One Salt Sea: An October Daye Novel (40 page)

Bucer licked his lips, looking cornered. That wasn’t much of a surprise. He
was
cornered. “Somebody had to know where she was. Maybe that liege of yours—”

“Sylvester would never have told anyone where to find Gillian. Not even his own daughter knew where to find mine. But Devin knew, didn’t he? Devin knew what she looked like, because he sent a Doppelganger that looked just like her to my door. And if Devin knew, someone had to find out for him. You’ve always been good at finding things out, haven’t you, Bucer?” I took a step forward, closing the distance between us again. “How did she find you?
How much did she pay you
?”

He looked into my eyes. Whatever it was he saw there, he didn’t seem to like it very much. “I don’t know how she found me,” he whispered. “People like her, they always find people like us when they need to, you know? Someone told her who I was. That we used to work together, that I’d . . . I’d . . .”

“That you’d know where to find my little girl.”

Bucer took a slow breath before he said, “Yeah. That’s what she wanted. One of the things, anyhow. Maeve’s ass, Toby, you left the kid. She was going to get hurt sooner or later. You had to know that. I was doing you a favor.”

My hands itched to lock around his throat. I fought the urge back, taking a calming breath. “And you don’t know who sent her?”

“No.” His ears drooped. “I just wish whoever it was had sent her to somebody else. This ain’t worth it.”

“No. It’s not. What did she pay you?”

Bucer’s expression turned shifty again. “Money. Lots of it. And she said she’d make sure I had time to get out of the Kingdom before they found the bodies of the little boys. She said I could come back when the fighting was over, and they’d make me a Baron.”

Raj scoffed. “What, and you believed her?”

“Just the first part. Not the Baron stuff. I figured the Baron stuff didn’t matter so much anyway, since I was never going to come back here.” Bucer frowned, ears twitching. “Why’d you bring kids here, Toby? This ain’t something kids should see.”

“We saw this sort of thing, remember?” I grabbed his ear again, twisting. He howled. “Keep it down. If the neighbors call the cops, you’re going to regret it more than I will, and believe me, I am
not
in a merciful mood. Where is she keeping the children, Bucer?
Where are they
?”

“I don’t know! I don’t—” His protests became a scream as I twisted his ear downward. I clapped a hand over his mouth, slamming him against the wall. His scream became a whimper.

“Now you listen to me, and you listen good,” I whispered, leaning forward to keep the others from hearing me. Raj might hear me anyway—Cait Sidhe hearing is some of the best in Faerie—but he would understand. The others might not. “I want to kill you right now. Do you understand that? I want to hurt you in ways I have never wanted to hurt anyone, because you crossed a line. You involved my daughter. Cooperate and maybe you walk away.”

He nodded, eyes so wide that the whites were visible all the way around his irises.

“Smart boy. Now, I know there’s no way Rayseline went to ground without leaving a trail, and there’s no way you didn’t consider the value of being the only one to know her hiding place. You followed her when she took Gillian. Now where is she? Tell me, and I let you live. Understand?”

He nodded again.

“Good.” I took my hand away. “Where are they, Bucer?”

“Muir Woods,” he whispered. He swallowed hard before continuing, “There’s an old shallowing there. Little Mike told me about it before he left for Angels. Said I could hide there if Devin ever got to be too much to deal with; said it was part of some knowe that fell down a hundred years ago. We lost the rest of it, but the shallowing stayed.”

“If Little Mike told you about it, how did Rayseline know it was there?”

He didn’t answer me. He didn’t have to. The way he glanced away told me everything I needed to know.

I was suddenly, unendurably tired—and more, I was suddenly aware that my self-control wasn’t going to hold for very much longer. I let go of his ear, giving him one last shove before I turned to face the others. “Raj, go get your Uncle. Tell him he needs to meet us in Muir Woods.”

“Where?” asked Raj.

“The main parking lot. It should take us about an hour to get there.”

Raj nodded, once, and turned, stepping into the shadows clinging to the corner of the room. The smell of pepper and burnt paper rose and was gone, taking him with it.

I looked to Quentin and Connor. “Are you coming with me?”

“Yes,” said Quentin.

“You can’t stop me,” said Connor.

Bucer cleared his throat behind me, asking, “So, ah, does this mean I can go?”

“You’re a traitor to the Kingdom of the Mists, Bucer O’Malley,” I said dully. “I don’t care so much about that. I probably should, but hell, it’s not
my
Kingdom. You’re also the bastard who sold me out—who sold my
daughter
out—for the promise of something you knew you’d never get. So yeah, Bucer, you can go. You can take your things, and you can get so far out of this Kingdom that I never hear your name again.”

“And, ah . . . if I come back?”

I glanced back over my shoulder, smiling pleasantly. “If you come back, no one will ever charge me with breaking Oberon’s Law, because nobody will ever find your body. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yeah.” He wiped his nose with the back of one hand, looking at me with wide, wounded eyes. “You always were Devin’s favorite. I guess I finally see why.”

“Good-bye, Bucer.” I started for the door. Quentin and Connor followed me, neither of them saying a word. I’m pretty sure they had no idea what they should say. That was fine by me, because I wouldn’t have known how to answer them.

Bucer closed the door behind us.

I
WAITED UNTIL WE WERE BACK in the car before I called May. Filling her in only took a few seconds. It would have taken longer, but there were no troops for her to send out, no backup for her to offer. Like it or not, my army was already in the car.

She did try, once, to convince me to call Shadowed Hills. “Let Sylvester send his knights with you,” she begged.

“I can’t wait that long. Etienne can’t open gates for them all—not when we’re not going into a knowe—and if Rayseline’s reached the stage where she’s chopping fingers off the kids she needs to keep alive, who knows what she’s going to do to Gillian.”

May’s silence told me she knew I was right. Finally, she sighed, and said, “Just be careful.”

“If I can,” I said, and hung up. I turned to look at Connor.

“I’m not leaving you, so don’t ask,” he said quietly.

I smiled. “I wasn’t going to. Let me make one more call, and then we’re out of here.” I started to raise the phone again, and stopped as the half-forgotten shell in my jacket pocket began to vibrate. I pulled it out, looking at it in bemusement for a moment before lifting it to my ear. “Hello?”

“Come get me,” said the Luidaeg.

I blinked. “So what, you call me now? This is new.”

“I thought you might appreciate skipping the headache.”

“That’s uncommonly considerate.”

“I have my moments.” The Luidaeg sounded tired. “You’re going to want me for what happens next.”

“Luidaeg, what are you—”

“Did you really think I wouldn’t start keeping tabs on you after the night-haunts came and complained to me about you summoning them again? I heard everything that happened in that apartment, and I’m telling you to come and get me.
Now
.”

The Luidaeg had neglected to mention her shell could be used as a two-way listening device. Oh, what fun it is, to live in a world where “full disclosure” is something that only happens to other people. “I thought you couldn’t be directly involved.”

“In stopping the war, no. In bringing those kids home . . . yeah. Now stop screwing around and get over here. Don’t worry about the traffic. I’m taking care of it.”

That simple statement was enough to raise a hundred horrific images, some of which wouldn’t have been out of place in a movie about a giant rubber monster rising out of the San Francisco Bay and starting to lay waste to everything in sight. “Luidaeg . . .”

“Not like that. What do you take me for?”

“The sea witch.”

It was her turn to pause, before allowing, “Fair enough. I’ll be outside when you get here. Make it fast.” With that, she was gone. I scowled at the shell before shoving it back into my pocket.

“Looks like we’re making a pickup,” I snarled, and started the car.

“Oh, what fun,” said Connor, deadpan. “Adding the sea witch to today’s field trip is probably the
only
thing that could make it even
better
.”

I scowled at him. He shrugged, expression so innocent that I couldn’t help laughing. “Jerk,” I said.

“I have to do something to make you keep me around when this is over.”

I was still laughing when Quentin stuck his head into the front seat, tapping my shoulder to get my attention. “Toby?”

“Yeah?” I glanced his way.

“What you did back there—have you done that before?”

I’d been hoping to put this conversation off for a while. Say, maybe, forever? Forever would have been nice. “Yes,” I said. “Why?”

“It was . . . it was . . .” He paused, clearly searching for the words. Finally, he said, “It wasn’t honorable.”

Oberon spare me from pureblood honor. “I didn’t break the Law, I didn’t really hurt him, and I got the information we needed. He wouldn’t have given it to us any other way. Sometimes, when your options are limited, honor takes a back seat to necessity.” And it had felt good. That was probably the worst part: that I used the things Devin taught me, the way he taught me to use them, and it felt
good
.

Sometimes I lie to myself a little bit, and pretend that Sylvester was the only man who taught me to grow up. Then things happen—things always happen—and I remember that nothing was ever that simple.

Quentin nodded, expression thoughtful. “Am I going to have to do that?”

“That’s up to you. Someday, you may find yourself in a position where you feel like you don’t have a choice. When that happens, it’s better if you have a way to deal with it. You can only repair your honor if you survive.”

“I guess.” He pulled back into his own seat, brooding. I just drove.

The Luidaeg’s apartment wasn’t far from Bucer’s. She was waiting for us on the corner, looking as human as I’d ever seen her, with her curly black hair bound in untidy braids. Her cable-knit sweater was too big, bagging around her waist and making her look even younger than her human mien normally did. She could have passed for an awkward nineteen year old still getting used to her own skin, as long as whoever she was trying to fool never saw the almost-infinite age in her dark brown eyes.

I pulled up to the curb, idling the engine while Connor opened his door and climbed out, clearly intending to get into the back seat. Quentin was already getting out, grinning as he threw himself toward the Luidaeg. “Luidaeg!” he said, any lingering tension washed away by his joy at seeing the sea witch.

She caught him in a one-armed hug, returning his smile. It was a sincere expression, made all the sweeter by the knowledge of how rare her smiles tended to be. “Hey yourself, kiddo,” she said, letting him go and ruffling his hair. “Dad’s teeth, you’re getting huge. They need to stop feeding you. Dead kids don’t grow much.”

“Sometimes I consider it, but I don’t want to fill out the paperwork for a replacement,” I said. “Come on.”

Connor stayed where he was, blinking as the Luidaeg followed Quentin into the back seat. He looked at me for guidance. I shrugged, and motioned for him to get back in the car. We needed to get moving, and if the Luidaeg wanted to sit with Quentin, that was her business.

Quentin met the Luidaeg after Blind Michael stole Quentin’s human girlfriend. The Luidaeg was the one who gave him the chance to save her . . . by giving her up. He could have hated her for that. I probably would have. Instead, she wound up added to his personal pantheon of people worth trusting. Boys are weird.

I met the Luidaeg’s eyes in the rearview mirror. Her irises were a plain human brown, and mine were the no-color mist gray I inherited from my mother. I scowled, mostly at my own carelessness. Until that moment, I hadn’t actually thought about the fact that I wasn’t wearing a human disguise. Getting Gillian back would be a pyrrhic victory if I betrayed the existence of Faerie in the process.

The Luidaeg lifted her eyebrows, waiting for me to speak.

“Buckle up,” I said, and pulled away from the curb.

“I’ve cleared the roads between here and Muir Woods,” said the Luidaeg. “You can go as fast as you need to. No one’s going to stop us.”

“This is probably where I’m supposed to say ‘neat trick,’ but I can do that with a don’t-look-here and a little fancy driving.” Still, I hit the gas, accelerating to a speed that bordered on unsafe. True to the Luidaeg’s word, there were no other cars in sight as we drove out of her magically-generated mist. “Where is everybody? Please don’t tell me you’ve turned the entire mortal population of the city into pillars of salt. I really don’t know how I’d explain that to the Queen.”