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face creased in worried lines.

The weight of responsibility pressed on Conn’s neck and pounded in his temples. It fell to him to unite

them, to direct them, to protect them all, however uncomfortably they bore with each other or his control.

“We closed the door,” he said grimly. “Hell has opened a window.”

“Unless the vent was already there,” Enya said. “We do not know everything that goes on in the deeps.”

“The eruption could be merely a warning,” Morgan said.

“Not a warning,” Conn said. “A threat. We must deal with it.”

Gau’s words seared his memory. “
Give her to us, or we will destroy Sanctuary.
”

He would never give Lucy up.

He listened to the wardens squabble like seabirds on the cliffs.

He had hoped that they would have weeks or months before the demons moved against them. Time to

be together. Time for Lucy to understand her gift.

She was operating solely on instinct and raw power. In healing Madadh and in closing the portal, she had

channeled that power through Conn. She needed to learn control.

Morgan said something that made Enya flush and snap at him.

Yet perhaps Lucy’s ignorance was also her strength, Conn reflected. Deprived of training, she had no

preconceptions of what she could or could not do. Her power, like her loyalty, was not dictated by logic

or duty.

Lucy’s magic sprang from love. From passion.

That love had saved his hound. Her love had rescued Conn from the gate of Hell.

Griff rumbled, intervening in the wardens’ argument. Conn listened to them debate, aware as always of

the tensions that flowed below the surface, threatening to pull them apart.

He needed Lucy’s magic to save his people. But how could she save them unless she accepted she was

one of them?

She loved him, Conn reminded himself. She had said so. For now, that must be enough.

He must rein the council to the crisis at hand. Conn looked at Ronat. “How active is this vent?”

“I cannot say, lord. I sensed the plume, but I could not approach the chimney. It was too deep for

me—more than a mile below the surface.”

“Could the finfolk go there?” Conn asked Morgan.

“I could,” Morgan said.

“Then—”

The door swung open. A shaft of sunlight spilled across the floor. Lucy followed it in.

For a moment Conn simply enjoyed the sight of her, long and lean and graceful, bathed in light.

Then he saw her face, and his heart clenched like a fist.

“What is it, lass?” Griff said. “What’s the matter?”

She stumbled from the beam of light, moving stiffly, blindly, like an old woman. “Gau.”

Conn surged from his seat to catch her.

“What?” A voice behind him.

“Where?”

Lucy raised her drowned green eyes to Conn. “In the fountain.”

He supported her forward, his heart beating again.

“A vision,” he said with relief.

Gau must have taken advantage of the opening in the fountain to bypass the wards. At least the demon

had not harmed her physically.

Lucy clutched his arms. “I have to go home.”

Conn stiffened. She was distraught. She did not mean it. She could not leave him. “No.”

Lucy trembled.

He didn’t understand.

“Gau threatened my family. I have to go home.”

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A muscle bunched in Conn’s jaw. “You cannot leave Sanctuary.”

Despair tore her. “You don’t understand. I saw—”

“Visions can lie,” Conn said patiently. Implacably. “Gau lies.”

“Gau is on his way to World’s End!” The words burst from her.

“Then he will be there before you,” a voice drawled.

Lucy turned her head to identify the speaker. Morgan, with the white-blond hair and eerie yellow eyes.

“Whatever you imagine you can do,” Morgan said, “you are already too late.”

Too late.
Horror shook her. The internal scream started again in her head.

Conn pierced the warden with a look before turning back to Lucy. “Dylan is there,” he said soothingly.

“And Margred. They will protect your family.”

Lucy’s visions rose like smoke, searing, dark. They choked her. “That’s not enough. They need a

warden.”

“Dylan is a warden.”

“Dylan’s only one person.”

“I will send the
whaleyn
to him with a warning.”

She stared at him in disbelief. “My family is in danger. My brothers. A boy you’ve known since he was

thirteen. And you’re going to send a
warning
?”

Conn’s mouth compressed. “Your family accepted their danger when they refused to come to

Sanctuary.”

“Conn.” Her voice caught. “You must help them.”

His face hardened. “My duty is here.”

“What about my duty?”

“You are the
targair inghean
.”

“Oh, let her go,” Enya snapped. “Let her take on Gau on someone else’s turf. That would solve our

problems with Hell.”

“One way or the other,” Morgan said.

Conn shot them a glare that shut them up.

Lucy turned to them, her frantic gaze scanning the circle of interested, noncommittal, selkie faces.

“You could help. Help my family. Please.” Her heart pounded. “Won’t any of you help me?”

Griff shuffled his feet and looked away.

“They are human. Mortal.” Her eyes begged for understanding. For sympathy. “They will die.”

Conn took her hands in a strong clasp. “Lucy, Sanctuary itself is threatened. Without it, our people will

die.”

“You’re immortal.”

“Not in human form. Not outside of Sanctuary.”

“So what?” Was that her voice, sharp and cold as the wind? “So you only live eighty, ninety years?”

His face set. “It is not for the children of the sea to grow old and die.”

“My family won’t have the chance to grow old. They’ll just die. Gau will kill them. Unless you send help.”

“No one can be spared from the defenses here.”

“Then I must go.”

“You can be spared least of all. We need you here. I need you here.” Conn lowered his voice. How he

must hate this display of emotion in front of his wardens. “I cannot do this without you.”

His eyes—warm silver—bored to the bottom of her soul. Her hands trembled in his.

But her voice was perfectly steady as she said, “I’m sorry. I love you. But my family needs me more.”

Slipping her hands from his grasp, she walked out of the hall.

No one moved or spoke or tried to stop her. She walked swiftly, so no one could catch her. She did not

look back. She couldn’t afford to.

Across the courtyard and into the tower, down the stairs, and through Conn’s private door. Madadh

whined and trotted after her.

On the path that led to the beach, she turned. “Go!” she shouted. “Go on. Go back to him!”

The hound pressed closer, thrusting its bearded muzzle into her hand. Her eyes stung. Her chest was on

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fire.

She stumbled down the track.

She had never wanted to be like the mother who had abandoned her. But she could be herself. She must

not think of the ones she was leaving behind, but the ones she was leaving to save.

Lucy swallowed hard. Maybe her mother had done the same.

On the beach, she stripped off her borrowed clothes and folded them in a pile.

“
Something holds you back,
” Conn had said.

Yes. Pain.

Fear.

Love.

Naked, she stood at the water’s edge.

Or nearly naked. The aquamarine glinted against her belly. Conn’s words teased at her memory: “
The

selkie do not alter or adorn their skin.
” Was she selkie? She remembered the tearing pain at her

midsection the last time she had braved the water. Maybe . . .

With shaking hands, she fumbled with the piercing and laid it on top of the pile of discarded clothes. The

tiny jewel shimmered against the rough linen like a tear. A promise. A farewell.

Her heart hammered against her ribs as she turned to face the water. Conn had cautioned her against

going alone into the sea. What had Iestyn said? Without a guide, a selkie Changing for the first time could

be lost forever beneath the waves.

But she was connected to the land in ways no selkie had ever been, anchored by duty and bound by

love.

Taking a deep breath, she walked naked into the sea.

The water foamed around her ankles. Cold and apprehension shook her. She didn’t want to do this. She

had no choice. Admitting it was a kind of relief. No choice. No control.

She slogged forward.

Pressure built under her skin, beneath her ribs, deep in her gut, swelling in slow rolling breakers along her

sinews, bones, and nerves.

She recognized the precursors of pain, the onset of the Change. She’d always resisted it before. Now

she welcomed the pain, waded into it, with tears streaming down her face and outstretched arms.

She needed the pain to take her where she had to go.

Her vision blurred. Her hearing sharpened. Smells, a rich stew of kelp and brine, swept over her. The

current dragged at her knees. She staggered, and the water bore her up, wrapped her in a lover’s

embrace. Pain ripped her belly. Confusion rent her mind as the world dissolved and swirled around her.

Her limbs shortened and fused. Her body thickened. Panic closed her throat. She couldn’t . . . She must.

She struggled forward, wallowing in the surf, ungainly and powerful. Her skin quivered, her fur rippled

under the caress of the water.

We flow as the sea flows . . .

The water broke over her head. Her heart leaped and surged.

Yes.

The waves whispered and sang. With a sigh of release, she surrendered her body, surrendered her will,

surrendered control to the sea.

18

THE DOOR THUDDED SHUT BEHIND LUCY. SILENCE fell over the hall.

None of Conn’s wardens would meet his eyes.

“Will you go after her, lord?” Griff offered at last.

Conn’s headache simmered behind his eyes. He was aware of having upset her. Hurt her. Disappointed

her. But what else could he have done or said? His duty was to his people, as Lucy’s must be.

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She was not thinking rationally. She did not grasp the larger picture. She did not know Gau as he did.

“Go where?” he asked. “We are on an island.”

And Lucy could not swim. He would let her cool off before he sought her out, before he found her and

explained . . . What? That her family must be sacrificed to her destiny?

Griff frowned. “Even so . . .”

“Oh, let the girl have her exit,” Morgan said. “She has earned that much.”

“She has earned much more,” Conn said harshly. “Including the right to be left alone.”

Alone.

In the clear cold dark, sound rushed upon her. Thought faded and fell away. Her nostrils were tightly

sealed, her eyes wide open, her body as sleek and barreled as the swells she rode. The pulse of the

surge was her pulse. The briny beating heart of the sea throbbed in her chest.

She moved with the currents and by instinct, bubbles spangling the water like stars. Dazzled by the

constellations of her breath, immersed in wonder and sensation, she spiraled among swaying forests of

kelp, over ridges of sea flowers. Every quiver and vibration, the darting fish, the swaying weed, the

ponderous song of the whales, was caught by her whiskers. The texture of the water rippled through her