One Salt Sea: An October Daye Novel

More things I didn’t expect to do first thing in the morning: get hauled out of the water by a breaching Cetace who felt like translating her momentum into a wave-shattering leap. I had just enough time to realize that the sun being up would mean humans on the docks before we fell back to the water, Anceline laughing all the while. The other Cetacea were breaking the surface all around us, laughing with her. At least some of us were having a good time.

I let go of Anceline, popping back up to the surface and swimming a few feet away to avoid being hit by falling Cetacea. I turned to look toward the docks as soon as I was clear, fully expecting a throng of humans to be pointing in our direction, shouting about mermaids.

No one was even glancing in our direction. Oh, the dockworkers and passing tourists were there. They just didn’t seem to realize that we were there, too.

Anceline laughed again as she swam over to me. “They do not see us,” she said. I didn’t recognize her accent, something sweet and lilting and entirely foreign. “We cast our look-away as we rose.”

It took me a moment to realize that she meant a don’t-look-here spell. I must have been too distracted by being hauled through the water to notice the casting. “Nice trick,” I said.

The rest of the pod finished their leaps and swam over to surround me in a wide circle, their faces still contorted with mirth. Anceline smiled and gestured for me to follow her as she began swimming toward the shore.

The other Cetacea swam after us, although the larger members of the pod stopped when the water began getting shallower. Anceline continued farther than any of the others, but even she stopped well before we reached the dock. “This is as close as I can go,” she said. “Can you finish the journey on your own?”

“I think so, yes,” I said. “I appreciate the escort.”

She waved a webbed black-and-white hand. “An excuse to visit the surface is rare and should be seized. We swim in blessed seas.”

“Um, sure.”

“Open waters and sweet tides, little land creature.” Anceline smiled, not unkindly. “If we see you again, we shall go swimming fast.”

“Right. I’ll look forward to that.” In my nightmares, I’d be looking forward to that. Probably every night for the foreseeable future.

Anceline turned and whistled. The other Cetacea nodded, and waved to me before ducking beneath the waves. In a matter of seconds, I was alone, bobbing in the water a few hundred yards off the San Francisco shore.

Never let it be said that I don’t know how to live an interesting life.

I swam for the shore as fast as I could, fighting the waves as I tried to keep my head above the water. The weight of my leather jacket and the bundle of clothing I was still holding didn’t help matters, but I wasn’t letting them go after hauling them this far. None of the dockworkers looked my way as I swam by, but I wasn’t pushing my luck. I chose a deserted pier as my destination, one that seemed to have the least amount of human activity.

I had reached the dock and was trying to figure out how to climb out of the water when I realized what my next problem was going to be: with Connor in Saltmist, I didn’t have a ride home, and with Quentin back at the apartment, I didn’t have a phone.

“Oh, Titania’s ass,” I grumbled.

“You kiss your momma with that mouth?” asked a rumbling voice. Something I’d taken for a stack of fishing crates unfolded, resolving into the craggy, familiar form of Danny McReady, cab driver. Even wearing a human disguise, he was big enough to block me mostly from view. “I mean, not recently, I guess.”

“Danny!” I waved with my free hand. “Thank Oberon you’re here. I really didn’t want to steal a car today.”

“That’s my favorite paragon of law an’ order,” said Danny fondly. He walked to the edge of the dock, squatting to peer down at me. “You want some help getting out of there? Never took you for a distance swimmer, you know.”

“Believe me, I’m really, really not.” I heaved my clothes onto the dock, where they landed with a wet “splat.” I held my hands up toward him. “Pull me out. Don’t make a scene, and don’t drop me.”