One Salt Sea
Page 52

It was becoming more and more apparent how Rayseline had been able to do what she did. For all Patrick’s comments about the Undersea adopting mortal technology, they were still living in a time when Faerie was simpler. Back when humans didn’t encroach on our land, and when our halls were full, because we had the bodies to fill them. These days, people know everyone who lives in their fiefdom, because there just aren’t that many of us left. The Undersea didn’t have that problem. Instead, they got its opposite.
When there are too many people to know them all on sight, you can have strangers. And strangers can do bad things.
Helmi was waiting by the entrance pool. She had my clothes, shoes, and leather jacket—all still dripping—held primly at arm’s length. “These are yours,” she said, as soon as I was close enough to take them from her. “I’m to take you to meet Anceline outside the hall. If you’ll come with me?”
“Just a second.” I dug the bottles from Dianda out of my knife belt before unzipping the jacket’s breast pocket and dropping them inside, along with the bottle containing the needle from Peter’s room. It wasn’t a perfect solution, but it would prevent me from losing them during the trip back to the surface.
After a pause, I put the cold, wet jacket back on, shivering as the heavy leather hit my shoulders. I could buy new jeans if I had to. My jacket was something I couldn’t replace.
Connor watched me pull the cuffs of my jacket tight around my wrists before leaning in to kiss me, pinning my sopping-wet clothes between us. I didn’t care. Kissing him was worth a little chill.
Pulling back, he asked, “You good?”
“I’m good.” I hugged my dripping clothing. “Call the apartment if you need anything. One of us will be there. I may not be, but—”
“I love you. Now go. And be safe.”
“I’ll try,” I said. Then I turned, and jumped feet-first into the water.
Helmi was waiting for me in the mouth of the tunnel connecting the entrance pool to the rest of the palace by the time I had my fins back on. Her tentacles were wound around an anchor-post to hold her in place. When I swam toward her, she let go, and beckoned for me to follow her.
Cephali move more slowly in water than Merrow—then again, so do most speedboats. Keeping up with Helmi was easy. Not even the green dress slowed me down, although it probably looked pretty silly, especially with the leather jacket. Mermaids in skirts are not likely to be the next big fashion trend.
The question of why Anceline didn’t come into the knowe to meet me was answered when Helmi led me out one of the palace windows and into open water. A pod of Cetacea was waiting there, causing me to stop and simply stare. Anceline was reasonably normal-sized, as the fae measure such things; her human half was bigger than any human, but still smaller than a Bridge Troll, and even with her tail, she was no more than twelve feet long. Two of the other Cetacea matched her in coloring and size. The other four were almost twice as large, and resembled gray whales, not orcas.
Helmi gave me an amused look, hooking my wrist with a tentacle as she swam past. I let myself be towed, beginning to swim under my own power once it became clear she was planning to pull me all the way over to the pod of waiting Cetacea.
Anceline swam forward to meet us, executing an odd rolling curtsy before gesturing for me to grab her dorsal fin. I blinked. She repeated the gesture with more urgency. Time was ticking past, and while I didn’t think I was quite to the point where the Luidaeg’s spell would break, I didn’t want to risk it. Besides, it wasn’t like I could argue with her while we were underwater. I motioned for Helmi to release my wrist before swimming the last few feet to where Anceline waited and grabbing the indicated dorsal fin with my right hand, holding my clothes against my chest with my left. My tail stretched down the length of her body, my own gauzy flukes lying over the top of her powerful black-and-white ones.
I should probably have expected her to take off like, I don’t know, a killer whale with a mermaid hanging onto her back end. For some reason, I didn’t expect it to be that fast. Merrow move at a speed that seems unrealistic. Cetacea make them seem slow.
Anceline and the others cut through the water like they were running a race with themselves, hauling me in their wake. I would never have been able to keep up on my own. I doubt Dianda would have been able to keep up. As it was, I held on as hard as I could and kept my head down, praying I wouldn’t inhale a fish or something while we were on the way up.
We passed through the changes in temperature almost too fast to feel them. The water around us darkened as we moved back into the mortal seas, then started growing rapidly lighter as we approached the surface. The Cetacea weren’t slowing down. That probably should have worried me, but I was too busy hanging on for dear life to really think about it.
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?”