Page 65 of The Unkindest Tide

“She was my fellow chief, and my kin through René.” Mathias put a comforting arm around his husband’s shoulder. “We rarely saw eye to eye, but we were friendly, for his sake. Yes. You have my permission to find the one who killed her.”

“I want her skin,” said René, with sudden, brutal fierceness.

I turned to him, blinking. “What?”

“My sister’s skin. I want it. You say someone stole it from her, rendered her human, and killed her? I don’t care what the sea witch gave us permission to do. She was murdered, and I can claim recompense, and I want her skin. It’s been in our family since the beginning. It was our mother’s. I want it back.”

I bit my lip, glancing to Tybalt, who looked hopelessly back at me. Under most circumstances, it would have been nice to see him as baffled as I was. This wasn’t most circumstances.

“René . . .” I shifted my focus back to the Selkie man, who was staring at me, impatient and defiant. “You know this Convocation ends with the Luidaeg using me to bind the skins to their wearers and bring back the Roane.”

“I know,” he said. “Mathias and I don’t have any children. We’ve been trying to decide how we want to do that. Neither does . . . neither did Isla. There wasn’t time. She thought she had so much longer than this. But our clan has children, and my sister wouldn’t begrudge me giving her skin to one of them, any more than I would have begrudged her giving mine to a child of Belle Fleuve. We knew when we went to different clans that this day might come. You always hope it won’t. You always understand that it will.”

One more complication was exactly what we didn’t need, especially with Torin prowling around, Dianda in custody, and the Luidaeg sailing off to find her absent sister. Looking at René’s eyes, I realized I couldn’t tell him I wouldn’t at least try.

“I’ll do what I can,” I said. “If the skin has already been passed to a new owner . . .”

“I need to meet them,” he said. “I need to know whether they’re someone my sister would have approved of. If they’re not, I’ll take it back, and screw the sea witch if she doesn’t like it.”

Mathias looked horrified. Liz looked like she wanted a drink. Quentin grinned.

“I like this one,” he said.

“Lovely: the Crown Prince approves of my husband.” Mathias scowled at his cider. “I suddenly find myself wishing I shared my colleague’s lack of caution where alcohol is concerned.”

“A drink a day keeps the crushing weight of the universe away,” said Liz, with something that actually resembled good cheer.

“Right,” I said. “Mathias, Liz, you should stay here, and stay together. We can’t afford to lose any more clan leaders, not when things are getting ugly. René, will you come with us?”

“What?” said Mathias and Liz, in remarkably close unison.

“Of course,” said René, and started to rise.

Mathias caught his arm, dragging him right back down again. “You will not,” he snapped. He sounded furious. His face told a different story.

He was afraid.

I could understand his reaction. I went through something similar every time I needed to send one of my boys away. Tybalt could take care of himself, and even Quentin wasn’t the helpless courtier that part of me would always insist on seeing him as, but that didn’t stop me from worrying whenever shit was going down and they weren’t close enough for me to watch over. Mathias was a man on the verge of losing everything—his way of life, his people, even the specific nature of his ties to Faerie. Adding René to that list was just one step too far.

“He will,” I said gently. “I need someone who can walk me through the community you have here, however temporary it is, and I can’t take you or Liz.”

“Why not?” he demanded.

“Because maybe Isla was killed because she was convenient, and maybe she was killed because someone held a grudge, but maybe she was killed because someone is targeting Selkie clan leaders, and I’d rather not walk you right into their targeting range.” I shrugged. “Call me weird, but I think the Selkies—Roane, whatever the right term is when this is all over—will do better if they don’t have to deal with their world changing and their leaders dying at the same time. It’s just a thought.”

“It’s not a bad one,” said Mathias. “Don’t . . . please, please. We’re not friends. You have no reason to do anything I ask of you, and every reason to want to see me suffer, but please. Don’t let them hurt him.”

“My lady is not so cruel as you’d imply, and I would be most pleased if you would choose your words more carefully in the future.” Tybalt’s voice was mild. His eyes told a different story. His pupils had narrowed to thin threads against the banded green of his irises, and he looked at Mathias the way a predator looks at a small, scurrying thing; like he was considering how good the other man might taste. “Please do not provoke me.”

“Did you feel like you weren’t getting in your daily quota of being unnecessarily threatening, or are you just showing off for the new people?” I asked.

“Can I vote ‘both’?” asked Quentin.

Tybalt snorted. “I’m allowed to defend your honor. You granted me that right when you accepted my suit. Please don’t take away what small pleasures I can preserve in the face of far more danger than I care to contemplate.”

“Fine, you can threaten people.”

“I appreciate it,” he said, cracking the narrowest line of a smile.