One Salt Sea: An October Daye Novel

The marina stretched out at the bottom of the hill, sparkling dimly in the darkness. I only saw one way we were going to reach the water alive. I just had to hope Dianda would forgive me for the indignity. Still clinging to the right handle of the chair, I moved to one side and sped up until I was running alongside it.

Dianda stared at me. “What are you doing? This thing doesn’t have any brakes!”

I didn’t have the breath left to shout. Leaning over her, I grabbed the left arm and hoisted myself onto her lap. Freed from the drag of my feet, the wheelchair started to accelerate, plunging straight down Leavenworth. Crossbow bolts zinged past. I folded my arms over Dianda’s head, keeping her down, and ducked my own head as low as it would go. If we could avoid getting shot until we reached the bottom of the hill . . .

This entire escapade was breaking several rules of life in the mortal world, chief among them the injunction to never, ever go out in public without wearing a human disguise. I was still wearing my illusions. Dianda and the Goblins, on the other hand, were totally exposed. There wasn’t time to worry about it. Hopefully, anyone who saw a woman riding a screaming mermaid in a wheelchair down Leavenworth at a quarter to five in the morning would just think they’d had too much to drink.

We were still accelerating. Gasping, I managed to ask, “Is this a good time for that visit?” Dianda stared at me, eyes widening in understanding, before she nodded.

We were almost to the bottom of the hill when I fumbled the scale out of my pocket and shoved it into my mouth. It dissolved like spun sugar, leaving my tongue coated in a gummy film that tasted like strawberries. A taxi blared by, horn blazing as we hit the dock, shooting forward. Dianda screamed again, the sound magnified by proximity to my ears, and I heard a crossbow bolt whiz by as I yanked the pin from the lining of my jacket and jammed it into the meaty part of my right thigh with all the force I could muster.

Then we hit the water, and everything went black.





FOURTEEN


I ONLY LOST CONSCIOUSNESS for a moment. Then the cold shocked me awake, and I started thrashing, trying to find the surface. A crossbow bolt pierced the water next to my face, missing me by inches, and I froze, only to have Dianda grab me from behind and yank me deeper into the water. She stopped when we hit the rocky seabed, and we huddled there, with crossbow bolts flashing around us and failing, thankfully, to find their marks.

A wooden arrow the length of my arm sliced through the water like it was air. Dianda visibly relaxed, hair waving in front of her eyes like a strange new type of kelp as she pushed away from the seabed, pulling me with her. I didn’t struggle. There’s almost nothing I hate more than being in the water, and I’d expected to have a little more time to prepare myself before I let the Luidaeg’s spell do whatever it was it was going to do to me. I just wasn’t anticipating Goblin assassins with crossbows pushing me into a situation where the only viable exit involved riding a mermaid’s wheelchair into the marina.

Sometimes I think my life is too complicated.

I gasped as we surfaced, more out of reflex than an actual need for air; we’d been under for several minutes, but my lungs didn’t hurt. That was probably a bad sign. “Can you keep yourself above water?” asked Dianda, from over my shoulder. She was still holding me up, her chin nearly brushing the side of my neck.

“I have no idea,” I said honestly, and shoved my sodden hair out of my eyes with one hand. Then I stopped, blinking at the scene in front of me. “. . . Whoa.”

We were surrounded. Archers lined the dock on all sides, longbows raised. About half of them faced away from us, scanning for threats. The other half faced the water, arrows notched and pointed directly at . . . me. At least they were aiming for the center of my body, where they’d be least likely to hit Dianda. The glitter of their human disguises couldn’t stop me from breathing in the taste of their Selkie heritage: Dianda’s previously absent guard.

“Where were you guys a few minutes ago?” I muttered.