One Salt Sea: An October Daye Novel

Getting out of my wet clothes was the first order of business, to be followed by figuring out how to dry my leather jacket without destroying it. They were comfortably mundane problems, and the fact that they’d come about for distinctly nonmundane reasons was secondary at best.

I peeled my leather jacket off as soon as my bedroom door was closed, hanging it from the doorknob to keep it from dripping—much—on the rest of the room. Everything else went into the hamper. I dried my hair with the discarded towel from last night—oak and ash, had that really only been last night?—and shrugged on my bathrobe. Walther and Raj could deal with me being in a state of mild undress. I wasn’t going to try putting on dry clothes until I had dry skin to go under them.

I was emptying my jacket pockets when there was a knock at the door. “You all right in there?” called May.

“Just soaked,” I called back. “Something up?”

“Raj did something to the coffee machine. It’s making foam, and Walther won’t stop laughing. You should come take a look.”

“Coming.” I checked the knot on my bathrobe, giving my rat’s-nest hair an irritated glance before grabbing my jacket. If anyone could get the salt off without ruining the leather, it was Walther.

The coffee party was in full swing in the kitchen. May had managed to divert the promised flood of foam, probably through means I didn’t want to hear about. She and Raj swabbed the floor with dish towels while Walther sat at the kitchen table, holding a mug and grinning. Spike was perched on Walther’s shoulder.

“Today we’re learning why it’s bad to use hearth magic to accelerate brewing,” May said, turning to wring her towel out over the sink.

“It was educational,” said Walther.

Raj beamed. “May said I couldn’t possibly mess up the new coffee maker.”

“I’m proud of you. Once again, you’ve managed to exceed all expectations. Never hex my coffee maker again.” I held up my jacket. “Walther, any chance you can get the saltwater out of this?”

Walther turned to face me, and blinked. “I can try,” he said, standing. Spike jumped down to the table. “Did you really visit the Undersea?”

“Well, first I rode a pissed-off mermaid down Leavenworth,” I said, handing him the jacket. “After that, yeah, I went to visit the Undersea. It was a weird night, and it’s already shaping up to be a weird day.”

“More and more, you convince me that taking a job in a nice, safe classroom was the smartest thing I ever did.”

“Yeah, well, it probably was,” I replied. “Why aren’t you there now?”

“I took the day off. The threat of war seemed slightly more important than keeping my freshman chemistry students from burning down the building.” Walther squinted at the leather. “What did you do???

“Again, I visited the Undersea.”

“I don’t know why I bother asking.” He removed his glasses, tucking them into his coat pocket. He doesn’t need them—the only pureblood I’ve ever met who needed glasses was January O’Leary, and her eyes were actually damaged. Walther’s glasses are part of his whole Clark-Kent-isn’t-Superman routine, since no human disguise can hide the piercing Tylwyth Teg blue of his eyes. He doesn’t look at people as much as he looks through them. The glasses are intended to dampen the effect, since a little window dressing is better than having his students flee screaming on a regular basis.

Raj brought me a cup of coffee, casting a sheepish look at the towels on the floor. “Sorry about the mess.”

“It’s fine. Just clean it up, and all will be forgiven. Unless you broke the coffee maker.” I paused. “You didn’t break the coffee maker, did you?”

Raj and May shook their heads in mute unison.

I relaxed marginally. “In that case, we’re cool.”

“Good,” said May. “Now, what did you find?”