One Salt Sea: An October Daye Novel

An elegant stone palace decked in mother-of-pearl and patches of living kelp rose from the seafloor ahead of us, cradled in rings of multicolored coral. It had been constructed with no regard for gravity, resulting in dozens of tapering towers, high balconies that went nowhere, and wide windows instead of doors. Why bother building to constraints that don’t apply to you?

Dianda kept pulling me forward. I realized she was singing. It was a high, sweet sound, barely this side of whale song—and the sea answered her. Dozens of fae poured from the palace windows, swimming out to join our escort. They ranged from the expected Merrow and Sirens to stranger things, women with the lower bodies of octopi instead of the standard Merrow’s tail, men with slick, blue-black skin and the smooth fluidity of eels. Many of them belonged to fae races I had never seen before, Undersea denizens for whom the land held no attractions.

They surrounded us in a coruscating curtain of living bodies and brightly-colored scales. Most were wearing garments that were equally bright, like they were competing with the ocean around them. As if anything could have managed that. This sea was too wild and strange for anything to have ever truly competed with it.

All the sea fae were singing, their individual pitches and melodies joining with Dianda’s into a single sweet chorus that didn’t make a bit of sense. Words were impossible under the water—at least without magic—and it made sense that they would have found a way to fill that gap. I could even see a few of them signing to each other, waving their hands or tentacles in quick, fluid gestures that didn’t look a damn thing like American Sign Language. I hoped they all spoke English, and that we’d be in a place where talking was an option, or this visit was going to be like a pantomime in Hell.

The palace was just ahead of us. Dianda let go of my hand, gesturing for me to follow as she swam for the nearest window. Several members of our impromptu escort swam in ahead of her. The rest peeled off to the sides, leaving space for me to enter.

As if I could do anything else? After coming this far—out of my world, literally out of my element, and even out of my own natural form—following her through the window was no big deal. I twisted around to make sure I wouldn’t catch my flukes on the sill, and swam through. This was definitely turning out to be an interesting night.

Hell, maybe I’d get lucky, and someone in the Undersea would know what coffee was.





FIFTEEN


THE ROOM WE SWAM INTO made the grand ballroom at Shadowed Hills look tiny. The gleaming mother-of-pearl walls were mostly obscured by elaborate loops of coral shaped like an abstract jungle gym. I thought it was purely decorative until half the fae in our escort swam off and settled themselves among the nooks and handholds. Several of the octopus-merfolk actually suspended themselves from what should have been the ceiling, hanging there and watching us as we passed.

“Creepy,” I muttered—or would have, if I’d been above water. As it was, I just managed a few bubbles. I scowled, swimming after Dianda. She was moving more slowly now that we were out of open water. That was a good thing; I would never have been able to keep up with her otherwise.

The hall paid no attention to conventional geometry, twisting and looping like a piece of tangled string, until I could only tell up from down by the direction people’s hair floated. The ones that had hair, anyway. I’m used to fae with feathers or scales or even willow branches in place of hair. Kelp, coral, bristling sea urchin spines, and lionfish fins . . . those were new to me.

Dianda doubled back to grab my wrist before diving upward into a long passage. She gathered speed as she went. I did the same, or as close to the same as I could manage. This “swimming” thing was harder than it looked. At least it was keeping me from thinking too hard about the fact that I was underwater, and worse, actually breathing water, just like I did in the pond.