One Salt Sea: An October Daye Novel

TO HER CREDIT, DIANDA didn???t flinch. Eyes narrowing, she asked, “Who could have done this?”


“Moving past the part where I say ‘someone who was willing to steal your children to provoke a war,’ it would have to be someone who understood the way the Undersea operates. Someone who understood the way Selkies operate.” I let my eyes drift to Connor. He was staring at me, an expression of terrified understanding on his face. “Somebody who understood that a Selkie is the skin, and not the one who wears it.”

“Oh, Oberon,” he whispered.

Patrick frowned, following my gaze. “Connor?”

“Well?” I asked.

“It . . .” Connor took an unsteady breath. “She knows how the skins work. I told her. Showed her, even. I was trying to make her understand me a little better. I thought if we were going to be stuck with each other for a few hundred years, we should at least find a way to be friends.”

“Showed who?” asked Patrick.

Connor didn’t say anything. So I said it for him.

“Rayseline Torquill,” I said. “His ex-wife.”

“Connor, what have you done?” Dianda’s question was raw, aching, a mother yearning for impossible answers.

“What you told me to do!” he said. I barely recognized the desperation in his voice. “I married her because you told me to. I tried! I tried to court her, to woo her, but she couldn’t be courted—she was too far gone, and I . . . I tried!”

“It’s not his fault,” I said, bringing Patrick and Dianda’s eyes back to me. That wasn’t comfortable, but it was better than having them fixed on Connor. “She was more broken than anyone knew, even her parents. He couldn’t know what he was doing when he tried to make the marriage work. If you’re going to blame anyone, blame whoever broke her in the first place. And maybe it wasn’t Raysel. There are other options.”

“Who?” asked Dianda.

I didn’t have an answer for that.

Patrick broke the silence. Indicating the nearest door with a sweep of one hand, he said, “This is Dean’s room. Is there anything you’ll need?”

“Let’s find out.” I reached for the knob, pausing just before I grasped it. “Is there anything I need to know about the wards?”

“There aren’t any.”

I turned to blink at Dianda, surprised enough by her reply that I allowed my hand to complete its descent to the doorknob. Nothing shocked me. She was telling the truth; there were no wards on the private quarters. “What? Why not?”

“We’re inside the knowe. Wards have never been needed here.”

“Things are different on the land,” I said, and opened the door.

Dean’s room was surprisingly normal, and could have passed for Quentin’s or Raj’s with a few alterations. A dark blue rug softened the polished wood floor, matching the curtains around the single window, which was shaped like—and possibly made from—a ship’s porthole. A tall wardrobe was shoved against one wall, and the bed was beneath the window. The rest of the available wall space was devoted to bookshelves, most of them groaning under the weight of the books stacked there.

“Stay here,” I said, starting to step inside. Dianda’s eyes widened. I raised my hand to stop her protest. “Please. I know a lot of people have been through here, but I need to at least try.”

“Let her, Di,” said Patrick, putting a hand on her arm.

“All right.” She subsided, leaning against her husband. “Proceed.”