One Salt Sea: An October Daye Novel

The Luidaeg was settled on the couch in a disarmingly casual pose when we reached the living room. “Well?” she asked, around a mouthful of ice cream. “Why are you already back? Did you save the world or something?”


“I’m still working on it.” I sat down on an old wooden chest. It creaked under my weight. “Tybalt’s here because the Cait Sidhe are going to help defend Goldengreen, if things come to that.”

“Brave little kitty.” She watched Tybalt pick his way across the floor, her gaze as flat and cold as a shark’s. “You going to run out the moment things get difficult, cat?”

“That isn’t my intention,” he replied, haughtiness warring with caution in his tone. Only the narrowing of his pupils betrayed how much her question annoyed him. “Cats may be fickle, but my word has value.”

“Good.” The Luidaeg took another bite of ice cream, turning back to me. “You’d have called if that was all you had. What is it, and what do you want?”

“I got some information from a Glastig I know. He says the Lorden boys were stolen by a woman with red hair and yellow eyes. Know anyone who fits the description?” She was silent. I nodded. “Thought so. I’m going to Shadowed Hills next, to tell the Torquills in person and search Rayseline’s quarters. There’s a chance, even if it’s a slim one, that she’ll have left something there that could give me a clue to why she’s doing this—and whether she’s doing it alone.”

The Luidaeg’s eyebrows rose. “You’re thinking conspiracy?”

“Does Rayseline strike you as smart enough to pull this off without help?”

“Smart, maybe; stable, no. I’m surprised she can put her own shoes on without written directions.” The Luidaeg took another bite of ice cream. Finally, she asked, “What else?”

I took a deep breath. “I need to meet with the Lordens. Can you arrange it?”

“I can,” said the Luidaeg. “Your reputation may actually help for once, since everyone knows the Queen hates you. That’s still not enough to make you come here, instead of calling me.”

“I missed your smiling face?”

She lifted an eyebrow.

So much for that. “I don’t think I’m going to be able to find the kids if I can’t search the place where they were taken. That means I’m going to need a way to travel to Saltmist without drowning.”

The Luidaeg nodded. “I hoped you’d figure that out before I explained it to you. It comes easier this way.”

“Yeah. I guess so.” The Luidaeg knows how much I hate water. More, she knows how much I hate having anyone use transformation magic on me, and even the simplest water-breathing spell is a kind of transformation. She’d probably been expecting me to pitch a fit.

“There are ways for an air-breather to survive underwater—Patrick Lorden proves that—but he gets his enchantments from his wife, and he doesn’t spend much time in the open sea without her. You’ll need something longer-lasting.”

I’d worked out most of this for myself. That didn’t make hearing it any better. “Longer-lasting? You’re not coming with me?”

“I can’t. If I enter the water right now . . .” She let the sentence trail off.

“The sea witch traditionally owes her allegiance to the Undersea,” said Tybalt. His voice was studiously neutral. “I believe that, if she were to enter the waters, she would not be able to return until this conflict was done.”

The Luidaeg nodded. “Bingo.”

“As I thought.” Tybalt crossed his arms. “What, then, are you proposing?”

“Can’t you guess?” asked the Luidaeg.

I glared. “Could you just answer the damn question?”

The Luidaeg sighed, throwing her half-empty container into the corner. It splashed ice cream across the wall as it fell. “Both of you, come with me.” Tybalt blinked. She sniffed, standing. “Yes, you, kitty-boy. I don’t leave anyone alone in my apartment without good reason.”

“Besides, you’d just make me tell you what she says anyway,” I said, smiling weakly as I stood. “At least this way, we’re cutting out the middleman.”