One Salt Sea: An October Daye Novel

“Right.” I unbuckled my knife belt. Peeling off my jeans took a bit more effort. “So the wards are keyed to Selkie skins, not individual Selkies?”


“Yes, Your Excellency!” said Helmi, sounding surprised and delighted by this strange display of logic from one of the land fae. “The skins pass hands with such frequency, it seemed best to allow their bearers to come and go easily. No one would want to present the Selkies an unfair barrier, given their limitations—and besides, they’re needed all along the coast. It would be quite a bundle to ask them to carry, if they needed a token for each of the knowes.”

“Uh-huh.” Selkie skins “pass hands” every few decades at the most—Connor is older than I am. That must make them almost as transitory as humans to a true immortal. “How many Selkies pass through in a given week?”

“Five, eight, maybe, if there’s news to be passed along.”

“And how many of them do the guards stop for questioning?” The green dress was made of a soft, cottony material. I shrugged it on, pushing my salt-matted hair back with the headband, and belted my knife around the outside of my hips. It might spoil the line of my borrowed attire, but at least I wasn’t hiding the fact that I was armed.

“None. Why would they? The Selkies travel on legitimate business. Or do you not have messengers where you dwell?”

I stepped out from behind the screen. Helmi’s expression was one of honest curiosity, like this was exactly the sort of barbarism she expected from land-dwellers.

“We do, but they’re not quite as . . . standardized.” I smoothed my skirt with the heels of my hands. It was definitely a step up from my usual Old Navy couture. And I just had to go to the bottom of the sea to get it. “I think I’m ready to go back.”

“Surely.” Helmi rotated her entire body, tentacles slapping the floor as she turned, and then made her way back to the door we’d entered through. She knocked three times before opening it, revealing a room that was absolutely not the one we’d been in before. For one thing, this one had walls—wooden ones, no less, making them seem strange and exotic after all the coral.

Dianda and Patrick were standing near one wall, arguing quietly with Connor. All three looked up when Helmi and I approached. My bare feet were silent against the floor. Her tentacles weren’t. Connor’s eyes lit up when he saw me, and he took a half-step forward before he remembered that he was in the presence of his liege and stopped, standing at sudden attention.

“You clean up well,” said Dianda, giving me a once-over.

“Helmi was a great help.” Another careful two-step in the dance of avoided thanks, complete. “Your Graces, Connor, I wanted to verify something Helmi told me. Is that possible?”

Dianda nodded. “Certainly. What did you want to know?”

“Is it true that the wards on this place are set to admit Selkies with no verification of identity or allegiance?”

“Yes.” Dianda frowned quizzically. “All the Undersea Duchies set their wards this way. Selkies act as messengers, and messengers are honor-bound to do no mischief in fiefdoms other than their own. Even in times of war, Selkies are safe guests.”

“Right.” I turned to Connor. “Am I a Merrow?”

“What? No!”

“But if I asked the wards right now, would they say I was a Merrow?”

“I . . .” He paused, looking confused.

Patrick, on the other hand, looked horrified; Patrick, who was born in the land Courts, and knew how they operated. He’d been in the Undersea for a few hundred years, but there are some things you never forget.

“Please tell me you’re not saying what I think you’re saying,” he said.

“I can’t. Because I think someone used a stolen Selkie skin to get past your wards.” I met Dianda’s eyes. It was harder than I expected it to be. “I’m afraid your sons weren’t the first ones taken in this war.”





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