are you coming back to the apartment?”

“For a little while.” He sighed. “This doesn’t have anything to do with you. Okay?”

“Okay,” I said. “Now get in the car.”

It took almost half an hour to fight through the traffic and get back to my place. May and Jazz were snuggled together on the couch when we came in, watching a television show featuring a lot of twenty-something actors pretending to be teens. They looked up when the door opened, initial smiles dying as they saw the expression on Connor’s face and the arrow in my hand. Even for me, that sort of thing doesn’t normally spell “hot date.”

“Bad night?” asked May.

“About like I expected. We’re going to need to call Walther.” I closed the door and stuck the arrow in the umbrella stand, point down. Connor blinked at me. “You have a better idea?”

“Not really,” he admitted.

“Didn’t think so. Guys, the arrow in the umbrella stand is elf-shot. Don’t touch it.”

“And that’s why we’re calling Walther?” asked May.

“Exactly.”

“Right.” Jazz got up. “I’m going to make some coffee.”

“Good call.” One of the cats started twining around my ankles. I bent to scoop her up. “Hello, Cagney. You don’t care that we’re going to war, do you?” She purred. “Didn’t think so.”

“Is it official?” asked May quietly.

“Yeah,” I said. I stood there stroking Cagney as I started filling May in on the events of the night so far. I was about halfway through when Jazz emerged from the kitchen and offered me a mug of coffee, which I took gratefully. Connor interjected occasionally, but was mostly silent, standing close and offering what support he could just by being there. It was surprisingly comforting.

A brief silence fell when I finished speaking. Finally, Jazz asked, “Do you really think Walther can figure out who made the elf-shot?”

“It’s worth a try.” I glanced to Connor. “The Luidaeg’s sidelined for this fight, except for whatever she can accomplish through me. So we’re basically on our own.”

“Super fun,” said May.

“I can take the arrow to Walther,” volunteered Jazz. We all looked at her. She shrugged. “I don’t need a car, remember?”

“Fair enough,” I allowed. “Just make sure you don’t scratch yourself. The best case scenario with elf-shot involves sleeping for a hundred years.”

“I’ll be careful,” said Jazz. She kissed May on the cheek, grabbed the arrow from the umbrella stand—only touching the leather, I noted approvingly—opened the door, and was gone. Mortal ravens don’t like to fly after dark. Fae ravens are more adaptable. They’re also a hell of a lot more resilient. Jazz could probably fly a hundred miles in a night, if she had to.

I took a breath. “Okay, that’s one problem down. Now for the big one: we have three days to find the Lorden boys before things get ugly.”

“Is finding the Lorden boys going to stop things from getting any worse, or is it just going to make them a little less worse?” May paused. “I’m not sure that was a sentence. Anyway, what I’m saying is if they’re at the stage of, like, shooting at people, are they going to back down just because we find the kids?”

“Probably not,” I admitted. “But at that point, at least we’d only be dealing with people who want to start a war, rather than dealing with them and an actual war. That has to be an improvement over what we have now, right?”