“That’s the Queen for you,” Barbara said. She licked a bit of cream cheese off of one finger and dusted bagel crumbs onto the sand. In deference to the California heat and the beach, she’d traded in her usual black leather for a long cotton batik skirt and a cropped red top that made her cloud of black hair seem even darker.
“She’s as volatile as she is beautiful. I’ve seen her be incredibly kind and generous, but she can also be cruel. I’d been hoping for the first one this time, but . . .” She sighed, laying her head on Liam’s shoulder for a moment.
Liam placed a light kiss on her forehead, keeping his eyes on Babs’s tiny figure as she played by the edge of the waves. Her narrow face, with its pointed chin and snub nose, wore a slightly less solemn expression than usual as she ran in and out of the frothing water. Chewie stood guard a few feet away, the water-loving dragon-dog ready to race to the rescue if the girl was surprised by an unusually large wave.
Barbara’s heart swelled so much it felt as though it would burst out of her chest. She’d never expected any of this strange and unfamiliar familial joy and the thought of losing it, too few years down the line, gave her an unaccustomed feeling of panic.
“So that’s the story,” she said. “We thought that maybe you might be able to help us with the first task, since you’re so in tune with the ocean.” Hope threatened to swamp her like one of the waves farther down the beach.
Beka looked thoughtful, pushing her waist-length straight blonde hair out of the way as the wind blew it into her face. Her long tanned legs stuck out in front of her, toned by hours of surfing and swimming. “Catch the song of the ocean in a bottle,” she repeated. “I don’t know how to do that.”
Barbara’s breakfast turned to stone in her stomach. “Oh. Well, it was worth a try.”
“No, no,” Beka said. “It’s okay. I’m pretty sure I know someone who will, and he owes me. But we’ll have to wait until dusk to ask him.”
“Really?” Liam said. “You know someone who can do that? Who?”
***
The King of the Selkies walked out of the waves as the sun was sinking below the horizon. Four tall Selkie men followed him, an honor guard more than an actual one, although they looked fit and alert enough to take on anything that came. All the Selkies had straight dark hair and brown eyes and smooth, pale skin that gleamed like the inside of an abalone. The King wore muted browns and grays like his men but his bearing and piercing glance would have made his rank clear, even if the scepter he carried did not.
The two Baba Yagas and their dragon-dogs walked down to meet the Selkies; Liam had stayed at the bus with Beka’s new husband, Marcus, and Babs, who had nodded off over her dinner after a day spent playing in the water, despite her eagerness to meet the King. The women bowed slightly to the King, who tilted his head in return. The Baba Yagas had always been held in great esteem by the sea peoples, the Selkies and the Mer, but after Beka had saved their underwater home from destruction and cured the folks who had been poisoned by the same source that had contaminated their refuge deep under the sea, the King treated her almost as an equal.
“Baba Yaga,” he said to her in his resonant voice. “You sent a message that you needed me and so I have come. We owe you a great debt and if there is anything at all I can do to repay it, such a thing is yours to command.”
“I would not command,” Beka said, a quiet dignity changing her from the hippy surfer chick she normally seemed to be into the powerful witch she actually was. “But I do ask most humbly if perhaps you can somehow help my friends. You promised me a boon, once, if I ever needed one. Their need is great, and if you can do the thing they require, it would repay the debt between us in full.”
The King looked thoughtful. Those of the Otherworld, even the few paranormal races who had been forced to stay behind when all the others retreated to the greater safety of the place far from Humans, truly disliked owing favors to anyone. Even those they liked and respected.
“If it is within my power, Baba Yaga, you may consider your wish granted. What is this boon you need for your sister Baba?”
Barbara took a step forward. “The High Queen has given me three impossible tasks to fulfill if I am to be allowed to wed my mate, Liam, in the eyes of the court and share with him the Water of Life and Death, which Beka once used to save your people.”
The King, a wise and long-lived creature who had ruled his people for many, many years, gave Beka a keen-eyed look. “This would affect you and your mate as well, would it not? Since he, too, is Human, I assume that your need for the Water would be the same.”
Beka nodded, a trifle grimly. “Indeed, we suspect that the success or failure of Barbara’s mission may well decide Marcus’s fate as well—although the Queen has not given me the same ultimatum, so we can’t know for sure.”
“Ah,” he said. “So we might be able to give you a gift almost as great as the one you gave to my people. That would be a right and fitting thing. What is it you need, exactly?”