One Salt Sea: An October Daye Novel

“Gardens, rivers, sidewalks.” Danny gave me a sidelong look, taking a worrisome amount of attention off the road. “Some of the older ones—the calmer ones—remember you. One of ’em says it came from your yard. Says it used to live under a eucalyptus tree.”


A lump formed in my throat. Sylvester only brought Raysel to visit the apartment I shared with Cliff once; it was too dangerous to take a noble child in the open often, and there was too much risk that Raysel would say something she shouldn’t. But Sylvester wanted to meet my daughter, who was too close to human to enter the knowe, and he wanted Raysel to start getting accustomed to the human world. We sat in the postage stamp yard behind the building for hours, drinking lemonade, talking, and watching Raysel chase pixies around the three stunted eucalyptus growing by the back fence.

Before they left, she asked me if she and Gilly were going to be friends. Maeve help me, I told her they would. Six months later, Raysel was gone. Not long after that, so was I. Cliff moved out of that apartment while I was missing, and I’d never been back.

“Yeah,” I said. “That sounds about right.”

We pulled up in front of my apartment complex only a few minutes later. Danny stopped at the curb, saying apologetically, “I’d come in an’ be social, but I gotta get home and feed the kids. You gonna be okay?”

“As okay as I can be,” I said, and got out of the cab.

“I’ll call as soon as I know anything,” said Danny. Then he was gone, merging swiftly back into passing traffic.

I hugged my waterlogged clothes to my chest as I walked up the sidewalk to the gate. Walther’s car was parked in one of the visitor’s spots, jammed in at an angle that made it clear how fast he’d been going when he arrived. I walked a little faster. If he was here during school hours, it was because he had something he needed to share.

The wards on the door were open. That was a relief. Maybe it’s unkind of me to expect May to sit around playing secretary, but I don’t trust answering machines anymore, and people needed to be able to reach me. I undid the locks, calling, “I’m home,” as I stepped inside.

“Oh, thank Oberon!” May came flying out of the kitchen, throwing her arms around my shoulders before she fully registered how wet I was. She squawked and pushed me away from her. “Toby, you’re soaked!”

“Didn’t Quentin tell you where I was going?” Sudden fear lanced through me. Danny hadn’t mentioned driving Quentin home; I’d just assumed he must’ve, that Quentin would have sent him to wait for me. If he hadn’t—

“Quentin’s asleep in my room,” said May. “He wasn’t making sense when he got here. He said you ran away with the mermaids. I put him to bed when the sun came up.”

“That’s pretty much exactly what happened.” I shook my head. “I went to Saltmist with Dianda, to look for clues about what happened to the boys.”

May’s pale eyes went wide. “Did you find anything?”

“It was Rayseline. Any doubts I may have had . . . is Walther here? I saw his car.”

“He’s in the kitchen. We were showing Raj how to use the cappuccino setting on the coffee maker.” Something clattered in the kitchen, illustrating her point.

My relationship with the coffee maker is very dear to my heart. I grimaced, picturing my overenthusiastic Fetch taking it apart. “Okay. Tell him I’m going to go change into something dry, and then I’ll come in to review what we know. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“Back in a minute,” I said, and started for my room.