Page 48 of The Unkindest Tide

“I know you’re here,” I said, opening my eyes and squirming farther out of the hole, until I was sitting on the edge. My scales glittered in the gloom. I tried to remember what Dianda had taught me about transformation, about knowing who I was and who I wanted to be and letting that be enough. The scent of cut grass and copper rose around me, faint but clear, and my scales melted away, replaced by my more familiar legs. My rag-cut skirt also returned, shorter now, stopping just above my knees. Well, that was efficient.

Carefully, I pulled my legs out of the water and stood, barefoot and unsteady on the storeroom floor. Quentin’s head broke the surface a second later, hair slicked down and dark with water. I bent to offer him my hands.

“Come on,” I said. “We’re being watched, but it’s cool. I think they’re a friend.”

“They tried to smash your head,” he objected, coughing up water. Somehow, he managed to look dignified and elegant even with water running down his chin. Sometimes I hate purebloods.

“Sure, but whoever it is, they’re protecting something really important, and they didn’t realize it was me. There’s no harm done.”

Quentin looked dubious. “I don’t like you acting like major head trauma is ‘no harm done.’ It would have been a lot of harm done if they’d hit me.”

“And that’s why I go first.”

Quentin snorted, taking my hands and pulling himself up onto the edge of the pool. His scales gleamed in the open air, even more beautiful now that they were out of the water and thus not part of their environment. He eyed my legs with open avarice. “How are you standing?”

“Think about how it feels to stand, how it feels to have the body you know you’re supposed to have, and then just . . . get up.” I shrugged. “Sorry if that’s not as helpful as it could be. I had Dianda to walk me through the process, and she was a little more accustomed to the idea than I am.”

Quentin gave me a baleful look before closing his eyes and taking a deep, slow breath. Then, planting his hands on either side of the hole in the floor, he stood.

His legs had brought his pants with them when they came back. It was nice of the Luidaeg to consider our desire not to be running around an unfamiliar knowe filled with potentially hostile forces without any clothes on. He didn’t get shoes either. I suppose the Luidaeg hadn’t thought they were important enough to include them in her spell.

Quentin wiped the water out of his eyes as he transferred his baleful look to the rest of the room. “I wish whoever it is would just come out. I don’t like sharing space with invisible people who’ve already attacked my knight.”

“I don’t think the Cephali have turned on the Lordens,” I said. “Not yet, anyway. I guess they’d have to if Torin kept the knowe, but since we know that’s not going to happen, they may be waiting to see. And keeping Peter safe, of course. Dianda entrusted Helmi with her younger son, and the Cephali have a strong sense of honor. They’re going to protect the boy until they can’t do it anymore.”

I was making wild guesses, based on what I knew of Dianda’s relationship to Helmi and what I knew about the Cephali as a whole. They’re loyal, like the Hobs in the land Courts, but they’re more militant than any of the household spirits I’d grown up with. They make their decisions based on the needs of their households and their lieges, and they’re devoted to the people they choose to serve. Helmi was sworn to Dianda, not Saltmist, and that meant the rest of the Cephali might have chosen the same carefully-worded loophole.

Merrow, like the Daoine Sidhe, seemed to assume everyone wanted what the Merrow wanted, and thought like the Merrow thought. If I was right . . .

A tentacle uncoiled from the ceiling, already changing colors from chalky shadow-gray to a vibrant shade of green. A moment later, a Cephali girl dropped down to the floor, flipping over in midair, so she landed on her tentacles and not on her head. The octopus half of her body was bright green at the tentacle-tips, shading to a deeper shade of pine near the waist; the skin of her human half was a very pale green, like newly sprouted leaves. She was far too young to be Helmi, but she was armed, holding a wickedly jagged knife in either hand.

“You say you come in the name of the Lorden family,” she said. “Prove it.”

“A reasonable request, but I can’t,” I said. “Dianda has been arrested for treason, so it’s not like she could give me a token to show you. Patrick and Dean are safe with allies. We’re here for Peter. My name is October Daye. I’m the one who found Peter and Dean when they were kidnapped. I’m the former Countess of Goldengreen. I gave up my title so Dean could be Count, and we could solidify the alliance between our domains. I can bleed for you, if you can read the truth in my blood.”

“Blood magic isn’t a strength of the Cephali,” she said. “All our bleeding is spent on growing back our limbs.”

“Right,” I said. Cephali regenerate. That’s a good thing, since their usual response to disappointing the people they care about involves chopping off their own tentacles. “In that case, all I can give you is my word. By the root and the branch, I swear, we’re not here to harm Peter. We’re here to get him back to his family before someone else can hurt him.”

“Who’s the boy?” demanded the Cephali, nodding toward Quentin.

“My squire, Quentin,” I said.

“He armed?” asked the Cephali.

“We’re both armed,” I said. “Come on. If you want to fight us, fight us. But if you want to see Peter Lorden safe and out of here until his parents can take their Duchy back, you need to take us to him.”

The Cephali hesitated. I held my breath until finally, she lowered her weapons.

“Follow me,” she said. “If we’re caught, I’ll slit your throats myself to show my loyalty to the invaders.”

“Must loyalty always mean blood on the floor?” I asked, already stepping toward her. “All right. Let’s go.”

She eyed me warily as she moved toward the door, not walking so much as undulating, her tentacles gripping and releasing so she flowed across the damp marble like something out of a dream. Quentin and I followed silently, letting her lead the way. It would have been a stretch to say we trusted her, but we didn’t have much of a choice. Time was short, for everyone.

I’m not sure how much of the average Undersea knowe is pressurized and filled with air. Because the Selkies are air-breathers, and several Undersea races are equally comfortable in both, I’ve always assumed air chambers were a standard feature: it’s easier to sip wine and preserve royal decrees when you’re not trying to do it underwater. The hall the Cephali led us along would have looked perfectly reasonable in Goldengreen or Shadowed Hills. It was laid out in a vaguely medieval style, its organic nature betrayed only by the places where the walls met the ceiling, which were gentle slopes of polished, bonelike coral rather than hard edges. The floor was pink; the walls were white; the décor was elegant, and almost managed to obscure the fact that the place had been grown rather than built.

“Is the knowe alive?” I asked, voice pitched low to keep us from being overheard.