Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

May 2014, Duchy of Ships

My best friend is crying into my shoulder like the world is ending, and I’m late. Usually, being late for a ship due to set sail would mean getting left behind, but since its only purpose is to carry me, I’m not worried about that part.

She’s been crying for several minutes, my arm curled around her in what little comfort I can offer, but her tears are slowing, the well of them drying up. She sobs, her breathing heavy and hollow, and mumbles, “I’m sorry.” 

“It’s okay,” I say gently.

“I always knew they’d pick Ronan,” she whispers. “But there was always a chance I could inherit from someone else, maybe my auntie. Maybe he’d… Maybe he’d die in a stupid accident. I know that’s a horrible thing to imagine and I love my brother, I’d never wish it on him, but… “

“I get it,” I say, though I don’t really. I remember what it was like, before my magic had finally come in. How desperate I’d been to be properly a part of Faerie, of the Undersea. I’d been born to shift shapes and my body knew that, even when my magic hadn’t. I’d hoped Rhona would be the one to inherit, but I hadn’t understood what the Selkies were then. 

“There aren’t going to be any more Selkies now, ever. Either I spend the rest of my life here, reminded of what I can’t have all the time, or I’ll have to move to the human world. I’ve hardly been on land, I don’t know how their world works!” She pulls away from me, an edge of anger to her grief. “Why is the sea-witch doing this to us? Why now?”

“She’s fixing what’s broken.” 

“The Selkies aren’t broken,” she frowns. 

I bite my lip. “Yes, you are. Power is meant to be passed down from mother to daughter, father to son.” 

“But we’re skinshifters, not shapeshifters. Like the ravenmaids, the swanmays.” 

“And they’re born with skins, they still inherit their parents’ magic.” 

“What?” Rhona stares at me. “But then… why not us?” 

I swallow, trying to think of a way to explain without telling stories that I’m not meant to tell. “Because the way the Selkies were born was… Wrong. The Convocation of Consequences was always meant to happen, it needs to.”

Rhona looks away, but not before I see hurt in her eyes. “How can you know more about my own people than me? How could you not have told me?”

I know what it’s like to have the truth of your own blood kept from you and feel a rush of guilt for doing the same to my friend. “Mother told me, but she said I couldn’t tell anyone else. It’s against the rules the sea-witch set.” 

“You’ve never met a rule you wouldn’t bend or break,” she says, still stung. “Will you tell me now?” 

I bounce my leg, torn between loyalties. “I’m sorry. I made a promise, but you’ll find out soon enough. And then maybe you’ll see there’s a silver lining to being passed over.” 

“What do you mean?” 

“You get to stay innocent.”

Rhona looks at me, bewildered. “Elsie, you’re scaring me.” 

“It’s a scary sort of story.” She won’t stop looking at me, eyes shining with concern and confusion, and I can’t help myself. “When people wear ordinary fur, where does it come from?” 

“Animals?” she ventures.

“Dead animals,” I nod. “Where might magic skins come from?” 

“Dead fae animals?"

I stare at her. 

She looks away first. “Oh.”

“I’m sorry, Rhona.” I stand up. I haven’t told her everything, but I’ve broken my promise in spirit and there’s nothing more I can give her. “But you were born human. If you want to be fae, there’s a cost and someone had to pay it.” 

I haven’t helped my friend in her hour of need. I’ve only made her more confused and upset than before, and when she knows the truth about the Roane, I don’t know if our friendship will ever be the same again. 

“Elsie!” Mom scowls at my approach. “You were meant to set sail half an hour ago!”

I stop in front of her, my head lowered. “Rhona got passed over,” I say quietly. “She needed me.”

“Oh.” Mom's silent for a moment. There’s nothing she can say that will fix the reality of my best friend being shut off from Faerie forever. “Okay, I won’t make you walk the plank.” 

I raise an eyebrow. “How is that even a punishment when I can just turn into an otter?” 

“I could turn you into a turtle if you prefer.” She casts a wary look at the horizon. “They’ll be here soon, skedaddle.”

I hug her goodbye before jumping onto the gangway. Maybe I’m too old for that, but I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve left the Duchy. It’ll be weird to be away for so long.

“Elsie,” she says. “Promise not to get up to any mischief?” 

I blink at her innocently. “What could I possibly get up to on a ship that isn’t even docking anywhere?”

“You’ve accomplished getting into trouble on a stationary shipwreck,” she says, unaffected. “No getting bored and climbing the masts. No taking unnecessary risks. No going off to look for a raft of sea otters or something.” 

“Are there otters nearby?” 

She glares at me. 

I smile and salute her. “I meant roger that, Captain. I’ll be good.”

“Remember, if you keep to that, I’ll take you to Atlantis.” 

My grin brightens and I wave a final goodbye before walking onto the ship. 

My nightmare doesn’t have the grace to be subtle. I dream of people wearing otter skins, the fluffy brown fur dark against their skin. I dream of swimming away, hunted through the deep, and just as something is about to catch my flipper, I jolt awake. 

I lie in my bed, still sleep-dazed, feeling the gentle rocking motion of the ship which could so easily soothe me back to sleep if I let it, but my thoughts race wild and wicked. It shouldn’t rattle me. Any self-respecting dream ought to hide fear through a layer of symbolism at least. 

Even awake, my mind won’t move on from skins. From what I understand, they won’t exist anymore when I return. The Selkies are possessive of them and no matter that I’ve been Rhona’s friend since we were tiny, I’m still an outsider there.

But the skins are the only thing left of my brothers and sisters, and Annie won’t tell me anything about them because it hurts her too much to speak of them. I had brothers and sisters, and they all had names and lives, loves and hates and dreams, things they did and things they could have done.

They’re all long gone, and I want to remember them, but I can’t because I never knew them, only the idea of them, whispers lost to the wind. I wish I could meet one of the few Roane that survived the massacre, if any of them are still alive, to ask them what we lost.

I slip out of my cabin. It’s still not quite sunrise, I couldn’t have been asleep for long. I’d thought my dreams would be the one place I couldn’t dwell on what I’m missing.

What if one of the real Roane comes to the Convocation? What if I miss them? I know Annie doesn’t want me there, but the Roane are my family. Mom says the new Roane will be too.

I find myself drawn to the stern. I hold onto the edge of the ship, pretending I don’t know what my feet are thinking. 

The Summerlands sea stretches out before me, glistening in the light, the Duchy of Ships out of sight and far away. I shouldn’t be here. I should be there to see the Roane reborn. 

I don’t want to disobey both my mothers about something so important. This isn’t childish antics, they would be angry with me, disappointed. I’m grown up enough to understand that they’re not sending me away to be cruel, they just want to keep me safe. And I would very much like a fieldtrip to Atlantis.

But Annie can be overprotective. All I need to do is avoid attracting the attention of one changeling lady. I’m capable of that! 

I cast a glance behind me. None of the crew are in sight. They’ll notice I’m gone eventually and head back to the Duchy to tell on me. But by that point, I’ll have already been there for a while, I’ll have proved I can stay out of sight. I might be able to convince Annie to let me stay. 

I clamber onto the stern, staring down at the churning waters as I prepare to disobey the express orders of two Firstborn. But I want to witness the end of the Selkies and the restoration of the Roane more than I want to be an obedient daughter, so I dive into the sea, heading for home. 

Chapter Text

July 2011, Half Moon Bay.

A single door is open in the hall at the top of the stairs, letting a warm, inviting light spill out onto the floor.

The Luidaeg stops in the doorway, rapping her knuckles against the frame. “Hello, Lizzy,” she says. “Can we come in?”

“As if any could stop you.” The woman seated behind the room’s carved mahogany desk looks to be somewhere in her mid-twenties, with ash-blonde hair that can’t quite decide between gold and silver, and a Selkie’s characteristic sea-dark eyes. A snifter of what smells like brandy is in her hand. The light comes from the oil lamps set on the desk’s front corners, well away from the papers in front of her, or the books that line the walls.

“It’s still polite to ask,” the Luidaeg says quietly, stepping inside. “Lizzy, this is October Daye. October, this is Elizabeth Ryan, current head of this clan.”

“And much grief it’s given me,” says Elizabeth bitterly. She takes a sip of brandy. “What trouble have you brought me this time?”

The Luidaeg crosses the room and sets her bundle in front of Elizabeth. “Two skins, returned to the clan.”

Elizabeth’s gaze sharpens as she sets her glass aside, reaching out to pull the bundle toward her. She handles them carefully, like they might sting her. “You didn’t need to bring a friend for that.”

“October was Connor’s lover, and she’s Amandine’s daughter.” The glittering green bleeds from her eyes, replaced by an empty gray. I’ve gotten used to her eyes shifting colors, but I don’t know what that one means. “The Selkies’ bargain was never meant to last forever. You have a year to notify the clans. After that, the bill comes due.”

Elizabeth’s hand drifts back to clench around her glass. “You’re making me bear this news? What about the children who will never wear a skin? What about the parents who have to choose between them? What am I meant to say to them?”

“You tell them the truth. They were never entitled to the magic.”

“We know that,” Elizabeth says, surprisingly forcefully considering who she’s speaking to. “None of us have ever been promised the sea. But until they age out, there’s hope.”

“Better for them to be denied early, and not be strung along for years, wishing for magic that will never be theirs.”

I want to object to that point. Knowing that something will never be yours is its own burden. But I’m not willing to step into a conversation when I don’t understand most of what they’re talking about.

“You’re asking me to bring chaos to my clan.”

“Not chaos, Lizzy. This was never the way things were meant to be. Wrongs have to be set right. Wounds have to be repaired.”

“Not all of them,” Elizabeth says bitterly.

The gray of the Luidaeg’s eyes streaks inky black. “If we could make everything right, the world would be a different place. I’m giving you time.”

“A year is nothing.”

“A year is enough to change everything.”

Elizabeth takes a sip of brandy, her eyes not moving from the Luidaeg. I’m not clear on what’s happening, but I’m pretty sure that brandy isn’t her first of the night, and it isn’t going to be her last.

“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry the burden fell to your generation.” This time there is no hardness in the Luidaeg’s voice, only exhaustion.

Elizabeth looks away. “You know exactly how much it’s worth.”

The Luidaeg closes her eyes, and when she opens them, they’re the driftglass green she wore downstairs. “October, come on.”

I linger for a moment after the Luidaeg leaves the room, feeling like I should apologize, but not knowing what for. Elizabeth doesn’t look at me; I don’t think she even registers when I leave.

We’re halfway down the stairs when the Luidaeg says, voice pitched low, “Everything has a cost, October; remember that. It may be a long time before the bill comes due, but everything has a cost.”

May 2014, The Duchy of Ships.

On the dock of the Selkie quarter, face to face with five clan leaders, the Luidaeg smiles. It isn’t a pleasant expression.

“They’re coming,” she says. “They’re all coming.”

“Lady?” Isla’s voice quavers, like she’s afraid of the consequences of contradicting the Luidaeg. Which is pretty smart of her, under the circumstances.

“Each of you wears a skin cut from the body of one of my descendants, powered across the centuries by my own magic, imbued into skin and fur and sacrifice. Did you really think any Selkie had the power to refuse me? To run, to hide when I came to call you home? They come because I called them. As soon as they hear that the summons has been sent, they’ll leave their lives and come to us. Some will bring their families and have the opportunity to pass their skins along, if that’s what they choose; others will come alone, and have no choices left. Once you sent the word to your people, you sent it to the world.”

All five of the clan leaders look suddenly, profoundly uncomfortable. I can’t blame them. I wouldn’t look too thrilled, either, if I was suddenly informed that my role in the destruction of an entire fae culture was larger than I originally believed it was going to be.

The Luidaeg takes another step forward.

“All of you took up the mantle of your families knowing this day might fall within your lifetimes. You can’t claim surprise. You can’t turn it aside.”

“Yes, Lady,” murmur the leaders, in ragged unison—all except for Elizabeth Ryan. Isla shoots her a nasty look, but the Luidaeg continues speaking as if nothing is amiss.

“One among your number came to me with a complaint. An accusation, even, of favoritism to one clan above the others.”

Mathias and Liz stiffen. Isla lifts her chin, her gaze strangely eager.

“I will not claim to be fair. Fairness is neither my blessing nor my burden. But I do listen.” The edge in her voice makes listen into a threat. “Do any others among you feel I showed favoritism to the Ryan clan when I granted them the Lost Skins in exchange for doing me a direly needed service?”

Silence falls, and lasts long enough that I start to hope this is over. Then Joan clears her throat, and says, “Any of us would have been glad to do whatever you asked. You didn’t ask. You approached the Ryans and granted them a gift the rest of us could never hope to achieve. Yes, it was unfair.”

“I needed the girl to be taught, and the girl needed to remain near her mortal family. None of you are near her mortal family,” says the Luidaeg implacably. “How is this unfair?”

“The rest of us have never faltered in our loyalty,” says Isla. “None of us betrayed you, but you reward the one who has?”

Elizabeth’s ears redden, but she doesn’t move. She glares, fists clenched, far more angry than ashamed.

I have no idea what Isla’s talking about. The Luidaeg has a fraught relationship with all the Selkies, but she’s never singled out Liz as particularly worthy of her hatred. Whenever I’ve seen the two of them speak—which hasn’t been much—Liz was always the volatile one, snapping at the Luidaeg with reckless disregard for her own safety. But I suspect that’s a result of Liz’s seemingly perpetual inebriation, and the Luidaeg never rises to her bait.

Selkies aren’t supposed to have relationships with other kinds of fae, and Liz’s daughter is a changeling—maybe that’s what Isla means? But Diva isn’t just half-fae, she’s half-Roane. Could she really be a betrayal, when the Luidaeg has so few living descendants, and she loves them all so dearly?

The cold radiating off the Luidaeg deepens, until I have to stuff my fingers into my pockets.

“Isla Chase,” the Luidaeg says, as unyielding as a rip current. “Your magic is stolen from my grandson, and you claim to have never betrayed me?”

Isla’s eyes widen. “Lady—”

“You have no right to my past. You jab at old wounds solely to serve your interests, as if making them bleed will earn you favor. It won’t. It will only be another betrayal.”

Old wounds. She can’t be talking about Diva. Whatever’s going on here, it’s nothing she’s told me about.

“You know nothing about what Elizabeth Ryan has paid, and yet you believe yourself the arbiter of justice.” The Luidaeg spreads her hands, and every clan leader except Liz flinches. Her fingers are talons, and her hair writhes with a sea tossed breeze. The sand under our feet crackles with ice, and Claud clutches at Jean’s arm to keep his balance. “You’re lucky I don’t peel that skin from your shoulders as punishment for your self-righteousness.”

“Lady—” Isla tucks her head to her chest and sinks into a curtsy so low, she’s almost falling on her knees. Her shoulders tremble. “I apologize.”

Matthias looks vaguely green. The Luidaeg hadn’t dealt so harshly with him, but she hadn’t been kind, either. Whatever’s going on, he started it, and now the Luidaeg looks like she plans to skewer someone. No wonder he’s practically shrinking into his skin.

“Does anyone have any other reasons why the Ryans’ bargain for the Lost Skins was unjust?”

No one steps forward.

The air thaws, and I exhale, reaching for Tybalt’s hand. I really didn’t want to get between the Luidaeg and the Selkies, but I didn’t want to watch her shred Isla to pieces either.

“The Convocation is called. When I return, I will have my satisfaction.”

The Luidaeg turns on her heel and begins marching away down the beach, leaving the rest of us standing stricken and silent.

Chapter Text

It’s close to morning when I slip back to the Duchy, scrambling up the ropes under a quietly spun illusion. I can’t very well go back to my room to sleep away the day, but I need somewhere to crash for the duration of the Convocation.

Unfortunately, I haven’t had a truly secret place since I swam to shore. Mom found the last one so easily, once she chose to look. But doors on the Duchy are rarely locked, since no one would dare break into a home or shop to do harm—no one wants to face Mom’s justice.

And I’m not intending harm, only a place to sleep. And eat, I guess—I didn’t think this plan through quite so well—but I’ll find a way to pay Aldridge back for abusing his hospitality.

The bakery door blows open and shut, as if hit with a strong wind—at least, that’s what I hope anyone walking by thinks. The bell chimes too loud in my ear, and I duck behind a counter, briefly sure someone’s going to storm in after me and see through my illusion.

No one comes.

It’s weird lurking in here without Aldridge. The usual sweet, buttery smell is faded; there’s no clatter of mixing bowls or thud of dough hitting the counter in the back rooms. I wind my way past empty counters and stop short when I reach the stairs.

Two wide platters sit on the steps, covered with glass domes that glitter with evidence of a spell. One has a heaping mix of shellfish, the other a loaf of fresh bread and a handful of chocolate cookies. The note tacked to the first reads:

Elsie,

Keep leftovers under the freshness charm. When you’re hungry later, check the pantry.

The guest room is on the right.

Aldridge

It’s not like Aldridge sprung out from behind a door, but I flush under his invisible eyes. Is he going to tell Mom that I snuck back? Did he already tell Mom?

I squash the urge to bolt. If he disapproved, surely he wouldn’t have specifically left food for me? Scooping up a platter in each hand, I head up the stairs.

The guest room door is wide open. It’s a little annoying how sure Aldridge was that I’d come here, but I can’t really complain when he’s being such a gracious host, even in absentia.

I set the food platters down on top of the dresser and shovel fifteen pieces of shrimp, two thick slices of bread, and three cookies into my mouth before slowing down. Swimming is hungry work.

After grabbing a glass of water, I stretch out on the bed, wrapping myself in the pretty patchwork quilt of striped bass and seaweed. My legs and arms ache from exertion, but my mind buzzes from the thrill of sneaking back into my own home, and the nightmare still lingers, a weight on my chest.

I don’t know if I can fall asleep soon, but I don’t have much else to do, now that I have to stay hidden.

I stare at the window for a long while, watching the sky beyond lighten. Voices call from walkways below, but I can’t make out the words. There’s a lot of people out, that’s for sure—more than there usually are at this time of night.

How many of them are newly arrived Selkies? How many strangers are already wandering the decks of my home?

The clatter of people moving and vague cheers in the distance is background noise. What isn’t—what leads me to sit up straight and draw my knees tight to my chest—is Rodrick’s voice echoing through the room like he’s standing at the foot of my bed.

“From the Kingdom of Albany, in the High Demesne of Albion, most recently in the Mists, Firstborn to Maeve by Oberon, the fair and hallowed lady known as the Luidaeg, called sea witch by all who would avoid her wrath.”

The absence of her real name jars me. Luidaeg, sea witch–all these titles everyone else uses carry teeth. I’m well aware that Annie isn’t always kind (my stomach churned when she pressed my hand against my sister’s dead skin and refused to let go), but she’s a person, not something haunting the night. She’s the mother I never truly got to have, but who tried to be there anyways.

For the first time in my life, everyone on the Duchy knows she’s here. But none of them know her.

I lay back down, but I only end up flipping back and forth in the covers, like this ship is roiling in a storm. I’m wide awake now, my heart beating too quick. It’s less than an hour before I give up on sleep, sneak back out of the bakery, and plunge into the sea.

Annie had to be at the docks when Rodrick announced her, but she should have moved on by now. I slink high in the water, skirting the side of the ships. It’s tiring to cast a don’t-look-here when I’m in otter form, but I still don’t want the sea dwellers or air breathers to spot me.

In the harbor, a ship unloads its passengers, and a chill sinks into my fur every time I spot a sealskin among them. In the distance, another ship vanishes into the mist, swept away to where more Selkies and their families wait.

All my siblings gathered in one place, for the first time since Annie cast the spell. After what happened with Firtha’s skin, I’ve been afraid to ask Annie for any more of their names, but now I wish I’d been braver. I don’t know who all these skins belonged to. I don’t know whose bodies will be gone forever, once the binding is complete.

I’m drifting in a bundle of kelp when a coracle boat bursts out of the fog. It doesn’t quite look like any boat I’ve seen before, so I swim closer in spite of myself. Mom had mentioned that there might be more visitors than just the Selkies, but it’s weird to see an entirely new craft plowing into our waters. That doesn’t happen often.

As it approaches the docks, I make out the crest of the Duchy of Saltmist and squash the urge to dive underwater. No one from Saltmist actually knows who I am, but the shame of nearly kickstarting a war between them and the Mists still burns.

A Cetace surfaces in front of the boat, tether in their hands. Another person swims alongside the Cetace, her flukes casting spray into the air. A Merrow. I don’t think there are any other Merrow in Saltmist, so that must be Duchess of Saltmist herself.

The Duchy of Ships is home to a wide assortment of Undersea races, but no Merrow ever stay in these waters. It would be awkward, with Mom in charge. So I’ve never seen a Merrow in person before, although I’ve spent my whole life around their Firstborn.

She’s swift and graceful in the water, like Mom, but she looks strangely incomplete with just one tail. Her scales blend in with the blue of the water and her skin is darker, but with the way her black hair ripples behind her she looks more like a daughter of Amphitrite than I ever will.

Duchess Lorden hauls herself up onto the docks, and I finally turn my attention to the person in the boat. He walks ashore–no fins in sight–and I can’t place his kind of fae from this distance.

I dip back into the shadow of a ship before anyone spots an otter rolling in the tide. I can’t see where the Duchess goes, but I wonder how she’ll react to meeting her Firstborn. Mom says all her descendants either faint or try to punch her, but I’ve never been sure if she’s exaggerating. It’s a shame I won’t get to see for myself.

Something twists in my stomach at the thought of Mom hanging out with her proper descendant. For ten years of my life I thought the Merrow were my siblings, and here, at the Convocation where my true siblings will be buried forever, the distance between me and the Merrow feels wider than ever.

Centuries from now, will the lie of my parentage still stand? Will I be remembered for my ties to the Merrow, or the Roane?

I’m not like a fae who has two biological Firstborn parents; I don’t get to pick if I want to descend from Mom or Annie. When a fae’s lineage is recited, only blood parentage is meant to count. But if my aunt is always a threat, I might never be publicly named as Annie’s daughter, and the lie could pass down from generation to generation. If I’m remembered at all.

I don’t want to always be in danger, but not being seen as Amphitrite’s daughter would hurt in a different way. I love Annie, but blood shouldn’t be all that matters.

I roll over and over under the hull of a ship, as if that can shake my thoughts loose–and promptly dart behind some rocks as a pair of Cephali swim too close for my liking.

I should go back to the bakery. I might be restless there, but at least I won’t risk getting caught and dragged before Mom, squashing the argument that I can be secretive.

I poke my head above the water and nearly start to swim back to one of the rope ladders–where I can transform and cast another don’t-look-here–when an unfamiliar ship soars into the harbor.

A proper ship, with sails swelling, and cannons gleaming. Red and yellow flags flap proudly in the wind, each adorned with a rearing hippocampus and three sea stars.

I like hippocampi. That’s why I remember that flag from my lessons—it’s the crest of the Duchy of Bluefish. But I can’t remember who rules there, so I twist closer to the rocks, watching the ship’s approach.

It isn’t just the cannons that gleam. The deck bristles with guards carrying shiny tridents. A guard of some kind makes sense for a diplomatic visit, and the weapons could be ceremonial, but there are so many of them. The Duchess of Saltmist didn’t bring an entourage like this.

The gangplank lowers, and the first fae who departs has the same dark hair and golden brown skin as Duchess Lorden. He doesn’t have flukes at the moment, but gills pulse from the side of his neck. Guards descend after him, and it isn’t long before the dock is empty, with a scattering of fae left on the deck of the Bluefish ship. I want to chase after the guards, to find out why they’re here, if there’s any danger—but Mom’s more than capable of judging them herself.

I hang around the rocks a little longer, in case yet another Merrow decides to show up. I’m so fixated on the horizon, that I don’t notice a ship departing from the far harbor until it’s gliding out to sea.

The Raven. Mom’s ship.

That sends me swimming away at last. If Mom’s leaving, does that mean she’s gotten a message from the Starling? Is she sailing off to question the crew? Does she think I’ve been lost at sea?

Guilt churns my stomach. I hope it’s nothing to do with me. I didn’t want to scare Mom or disrupt the Convocation, only see it.

By the time I’m back at the bakery, my nerves have calmed. Surely, if Mom heard I’m missing, she would assume I’ve come back to the Duchy. Surely, she would look here before taking the Raven anywhere.

But if it doesn’t have anything to do with me, why did she leave?

As I curl under the covers, finally tired enough to drift off, the thunder of the guards’ footsteps echoes in my mind.

It’s been over ten hours, and the Raven still isn’t back.

I spent a lot of that time tossing and turning, dipping in and out of sleep. Eventually it was late enough in the afternoon that I gave up on getting any more rest, ate some oysters and more bread, and dove back into the water.

The ship from Bluefish is still docked, and I watch another ship from Mom’s fleet come and go, dropping off more Selkies. But no sign of Mom herself.

Did she leave to avoid the Merrow? She doesn’t like her descendants knowing she’s still alive, sure, but she’s had Merrow visit the Duchy before, after the earthquake. She just fogs their memories after.

Something else must be going on.

I kick away from the docks, starting a slow lap around the Duchy. I won’t get any new information that way–I’m better off listening out of Aldridge’s window for marketplace gossip–but people are mostly talking about the Selkies and the sea witch anyways. And swimming is a soothing distraction.

At least until I twist around one of the pylons and collide with a dead body.

I squeak, high-pitched and horrified, and almost lose control of my transformation. The person–this was a person, and now she’s something pale and bloated and dead–is tangled in a net. The only people I knew who ever died on the Duchy were a couple Selkiekin, but they were really old, and the only dead bodies I’ve seen have been Selkie skins, but at least those don’t look like people anymore. They’re not swollen with too much water and staring at me with empty eyes.

I recoil, almost colliding with another pylon. I don’t know her, thank Maeve, so she must be a visitor, but someone should have dragged her body out of the water, not left her tangled and drifting.

Unless no one knows she’s dead.

Someone else will find her eventually. It’s not my job to pull the dead from the sea. She’s–I manage a squint at her face–human, there’s no point to her ears. Maybe she fell overboard when no one was looking. Maybe this was a tragic accident, and the only reason it hasn’t happened before in my lifetime is because usually there aren’t so many humans around.

But no matter how much I tell myself I should leave, my paws won’t push away from her.

Mom isn’t here. No one else has found the body, or they’d have recovered it–her–by now. And as much as I try to tell myself her death was an accident…Selkiekin want the sea so badly. And whoever’s left behind once the Convocation is complete will never have a chance to be fae. Maybe this woman was meant to inherit a skin, and someone else was willing to kill to make sure they took her place.

I don’t know. Any story in my head could be true, but swimming in circles around this corpse isn’t going to help me get real answers.

My heart thrums quick, and my paws cut through the water. I press my nose against the woman’s skin, trying not to flinch. She doesn’t quite smell like decay, not yet, but she doesn’t smell like blood either.

Blood. Without thinking, I clamp my teeth into her arm and swallow a sluggish mouthful of slowly congealing liquid. I’m a bloodworker, even if my parents don’t let me practice, which means–

–which means the blood is nothing but a sour taste in my mouth, because I can only see the future. I wasn’t one hundred percent positive that I could only see someone’s personal future–I’ve only tried it on four people in my life–but the lack of any magic in this woman’s blood confirms it.

No future. No visions.

Someone needs to know that this woman is dead. Someone needs to figure out if it was an accident or something worse–someone who has more useful magic than me.

Annie is the Selkies’ Firstborn. She has some measure of responsibility for the Selkiekin. With Mom gone, she’s the closest authority there is, and I can’t swim away from a dead body and pretend it isn’t there. This woman, whoever she was, doesn’t deserve that. Her family, whoever they are, shouldn’t be kept waiting and wondering where she’s gone off to.

I’ve been at the Duchy for half a day already, and I’ve kept my head down. Maybe it’s time to face my mother. Maybe Annie can forgive me for coming back.

And maybe it doesn’t matter whether Annie forgives me. Someone’s dead, and I’m the only one who knows. Telling someone is my responsibility.

It’s hard not to shrink when people wave at me in the market. I shouldn’t be walking around so openly. But I don’t know where Annie’s staying, now that she’s a formal guest and not my mother dropping by for family game night. Fortunately, there’s only so many options, and after finding out she’s not with the Selkies, I head towards the guest rooms near Mom’s ship.

I walk into the courtyard, and four strangers stare at me.

“Hi.” I wave awkwardly, my voice too high-pitched. “Is the sea witch staying here?”

Four pairs of eyes blink. One of them is familiar; he’s the one who came to the Duchy in the coracle boat from Saltmist, and the boy beside him looks like a relative. The shades of green in their hair and their lack of obvious aquatic features paint a confusing picture–I’m still not sure what kind of fae they each are.

“She was,” the man says slowly. “But she’s not here at the moment.”

“She’s gone to the market,” the boy blurts out.

I raise my eyebrows. “I was just at the market.”

“You don’t think a Firstborn can keep you from noticing her?” He crosses his arms defensively.

Annie definitely could, but if she’d seen me running around asking about her location, she would not have let me be. This boy can’t be telling the truth, but there’s no reason for him to lie about where Annie is. It’s not like a random changeling girl is a threat to one of the Firstborn.

Unless Annie doesn’t want to be bothered.

“Look,” I say. “I’m not asking for fun. There’s a dead body under one of the ships, and she’s human, and I’ve never seen her before, so she must be Selkiekin. I saw the Captain’s ship sail away hours ago, so I can’t tell her, but someone has to deal with this, and the Selkiekin are Annie’s responsibility, technically.”

Four more stares, with mixed degrees of horror and shock.

“I’m Patrick Lorden, Ducal Consort, and this is my son, Dean,” the man says hoarsely. “Who are you?”

“Elsie. I’m the Captain’s daughter.” It’s not like it’s a secret on the Duchy that Mom has a kid. Introducing myself won’t give these people any clues about my true parentage, but part of me still cringes as the words leave my lips. I’m trying to find Annie now, not hide from her, but I’m still not ready for the scary amount of scolding I’m going to get, once she learns I’ve snuck back.

“Amphitrite?” Dean’s mouth drops open. If he’s the son of the Duchess and Duke of Saltmist, that makes him Merrow, but only partly. I’ve never met a half–Merrow either. “But you look my age.”

“I probably am.” I shrug. “Firstborn aren’t supposed to be having kids anymore, but accidents happen.”

“But she didn’t say anything about having a kid around?” Dean says.

The woman, who hasn’t said anything yet but looks like some kind of changeling, is looking at me funny, like she can’t quite figure me out. I don’t like her scrutiny–the sooner I find out where Annie is and get out of here, the better.

“Everyone who lives on the Duchy knows me,” I say. “And that’s not the important part. Did you miss when I said dead body?”

“I did not.” The second man dips his head at me. His hair is purple-ish and his eyes are striking, one gold and one silver. “Prince Nolan Windermere, heir to the Kingdom in the Mists.”

Ardith, the bookstore clerk from San Francisco, is the only other person I’ve ever met with differently colored eyes, though hers were brown and blue at the time. Annie told me later that it turned out she was secretly the rightful Queen in hiding, and that Toby had restored her to the throne and gotten me the books I’d wanted from Borderlands. So, something good had come from my trip after all. This must be her brother.

“And this is Cassandra Brown, chatelaine to my sister, Queen Arden Windermere.” He gestures to the woman beside him. “Where did you find this body?”

“A pleasure to meet you, Your Highness.” I bow, as quickly as courtesy allows. “Caught in a net around one of the pylons. Not far from this ship, actually. She can’t have been dead long, or someone else would have found her, but she…” I swallow. “She’d been in the water for a bit, I think. She was all… swollen.”

Dean winces, and Patrick lays a hand on his shoulder.

“At the risk of provoking the sea witch’s wrath…” Patrick says. “...she isn’t here.”

“You said that already. Do you know where she went?”

“After Amphitrite.” He closes his eyes, looking exhausted. “Toby bargained with her, to attempt to protect my wife and other son.”

She went after Mom? “She’s left the Duchy of Ships?”

“She asked us not to tell anyone that,” Dean says nervously.

“Asked, but didn’t order,” Patrick says. “And a death isn’t something trivial. If neither Firstborn are here to deal with it…”

“Dad!”

A younger boy bursts into the courtyard, racing past me. Patrick’s eyes widen, and he runs forward to meet the boy halfway, wrapping him in a desperate hug.

“Peter. Thank Oberon,” he whispers, and Dean darts over, squeezing the kid’s shoulder.

Patrick steps back, holding the boy–Peter, presumably–at arms length, like he’s making sure the kid still has all his limbs. “Were you hurt? What happened?”

Peter starts rattling off something about hiding from an attack, but a commotion at the courtyard entrance distracts me. A woman with vibrant wings is leading a morbid procession–three Cephali, carrying the dead woman I collided with in the water.

My stomach drops. Maybe I should have left her after all. Clearly, it wasn’t long before someone else recovered her.

“Was this the body you found?” Nolan says behind me, slow and grave. “Or do we have more than one corpse on our hands?”

“This is her,” I say hoarsely.

“October found her drifting in the sea.” The winged woman presses her hands together, eyes wide and distraught.

“She drowned,” one of the Cephali says curtly. “Toby’s gone to tell the Selkies.”

Toby’s dealt with deaths before; Annie’s said that. If anyone knows what to do with a dead body, it’s probably her, especially if both Mom and Annie really are gone. The man said Toby bargained with Annie, that’s why she left, and I don’t know what that means, but Toby wouldn’t risk disrupting the Convocation. She’s meant to cast the spell that restores the Roane, so whatever her deal with Annie is, it can’t prevent that.

“She didn’t just drown,” Peter bursts out. “She was murdered.”

My mouth goes dry. “How do you know?”

“Toby said so. Because her wrists are all banged up, and there are these weird bite marks on her arm, like someone attacked her. And she died human, which means someone took her skin.”

Bite marks. My impulsive, stupid attempt at riding the blood is now evidence of murder?

“Toby’s investigating,” another one of the Cephali says. “As usual.”

The courtyard falls briefly silent, everyone’s eyes drawn to the pale corpse. People shouldn’t die in Faerie. It’s not right.

“Took her skin?” I say quietly. “She was a Selkie?”

“One of the Selkie clan leaders,” a Cephali says. “It isn’t good. A murder like this, after what happened in Saltmist–”

“Dad, not so tight.” Peter wriggles away from his father’s grasp, and Patrick relents, his expression caught between despair and rage. “I told you, I’m not hurt.”

Something’s gone terribly wrong here. A Selkie clan leader dead, drowned, her skin taken by Maeve knows who, and a Merrow showing up with an armed guard, and some sort of attack in Saltmist. Mom’s not here, and Annie’s not here, and Toby thinks my bite marks are part of a murder, and what if that distracts her from finding the truth?

I should tell everyone that the bites were me. They can pass the information on to Toby, and I can clear my name without crossing paths with her. But the more I play out that scenario in my head, the more I doubt that Toby would leave me be. The daughter of a Firstborn turning up and chewing on the body? Toby’d want to chat, surely, which means she’d track me down anyways.

Ever since my misadventures in the Mists, I’ve had it drilled into me–I can’t get near Toby. If she gets a whiff of my blood, she could learn all my secrets. The only reason I was sent away from the Convocation is to avoid her.

But I can’t do nothing. The Duchy of Ships has always been safe. It always thrived under Mom’s steady hand. But there’s no one at the helm now, and when I was a kid, Mom stood in front of everyone and called me her heir.

If I avoid responsibility, if I let a guest investigate a death without knowing all the facts, what kind of heir am I?

And surely, I can manage to not bleed in front of Toby.

“She’s already on her way to the Selkies?” I ask.

“Yes, but–” the Cephali squints at me. “Who are you?”

“Elsie,” I say. “I’ll be back.”

And before anyone can question me further, I run to the side of the ship and swing onto the rope ladder with practiced ease. Halfway down, I call for my magic and dive, arms outstretched. I’m an otter by the time I hit the waves.

Chapter Text

Toby has a head start, but she doesn’t live on the Duchy, and she can’t turn into an otter. It’s easy enough to dive between the ships, following a shortcut that avoids the main pathways through the market.

The visiting Selkies aren’t on the same dock Rhona and Ronan live on, but I know where they’re staying. Mom expanded the artificial cove ahead of the Convocation, since we’d be hosting more visitors than we ever have, and it wasn’t exactly subtle. I haul myself up a rope ladder, shaking droplets from my hair, onto a stretch of sandy boardwalk full of unfamiliar kids.

It isn’t long before I spot a woman who looks a lot like May, except her features are sharper, her eyes strangely pale. May’s hair had been just brown, but this woman’s hair is heavily streaked in pale blonde. She’s a stranger, and she definitely isn’t a Selkie.

Mom and Annie might never let me leave my cabin after this, but they’re not here, and someone has died. I dodge one of the kids and step into the woman’s path, giving a wave. There’s two others behind her.

“Sorry, are you Toby?”

“Yeah?” Toby frowns, staring at me like I’m a puzzle she can solve if she only squints hard enough.

Now that I’m in front of her, I can see a ragged hole in her shirt and gills on the side of her neck. It’s the second that makes me doubt myself. Toby isn’t from the Undersea.

“Why do you look like a Merrow? That’s not what I need to talk to you about, but how are you Toby if—” I make a gesture at her neck.

One of the two people with her definitely isn’t an Undersea fae. I haven’t seen Cait Sidhe much, but one comes in on a ship every now and then. But the other one–a boy that appears to be around my age, although you can never really tell with purebloods–looks like a Merrow, too. Did he come in with the Bluefish ship?

“Long story.”

“The Luidaeg turned us into Merrow so we could save the heir to Saltmist,” the boy says.

“Okay, not that long,” Toby allows, “but I’m more comfortable pretending they’re not there. Gills have never been an improvement for me. What did you need? We’re kind of in a hurry.”

I want to ask who attacked Saltmist, but Toby’s not going to keep answering my questions until I explain.

The kids have run further down the boardwalk, but I still step closer to Toby, dropping my voice to a whisper.

“I found the body in the water, and when I went to the courtyard, the Cephali came in and said you found her, too.”

Toby frowns again. “I did. I’m heading to the Selkies, to tell them of her death and get permission to investigate it. Who are you?”

No going back now. “Elsie. I’m the Captain’s daughter.”

“Captain Pete?”

“She’s the only captain around here.”

Toby raises an eyebrow. “We met her earlier. She didn’t mention you.”

“She didn’t want me getting involved in the Convocation. It’s not my business.” It’s half true—I was meant to be away, but the Convocation is most definitely my business. It’s about my family, and it’s in my home, and now it’s gone wrong, and neither of my mothers are around to fix it.

“Aren’t the Firstborn not meant to have any more kids?” the boy asks.

“Our present company proves how ardently they follow the rules,” says the probably-Cait Sidhe man.

Toby shrugs. “Mom’s never met a rule she thinks applies to her.”

“I was a surprise,” I say. “And no one outside the Duchy knows about me, because it would give away that Mom’s Firstborn. She tries to keep a low profile.”

None of this is important to the murder investigation, and I’m eager to move the subject away from my parentage.

“I only came to find you because the Cephali said that you thought the bite marks on the body were important. But they aren’t—that was just me.”

Toby blinks. “You found the body and…bit it?”

The man coughs.

She glares at him. “I used a knife!”

“I’m a bloodworker. I thought if I drank her blood, I might see who killed her. But I didn’t get anything.” That’s close enough to the truth, and there’s at least one other Titania descended race of bloodworkers. Blood magic alone won’t raise any red flags about my mother.

“You drank Isla’s blood?” the boy asks, horror in his voice. “And you’re alive?”

“Yes?”

“Toby did that,” he says, “and she drowned.”

“Almost drowned,” she corrects, ignoring the man’s hard stare.

“And she’s practically the best bloodworker in Faerie.”

“Blood can drown you?” Annie never said that—not that she lets me use my blood magic on other people. Maybe pretending my powers were similar to Toby’s wasn’t a great idea.

“I’m not a very good bloodworker,” I say hastily. “I haven’t practiced much. Maybe it did something to you because you’re really good at it?”

“Maybe,” Toby says, sounding doubtful. “Riding the blood of the dead is always dangerous. If you ride with them all the way, you’ll join them, and Isla drowned. Didn’t Pete teach you that? My mom taught me more about blood than that, and she wouldn’t even tell me what race I was.”

I can’t tell her the real reason Mom won’t let me drink blood, so I scramble for another excuse.

“Um. Mom doesn’t agree with riding the blood. Morally. I’m much better at other kinds of magic.”

Toby blinks again. She glances at her friends, who both shrug slightly. “I guess no more blood-drinking for me then. I’ve managed to not piss Pete off yet, I’d like to keep that up. Maybe set a new record.”

“I will hold you to that next time you want to follow a drowning victim to their death,” the man says darkly, “but shall we get back to the business of solving this murder?”

“Yeah…” Toby eyes me, her expression unreadable. “So, you’re the Captain’s daughter. Who’s in charge when she’s gone?”

Mom never leaves the Duchy for that long, and her first mates are good at keeping order if need be. As the most senior of them, Rodrick is the closest to being in charge, but Mom’s never officially appointed anyone to stand in in her absence. And none of the first mates found the body.

“I’m her heir, so that would be me.”

“Can changelings inherit in the Undersea?” Toby sounds skeptical of the concept.

“Most places won’t let them,” I admit. “But Mom doesn’t care about that.”

“Huh. That’s surprisingly progressive of her. How old are you?”

“Nineteen,” I say sheepishly. “But you’ve solved murders before, right?”

“Not sure how I feel about that reaching even the Duchy of Ships, but yeah. How do you handle crimes on the Duchy? Do crimes against humans count? Isla died human.”

“Humans are under Mom’s protection, too. Anyone who harms them would be punished, but I’m not sure how. No one’s murdered a human here before—at least not in my lifetime. Mom wouldn’t have to kill whoever did it, but they definitely wouldn’t be allowed to stay on the Duchy.”

“Okay, good. Can you give me permission to investigate the murder?”

I straighten. “As heir to the Duchy of Ships, and in the absence of the Captain, I hereby give you permission to investigate the murder of… what was her name?”

“Isla Chase of Belle Fleuve.”

“Isla Chase.” I gesture to the two people next to her. “And what are your names?”

“King Tybalt of Dreaming Cats.”

“Quentin, squire to October, sworn to Shadowed Hills.”

If I’m standing in Mom’s stead, that sort of gives me the same standing as a Duchess, so I outrank Toby and Quentin, but I hadn’t realized I was talking to a King.

The memory of my last brush with the monarchy still burns when I think of it. I bow deeply to him, but rise without waiting for permission. I think that’s the right level of deference for a monarch who doesn’t hold my fealty. I hope.

Fortunately, Tybalt looks pleased and not at all like he’s going to threaten my arrest. This feels awfully like a test I didn’t know to study for.

“Great,” I say. “You two can investigate, too, if you’re with Toby.”

“None could cleave me from my betrothed’s side after a stabbing and a drowning.”

“Oh! Sorry, I didn’t realize you were engaged.”

“The wedding’s in Toronto, lest we piss off the High King and Queen,” Toby says. “Anyway, we should get out of the way. We’re heading to a leader of the Selkie clans, to announce the death— should you be there for that, as a representative of the Duchy?”

“Probably.” Mom is going to be so angry that I’ve gotten myself involved enough that I’m representing the Duchy to the Selkie clans. But if she hadn’t left, I wouldn’t need to.

The people around us are starting to stare. We’re a weird mix of fae stopped in the middle of the walkway, talking in hushed voices.

“Lead the way,” I tell Toby.

Toby leads us to house painted pastel violet with warm yellow shutters and knocks briskly. After a stretch of silence, she knocks again. “It’s just me, Toby, and a few of my friends. Let me in. This is important.”

The door swings open just enough to reveal a single dark eye. “I’m sorry, but I’m not really up for visitors right now. You should go.”

“We can’t. Let me in, or we’ll do this with me standing on your front porch. I don’t think either one of us is going to enjoy that, do you?”

After a long pause, there’s a huff, and a woman pulls the door all the way open. “Fine,” she says. “Come on in.” She turns and stomps away, not waiting for us to enter.

I follow on Toby’s heels. Before the Convocation, we only had a few guest houses, and I’d never been in any of them. There’s an odd absence of porthole windows and shells strung up on the wall. It reminds me more of Toby’s home–although judging from the outside, and the halls sprawling out from the living room, it’s much bigger.

“Nice place,” says Toby.

“It’s not mine,” the woman says, with a careless flap of her hand. She has silver blonde hair and the dark eyes of a Selkie, and my gaze drops to the sealskin wrapped around her waist. I swallow a shudder.

She walks over to a long, low cabinet and picks up a green glass bottle on top. She considers it for a moment before setting it aside in favor of another bottle, this one red.

“It belongs to whoever leads the Ryan clan. Which, I suppose, means it’s about to belong to no one. We won’t need clans anymore, not once you’re done with us.” She laughs unsteadily as she uncorks the bottle and pours a stream of dark purple liquid into a tumbler. “Anybody want a drink?”

“No,” Toby says.

“No,” says Quentin at the same time.

“Not me.” I’m curious about what it tastes like, but drinking during a murder investigation seems irresponsible.

“I would be delighted to have some of whatever you’re having,” says Tybalt.

Quentin and Toby both turn to stare at him. He rolls his shoulders in a shrug. “I’m not ‘on duty,’ as you might so quaintly put it; I’m not the hero here. I’m merely an onlooker, raised in a time where, if someone offered you a drink, it was considered polite to accept their hospitality.”

“I like you slightly more than I like the company you keep, which means I still don’t like you at all,” the woman informs Tybalt, filling a second tumbler and thrusting it toward him. She turns to me, as if she’s finally noticed I’m part of the “company” and stares, eyes wide and dark as the depths.

“Who’s the kid?” she whispers, hoarse.

“I’m Elsie, the Captain’s daughter and heir. I’m in charge when she’s away.” That’s not exactly true, but I’m here, and Toby’s willing to accept my authority. I can get yelled at later.

“The Captain’s daughter.” The woman tightens her grip on her tumbler, and I don’t understand why she’s gone so pale. A brittle silence stretches between us, before she looks away, closing her eyes. “I see.”

“This is Elizabeth Ryan,” Toby says, with a confused sideways look at me. “Leader of the Roan Rathad Selkies.”

“And you shouldn’t be bothering me until all the Selkies are here, and the sea witch is ready to end us.” Elizabeth opens her eyes, her tone sharpening. “So what is it? Am I in trouble?”

“Not unless you murdered Isla Chase.”

“What?”

“We found her body in the water.” I gesture between me and Toby.

“Someone took her skin and left her to drown,” Toby says. “She was tangled in some kind of net. I tried to ride her blood for answers, but…all the blood remembered was fear.”

Elizabeth tilts her head and says, “It’s not that I don’t believe you—I’m not quite stupid enough for that—but why were you in the water?”

Toby hesitates. “Duchess Dianda Lorden of Saltmist is currently indisposed, due to a challenge posed by her brother. Her husband, the ducal consort, was concerned about their younger son, who had been left home with his caretaker when they came to witness the Convocation. I agreed to go get him. As that meant traveling to an Undersea Duchy, it was necessary to allow the Luidaeg to make a few small changes. They’re temporary.”

Toby reaches up and sweeps aside her hair, showing the slits of her closed gills. Elizabeth blinks, slowly, before bursting into laughter.

“Of course you let Annie transform you into something you’re not supposed to be; why in the world would you tell her ‘no, that’s all right, I’d rather be myself and rent some SCUBA gear,’ when she could just,” she makes a swirling motion with her hands, “whizz-bang and you’re a mermaid? Oh, October, I wish I’d known you better when Connor was in love with you, so I’d have a better idea of how far you’ve fallen.”

The Selkies usually call her sea witch or Luidaeg. I’m surprised to hear Annie in this woman’s bitter voice. Are all clan leaders so familiar with her?

“There’s nothing wrong with transformation magic if everyone agrees to it,” I say. “You can only turn into a seal because of the sea witch’s magic. Isn’t wearing a skin letting her transform you into something you’re not supposed to be?”

Elizabeth narrows her eyes, her gaze cold and hard. “You’re a daughter of Amphitrite,” she says. “I wouldn’t expect you to understand.”

My hands clench into fists. I won’t give up the secret of my parentage, especially not to a stranger, but oh, how she’d change her tune if she knew the skin around her waist was my own flesh and blood.

“I understand enough. Your magic is borrowed, you weren’t born to it. Once the Convocation is over, you’ll have it forever, and that’s a gift. Toby must have paid for the sea witch’s magic, and she did it to save someone. What right do you have to mock her for it?”

“Well said,” says Tybalt, showing Elizabeth his sharp feline teeth.

“Not grateful enough, am I?” Elizabeth laughs and laughs. “All Annie’s gifts are cursed, child, and if my manner offends her, she’s welcome to tear them all back and cast me into the sea.”

My skin crawls at her coldness. I wouldn’t want to carry a dead child around my waist, but she chose to. Why is she acting like it wasn’t a choice, like it was something inflicted on her? She’s not just a Selkie, she’s the leader of her clan. If she didn’t want any of this, why didn’t she walk away?

“Okay, there’s going to be blood on the floor in a minute if we keep going down this road, and it’s probably not the best thing for us,” says Toby. “We brought Peter back to the Duchy of Ships to be with his parents, and I’m missing their reunion because I thought you might want justice for Isla.”

“Justice? For Isla Chase? That woman was mean as a moray and half as principled. Why would I want justice for her?”

“Because she drowned. Because someone stole her skin and threw her into the element that had been hers for her entire life, and they thought they’d get away with it, because she was human when she died. Humans deserve kindness, too. She was ours. She belonged to Faerie. She deserves answers.”

My spine prickles. When I swam circles in the ocean after visiting San Francisco, and my magic burned, I’d feared drowning. I’m not fully human, but I’m human enough that the water that loves me could also devour me. It’s a horrific thought, and I can’t block out the memory of Isla’s tangled, bloated body. Someone who was supposed to thrive in the waves. Someone lost to them.

“Elsie's already given me permission to investigate, but I still want the cooperation of the Selkie clans, ideally,” Toby adds.

“Why?” asks Elizabeth. “You’re here to put an end to us, and a Selkie without a skin is no concern of Faerie’s. Why in the world would you be willing to do this—why do you want to? You should be glad to know that there’s one more possible security flaw patched over and left to be forgotten.”

“Why do I care, Liz? Because when someone turned me into a fish and took me away from my family for a decade and a half, the Law said no crimes had been committed, and no one came to save me. The places where Faerie rubs up against the mortal world are unpoliced and unprotected, and Isla deserved better. You all deserve better."

A fish? A decade and a half? Annie didn’t tell me any of that. My stomach twists with unease. How could she let Toby be trapped like that for so long? Even if Toby would have to pay for her help, surely she could have stepped in sooner.

Elizabeth closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. Finally, opening them, she says, “We should speak to Mathias. He isn’t my biggest fan, but he knows I care for my clan, and he had reason to be well-inclined toward Isla. He’ll want to see her, and he’ll want to find the person who did this.”

“Great,” I say. “Let’s go.”

“This isn’t Duchy business,” Elizabeth says. “It’s Selkie business.”

“I’m the Captain’s changeling daughter. My best friend is a Selkiekin who is never going to have a skin. People with mortal blood are part of Faerie, too. Isla might have died human, but her death is still Duchy business. The Duchy of Ships is meant to be a safe place for everyone.”

“It failed,” Elizabeth says.

Toby sighs. “Elsie, would you mind sitting out of this one? I’ll keep you updated with the investigation, but I need the Selkies to be open with me.”

I don’t want to be shut out of this. I could tell them that as the one in charge, they have to let me come—but maybe Toby’s right, and that would only make the Selkies more hostile. It wouldn’t be right to risk the investigation just because I want to be included.

“Fine.”

“Where can I find you?”

“Do you know where Mom’s cabin is? Mine is next to hers.”

“Yeah, we were there earlier. I’ll come by later.”

I slip out of the visitor’s house reluctantly and dive into the sea. Kelp twists around me, and I don’t bother taking the long way around the Duchy–Toby and the Selkies know I’m here now, there’s no escaping Mom and Annie finding out. I twist through underwater houses, waving my paw at a confused Maritza, and transform at the ladder to our ship.

Back in my room, I wrap my arms around my stuffed otter and stare at the door connecting my cabin and Mom’s. She should be the one finding justice for a murder. She let Annie bring all the Selkies into our home, and whichever one of them killed Isla Chase is her responsibility, hers to punish for breaking the peace. I’m a changeling girl without the authority of centuries behind me, without the blazing, easy magic of either of my mothers.

The Captain’s heir has never been so terrifying a title, and as I wait for Toby, the confidence I summoned in front of her recedes, a wave slumping back into sea with barely a splash.

Chapter Text

I’ve tracked the scent of Isla’s magic as far as I can, so after Tybalt’s routine protests that he’s not a bloodhound, the scent of pennyroyal and musk fills the air as he lands on all four feet in the sand. 

He saunters over to wind himself around my ankles once, twice, three times before stepping more delicately towards the circle of disturbed sand, his tail low and twitching behind him, his nose pressed close to the ground, and his whiskers fanned forward as far as they'd go. He sniffs, sneezes, and then begins slinking down the walkway. 

I have to jog to keep up at first as Tybalt stalks down the artificial beach and leaps up onto the boardwalk. I ignore the blatant stares of the Duchy’s citizens as we skirt the edges of the markets, winding our way from ship to ship. Before long, Tybalt slows to a careful prowl, sometimes spending a minute or more sniffing around one gangway or boardwalk intersection before choosing which path to take. 

Quentin trails behind me, but René is at my shoulder, eyes fixed on Tybalt with an intensity that worries me. 

The scent seems to be leading us away from where the Selkies are staying, which is surprising. The most likely culprit is another Selkie, looking to give one more child of theirs immortality. 

So was the murder about the skin at all?

All the strangeness of the past day rotates through my mind, pieces of a puzzle that don’t quite fit. Isla’s anger about Liz, and the Luidaeg’s visceral response. Torin’s attack on Saltmist. The sudden appearance of a girl claiming to be Captain Pete’s daughter. It feels like Isla’s death should fit somewhere in the middle, but I have no idea where. 

René is Isla’s sister, so maybe he can at least explain what she said at the start of the Convocation. 

“I don’t know if this is relevant,” I say. “But last night, when Isla was angry at Liz about the Lost Skins, she said something about Liz betraying the Luidaeg. I know the Luidaeg has a complicated relationship with all of the Selkies, but it sounded more personal than that. And the Luidaeg refused to explain. Do you know what Isla meant?” 

“Yes,” René says, raising an eyebrow. “Liz is the Selkie who cheated on the sea witch.” 

“What?” I stop and stare at him, and only Tybalt’s disgruntled meow gets me moving again. 

“That’s impossible,” Quentin says. “The Luidaeg would never date a Selkie.” He sounds horrified, although that might be at the thought of the Luidaeg dating in general. If hearing about the love life of your parents is mortifying when you’re a teenager, hearing about the love life of the ancient and powerful Firstborn you hang out with must be similarly unpleasant. 

“It was a couple decades ago, before Liz took a skin. She was human then.” René shrugs. “Mathias said she lived with `Cousin Annie` for several years. The sea witch kicked her out when she strayed and got herself pregnant.” 

That would certainly be a reason to end a relationship. No wonder Liz always looks so uncomfortable whenever she’s in the same room as the Luidaeg. Cheating on your partner is bad enough, but when your partner is your Firstborn? You’re never going to live that down. 

Although I’ve never seen the Luidaeg be particularly hostile towards Liz–and she’s prickly on the best of days.

“I’m surprised the Luidaeg is so fond of Diva, if she was conceived from an affair,” I say. 

“Oh, Diva was a later indiscretion,” he says, disapproval clear in his voice. “This child died soon after birth. I expect that was Liz’s punishment, though I can’t say I understand why she still was allowed to inherit the clan, especially after Diva.” 

“The Luidaeg wouldn’t kill a child,” Quentin says indignantly.

“No,” I agree. “If she murdered the kids of people who wronged her, there would have been a lot of dead Daoine Sidhe before Titania got to her.” The Luidaeg claims to be a monster, and she must believe it to say it, but she’s been a grieving mother for too long to do that to someone else. Especially not for as small a crime as infidelity. 

“You’ve never known her wrath,” René says. 

The tone of his voice makes me uneasy. You know nothing of what Elizabeth Ryan has paid, she’d said. Before I can say anything more, Tybalt meows loudly, pawing at the gangway of the Captain’s ship. 

Why would whoever took Isla’s skin leave it near her cabin, risking being caught in the act by the one person who can punish them? 

Before I can follow, my skin tingles, starting at my toes and writhing up through my body. I gasp as my gills seal over, and Quentin claps a hand to his neck beside me. 

“Looks like our time’s up.” I breathe out slowly. “Good thing we weren’t in the water.”

Tybalt rubs against my ankles, and I smile at the familiar comfort. “I’m fine. Let’s go.”

Our party hurries up onto the deck and down into the belly of the ship. The creaking hall is a familiar one–we’re almost at the sea-green door Captain Pete ushered us through after her introduction and Dean’s unfortunate collapse. But Tybalt stops before the Captain’s quarters, pawing at a door the color of the twilight sky.

“Isn’t this where we were supposed to meet Elsie?” Quentin whispers.

I nod slightly and rap on the door. Whatever’s going on here is only getting stranger by the moment, but stopping won’t give me any answers. 

“Come in!” calls Elsie. 

I push open the door, and Tybalt weaves past my legs, sniffing the air. Elsie’s cabin is smaller than Pete’s–her kitchen is a stove, small counter, and single tall cabinet–but it has the same bright, airy windows and pale blue sofa. Her bed is made–surprising for a teenager, less so for one expecting company. The blanket draped over it shimmers with the colors of a roiling storm, and a giant stuffed sea otter poses in front of her pillows. Driftwood shelves decorate her walls, stacked with books and ceramics made of sea glass, and the Duchy’s flag is pinned to her wall. 

Elsie’s sitting at her desk with a bowl of shrimp and an open notebook. She turns to look at us. “How did it go with the Selkies?” 

She’s wearing a piratical shirt with white billowing sleeves and brown cotton trousers. A similar style to the Captain, though without the ludicrous hat, and I’ve seen enough of the Duchy to know not everyone dresses like that, it’s filled with an eclectic mix of maritime styles. 

I’d dressed like my mother too, once. Fortunately, it suits Elsie better. Maybe because I can imagine it’s her own choice– everything from the flag on the wall to her books about pirate ships to her confident claim to be Pete’s heir paints a picture of a girl who wants to grow up to be like her mother, who believes she can. 

But if Pete’s the egalitarian mother of a changeling I never had, why hide her? 

Tybalt bounds across the room and yowls, scratching at the wardrobe door. 

“I think you have something we’re looking for.” I cross the room before René can beat me to it. The wardrobe is filled with tunics and leggings, ruffled shirts and breeches, dresses made of spider-silk–and, strangely, a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt with an octopus design. 

And crumpled at the bottom is a seal skin. I kneel, gently scooping it into my arms, and nearly drop it when it begins singing through my skin, offering me the waves, the world–an escape.

Put me on, and you won’t have to worry about the prophecy made for your mother’s sake, it whispers. Only a child of Amandine’s line can be so bound. You could be free. You could be with your daughter forever, for eternity, for always. Put me on, and be remade.

It’s tempting. Of course it’s tempting. But I know how Selkie skins work, thanks to the Luidaeg tying one around my daughter. If I drape it over myself, even for a second, everything I am would be remade, Dochas Sidhe replaced by Selkie-maid forevermore. 

“Hey,” Elsie protests, jolting me away from the brightly burning song of the sea. She’s at my shoulder, stopped in her tracks at the sight of the skin.

“You murderer!” René throws himself towards Elsie, fists drawn. Quentin grabs him around the waist before he can reach her, and with a rush of pennyroyal and musk, Tybalt is a man again, gripping René’s other arm. 

“Let me go!” He twists against them. “She took Isla’s skin. She killed my sister!”

Elsie jumps away from René, startled. “I didn’t! I swear, I don’t know how that got there!” 

“Why should I believe you?” He tries to wrench himself away, but Quentin has a better grip by now, and with Tybalt on the other side, he’s not going anywhere. 

“Because it would be stupid to leave the skin of the Selkie you just killed in your own room?” I suggest. “Especially if you invited the murder investigators to meet you there later?” 

I take a deep breath, but all that I taste is damp water and the marshy scent of the Luidaeg’s magic that’s sunk into every skin. There isn’t any blood on it–either it was washed off or was never spilled when Isla was thrown overboard and left to drown.

René stares at me. “You know this girl?”

“She’s the Captain’s daughter. The one I told you about.”

“So she says.” Quentin’s still holding tight to René, but he’s looking hard at Elsie. “I still think it’s weird that she turned up out of nowhere, when the Captain’s not around to contradict her story. And that she found the body before anyone else did.” 

Elsie blinks, looking from the skin in my hands to Quentin. “I… can see how this doesn’t look great,” she admits. “But why would I steal a skin? I don’t need one.” 

“Your best friend is a Selkiekin who was denied the sea,” Tybalt says slowly. “You told us that yourself. It would be a foolish thing to admit if you truly are guilty, but none of us know you well enough to judge whether you are a fool.” 

She glares at him. “I would never throw one of the skins in my wardrobe like that! I know what they cost. They should be treated with respect.”

“What respect did the murderer show for my sister’s body?” René demands. “Leaving it tangled in the kelp? You stole her skin for your friend, and you didn’t bother to hide it because you thought your mother’s name would shield you from all consequence.” 

If Elsie is behind the murder and she’s telling the truth about her mother, she might well get away with it. Killing Isla was no violation of Oberon’s law, so the punishment would be entirely up to the Captain, and there would be no recourse if she did no more than ground her daughter. 

“There are worse things to be than human,” Elsie snaps. “I want my friend to stay innocent!” 

René goes slack, staring at her. “Then we are all guilty? We are all condemned, in your eyes?” 

“I don’t think Selkies deserve to die, obviously,” Elsie says quickly, “but I don’t have to like your choices.” 

“You killed my sister,” René snarls, “for the crime of taking a skin!” 

He’s changed his mind on her motive remarkably quickly, clearly intent on having someone to blame. But a hatred of Selkies is a potential motive, one I hadn’t considered before. Isla can’t have been killed for her skin now, unless it was Elsie. 

“I didn’t,” Elsie protests. She looks like a cornered animal, backed against the wall of her own room. “I’m not a killer!”

I’ve dealt with a lot of murderers. More of them than I’d like have been young changelings in over their heads. If Elsie has anything to do with this, I can’t believe she’s the mastermind. 

“Sometimes, we do things we wouldn’t usually do, because someone else convinces us it’s the right thing to do,” I say gently. “That the greater good balances out the bad.” 

She looks at me like I’ve gone mad. “The only person I know who hates Selkies is Annie. Are you going to interrogate her next?”

“Not it,” says Quentin. 

It’s a joke to him, but I take a moment to consider it. The Luidaeg has to hold the Convocation, or she’d make a liar of herself, but maybe if it failed through sabotage, that would still release her from the obligation? She’s inscrutable at the best of times, it’s possible she secretly regrets her old vow. 

Because if she did have to sacrifice a Selkie, Isla put herself to the top of the list this morning. 

But no, none of this is her style. I can’t imagine her manipulating her teenage niece into murder. Especially not when she’s on strangely good terms with Elsie’s mother.  

“There aren’t any more clues on the skin.” I fold it gently and hold it out to René. “If you promise not to go after Elsie if Tybalt and Quentin let you go, you can have it.”

His glare is still murderous, but he nods sharply. Tybalt and Quentin step back, and I set the skin in his arms. His expression softens as he stares at it, anger bleeding into raw grief.

“It should have been hers to pass on."

“I know.” I rest my hand briefly on his shoulder before turning to Elsie, who is still frowning at René. “There’s one way I can prove you are who you say you are. No one can lie in the blood.” 

Elsie’s eyes widen. “No,” she says, sinking further back against the wall. “Mom doesn’t like that kind of blood magic, remember? She’d be real mad. But I can prove I’m the beginning of a new race.” 

The scent of hot sand and fresh sea air fills the room, and I breathe in instinctively. Something about her magic feels distantly familiar, but before I can examine that, Elsie vanishes and a furry brown mammal stares up at us. 

That explains her stuffed animal. 

“She’s not exactly like a Merrow.” I crouch down. She looks like a regular sea otter–not that I’ve gotten up close and personal with any, but I live in San Francisco. I’ve seen them off of docks and in aquariums, and there’s nothing particularly fae-looking about this one–except, of course, that it used to be a girl. “Although she did look sort of like one before she transformed. Minus the gills.” The ears also weren’t right, but she’s a changeling. We never quite look like our pureblood counterparts. 

“I have never heard of an Undersea shapeshifter that takes the form of an otter.” René clutches Isla’s skin tighter. “Unless this is an illusion.”

“A Cait Sidhe, especially a King of Cats, is not easily deceived by illusions,” Tybalt says. “There does not appear to be any trickery here.” 

The otter chitters once before transforming back into a changeling girl. She runs a hand through her hair, still seeming nervous. “Yeah, well, it’s been a thousand years or whatever, Mom was ready to diversify. Do you believe me now?” 

“If none of us have seen her race before, she probably is the kid of a Firstborn.” I sit on the edge of her bed, hoping that if I relax, Elsie will, too. She still looks ready to bolt. 

As someone who’s been accused of something I didn’t do, I sympathize with the frantic look in her eyes. It’s possible she’s only afraid of being caught, but Elsie being at the heart of this would be too simple. 

There’s more that supports her claims than denies them– she has a new power and her room is next to Pete’s. The clothes in her wardrobe looked like the right size for Elsie, and only noble parents would be able to afford the spider-silk there. 

I don’t get why it seems like Pete was hiding her from us, or why Elsie seems against the Selkies when her mother spoke passionately of the Duchy as a safe place for them and their kin. I guess that could be why she was sent away, to avoid her inflaming Selkie relations or something, but nothing about Elsie’s manner says political extremist. 

“I don’t think you killed Isla Chase. You would have had time to hide the skin in a better place if you were the one who took it. The question is, how did someone else get in here without you knowing? Is your cabin not warded?”

She blinks. “Why would my cabin have wards?” 

“Undersea, right.” For such a martial culture, they’re surprisingly blasé about personal safety. But most people would think twice before stealing from the Captain’s daughter’s room, especially when it’s right next to the cabin of the Firstborn herself. “So whoever it was could have just walked in. But why would they stash the skin here? It’s not a random choice.”

If Pete’s daughter was implicated in a murder, who would benefit? 

“If the Luidaeg believed you stole a skin, she’d be furious,” I say slowly. “But if you say you’re innocent, I assume Pete would defend you. Maybe someone’s trying to pit them against each other. If Pete revoked her permission for the Convocation because the Luidaeg was going after her daughter, it would disrupt everything.”

Elsie blinks, seeming to relax. “Well, that won’t work.”

“Why not?”

“Um, hosting this was part of a bargain. Mom can’t go back on her word even if she wanted to, cos Annie already did her end.” She frowns. “But why would anyone want to stop the Convocation? I know a lot of the Selkies aren’t happy about it, but this is the only thing that will let them pass down the magic, like they’ve always wanted to.” 

“Your own friend was denied the sea, and you still claim not to understand.” René still sounds venomous, and I wince. That’s not likely to make Elsie more comfortable. “Do you know how many parents had to choose between their children? How many will be left on shore forever, forced to watch their brothers and sisters swim far and wide, never aging? There are never enough skins, but at least before, there was hope that if this one passed you by, perhaps the next one would not. Now, we must become something we are not because the sea witch demands it of us. We were raised to be Selkies, not Roane. The clans exist because we are Selkies. None of us would dare stand against her, but that doesn’t mean we want everything we are to vanish in a moment.”

Elsie glares at the floor and mutters, “Wanting a skin doesn’t give you the right to one.” 

“And it isn’t necessarily a Selkie,” I add. “Someone wanted the Roane dead in the first place. Maybe someone’s trying to stop them from coming back.” 

Quentin’s eyes widen. “You don’t think…?"

“I don’t know. She’s supposed to be asleep, but that didn’t stop her from harassing Karen. She couldn’t have murdered Isla, but we can’t rule out her involvement.” 

Elsie flinches. “Do you know when Annie’s coming back? Why did you get her to leave?” 

That’s the third time Elsie’s called her Annie. I’ve known the Luidaeg’s name for a couple years now, but I’d never use it so casually, especially not with relative strangers. From how Quentin’s frowning, he’s thinking the same thing.

“Dianda Lorden’s brother decided to show up and make a move on the Duchess’s crown. Dianda’s imprisoned unjustly, and Pete’s the only one who can get Torin to back off. Since Pete doesn’t like to get involved with her descendents–er, her Merrow descendants–I made a deal with the Luidaeg. Her part of the bargain is persuading her sister to come back and fix this.”

“Okay,” she says. “Good, that shouldn’t take too long. If it’s like you say, maybe I can help convince her too when she’s back?” 

“It’s already been twelve hours. And Pete sailed away because she wanted to avoid the Merrow. Her coming back would mean she’s already agreed to involve herself. But I appreciate the offer.” 

“You should not be trusting this girl,” René says. “She already admitted to leaving my sister in the water.” 

“I went to tell someone,” Elsie protests. “Isn’t that what you’re meant to do? I found a Duke and a Prince, your friends? I was telling them, and then some Cephali came in with her body.” 

“She did say earlier that the Cephali told her where to find me. If it’ll help, we can confirm her story ourselves.” I stand, planting myself between René and Elsie. “And they brought Isla’s body to a room off the courtyard, if you would like to see her.”

“I would.” 

The pain in his voice is so raw that I wish I could swallow my next words. “René, I know you want to pass Isla’s skin, but I need to ask you not to do that. It has to stay with us until this is settled. I’m sorry.” 

“I don’t want to let my sister’s skin out of my hands,” he says reluctantly. “I’d trade it for Isla, alive and human and here, but since I can’t have that, I don’t want to let it go. And yet... I think you’re right. It wouldn’t be safe with me. Too many people are desperate, for their children, their loved ones, all the ones who’d been content to wait when they thought that waiting could be fruitful.”

“I understand,” I said—and I did, I really did. To be a changeling is to be something like to a Selkie, inside and outside Faerie at the same time. We’re not seen as worthy, and part of that supposed unworthiness comes from the fact that we have to fight for everything we get. Faerie has never given us anything freely. 

Quentin leaves first, and René follows, cradling Isla’s skin like a newborn child. Tybalt squeezes my hand as we join the procession out of the cabin, with Elsie at our heels, looking far too lost for someone who’s meant to be in charge of the Duchy. 

The first time Sylvester sent me on a formal mission after I was knighted, my stomach refused to settle. I had been stumbling into far worse trouble for years, but everything still felt different once I had a title and all the responsibility that came with it. So many people believed a changeling should never be a knight, and I had to prove them wrong. 

Elsie’s as much a changeling as I am, and she’s trying to step into the shoes of a Firstborn. There’s something about her that bothers me, but not enough for me to believe that she’s involved in a murder. The uncertainty in her eyes is too much a mirror of my own, from all those years ago.  

And with a murder that’s still unsolved and a hostile takeover of Saltmist in progress, I need all the allies I can get.

Chapter Text

We walk through the Duchy of Ships in a ragged line, fixed on our destination, trying to ignore the way people point and whisper behind their hands. Whatever temporary “ignore them, they’re strangers” field we started with, we lost it somewhere between rescuing the son of an imprisoned Merrow Duchess and pulling a drowned woman from the sea. 

Tybalt glances my way, annoyance melting into wry amusement. “I see your reputation is spreading. You have fans again.” 

“I never asked for fans,” I say, walking faster, as if that would be enough to shift me out from under the weight of all those staring eyes. 

“Yet you charm everyone you meet in the same unfaltering manner,” he said. “It seems difficult to believe that it is entirely accidental.” 

I hit him in the arm. He laughs, and things are, if not okay again, at least a little better. 

The door to our courtyard appears ahead of us like a beacon, offering the promise of safe harbor. We keep going until we smell the fresh green scents of our private garden, and hear the sound of voices. Patrick, and Peter, both talking loudly enough that I could tell them apart even before we were close enough for me to pick out words.

“--not the land, Father! You can’t keep thinking of it like it is!” 

“We don’t have an army right now, Peter. You have to slow down.” 

“Mother has been imprisoned!” 

“Does it help at all if I say the sea witch is working on it, and is just as annoyed as the rest of us?” I ask, stepping around the edge of the courtyard. 

Patrick and Peter, who both froze in place at the sound of my voice, turn to look at me. They’re virtually nose-to-nose, Patrick towering almost a foot over his son, yet still seeming somehow evenly matched. Dean and Marcia are off to one side. Neither of them make any effort to hide their relief at my appearance. 

Cassandra and Nolan are on the other side, looking utterly, profoundly confused. I guess suddenly being dropped into Undersea politics without a primer would do that. 

“You really shouldn’t start attacking anyone before Mom gets back,” Elsie calls from behind me. “If you start violence in her waters, she’ll be mad.” 

Peter rounds on her, eyes flashing. “I don’t care who your mother is! No one’s doing anything to save my mom!”

“Peter,” interjects Dean. “Her mom is the Captain.” 

He blinks. “Amphitrite?” He stares at Elsie, now appraising her rather than glaring. “You don’t look Merrow.” 

“I’m not.” Elsie crosses her arms. “It’s been a long time since Mom last had kids, so Faerie gave her something new. I’m the first of the Dòbhran. And you might be the heir to Saltmist and Mom’s descendant, but you’re still not allowed to start a fight here. Once Annie gets back with Mom, she can sort it out.” 

Peter scowls. “She’d better.” 

“Moving on before you offend your First in absentia,” I say quickly, “you guys all met Elsie earlier, right?”

Patrick nods. “She said she found the body.” 

“I didn’t,” says Marcia, an odd look on her face. “But I know you, don’t I? You were at the Tea Gardens.”

Elsie looks startled. “You remember that?” 

“Yes?” Marcia tips her head. “We’d just lost our liege and home. It would be a hard day to forget.” 

“What?” I look between them, thoroughly confused. “What were you doing in the Mists during Oleander’s murders?” 

“Um. I snuck out.” Elsie hasn’t looked away from Marcia. “I wanted to see the mortal city, but I got lost and ended up in Golden Gate Park.”

“I thought…” Marcia shakes her head, as if she’s trying to dislodge a fly that keeps landing on her. “Didn’t you say someone sent you?”

“Someone told me it was the nearest fiefdom.” There’s a nervous edge to her voice that gets sharper the longer she talks. “You were very kind to me, even though I was a stranger. It’s nice to meet you properly.” 

“I just did what I could, and it wasn’t much since the knowe was already gone,” she says sadly. “But I sent you to May. Didn’t she tell you, Toby?” 

“What do you mean, sent?” I ask.

“She needed a place to crash, so I took her to yours. May said you wouldn’t mind?” Marcia says, an old nervousness entering her voice. “I thought she would have told you?” 

If this happened around the time of Lily’s death, I would have been busy getting poisoned in all sorts of fun new ways, but May would have said if something had happened. She’d told me about manning the phone lines, about caring for Spike, why not mention a runaway changeling? “I mean, I wouldn’t have minded, but May didn’t say anything.” I look to Elsie, raising my eyebrow in question. 

“She didn’t? Huh.” Elsie squints, like she’s trying to solve a complicated math problem. “Mom tracked me down and picked me up from May’s house. And she will fog people’s memories sometimes, if they know or suspect she’s Firstborn. Maybe she made May forget either of us were ever there.” 

She glances around the assembled group. “I don’t know what she plans to do with all of your memories when this is over. It feels rude to mess with the minds of guests, but between you and the Selkies, there are a lot of you, and Mom likes her privacy. You might not be allowed to remember who she really is.” 

“That’s what she did to Mom,” Dean nods. “She remembered the Captain as an ordinary Merrow. And as a guy, for some reason.” 

I hate the idea of my memory being messed with. Would the Luidaeg really let her do that to all of us without warning? Why reveal herself so openly earlier, only to take it back after? I decide to cross that bridge later. I have a Duchess to free and a murder to solve, I can’t add a Firstborn-sized problem to the pile right now. “May’s gonna hate that. Where’s Poppy?” 

“She’s in her apartment with the—with the thing you found,” says Dean, haltingly.

“The body,” I say. “You mean she’s with the body.”

He nods, looking like he’s about to be sick. Getting that boy out of the Undersea is the best thing I’ve done. He’s a good Count, thoughtful and patient and fair. Staying in Saltmist would have eaten him alive.

I turn to René. “We can take you to your sister momentarily,” I say. “Will your traditions allow you to leave the skin with her body until this is resolved? Even if the night-haunts come for her, they won’t touch the skin.” If they’d been able to find sustenance in Selkie skins, all chance of the resurrection of the Roane would have been eliminated ages ago.

Looking sick, René shakes his head. “The skin can’t be given to the dead,” he says. “The magic won’t allow it. Some of the first Selkies tried to have their skins buried with them, thinking that was a way to break the bargain, and their children and siblings found those skins draped over chairs at the kitchen table the next day.”

“Delightful.” I pinch the bridge of my nose.  “René, may I introduce you to Duke Patrick Lorden of Saltmist, his son, Peter Lorden, Count Dean Lorden of Goldengreen, his Seneschal, Marcia, and Crown Prince in the Mists Nolan Windermere, and his ‘please don’t cause a diplomatic incident because you don’t understand what’s happening’ Cassandra Brown.”

“I feel I may have just been insulted,” says Nolan, sounding puzzled.

“Aren’t you supposed to introduce princes and the like first?” asks Marcia.

“Not when we’re in an Undersea fiefdom, surrounded by ocean on all sides,” I say. “There’s etiquette and then there’s common sense, and they don’t always agree. Everyone, this is René. He’s married to the head of the Beacon’s Home Selkies, and Isla was his sister.”

“I am terribly sorry for your loss,” says Nolan. He manages to make the proclamation sound like it actually means something, and isn’t just the sort of thing people say when they don’t know what else to do.

“If we can’t leave the skin with the body, what are we supposed to do with it?” asks Quentin.  

“There’s a special way to preserve them, if they’re not being worn. A basket, with wax and oil…” Elsie trails off, frowning. “I know there’s certain herbs you have to use, but I can’t remember which ones.”

“That’s right.” Marcia sounds surprised. “I helped Lily store a Selkie skin after its owner died, until his daughter was old enough to inherit. I remember the herbs—they should all be in the garden.”

“I think I saw a booth selling crab baskets in the market,” Quentin says. 

“Don’t go alone,” I say.

“I’ll go with him,” says Cassandra. “The air’s a little thick in here.” 

As they leave, René frowns, eyeing Elsie with suspicion. “Who told you that?” 

“Annie.”

Annie, again. I guess it makes sense for her to know the Luidaeg by that name, since Pete calls her that, but it’s still weird to hear. The idea that they have a relationship separate from Pete, one close enough that the Luidaeg would volunteer that story, is stranger still, and something niggles at me, a conversation half-remembered. Hadn’t she said something once, about not being able to stand her other nieces and nephews? 

“The Luidaeg must like you,” I say. 

Elsie grins. “She does. I’m her favorite niece.”

“I guess I bleed too much.” I’m not offended by the thought that the Luidaeg might be closer to another niece, she clearly gets along better with Pete than with my mother, and I am the annoying hero who comes knocking at all hours of the day, but I can’t shake the oddness. Something isn’t right. 

Maybe Elsie is a cousin of mine, but that doesn’t prove that she has a good relationship with the Luidaeg. Why send her away from the Convocation? Why hide her existence from me? 

“Oh, sorry!” Elsie reddens. “I’m sure she likes you a lot, too. It’s only that she’s visited since I was little, since she’s close with Mom. So she’s known me for a long time.”

“But if she likes you and she likes Toby, why wouldn’t she just introduce you?” Quentin says. “She knew you’d be in the same place. Why all this secrecy?”

“I told you.” The edge has returned to Elsie’s voice. “I wasn’t meant to get involved in the Convocation. It’s between Annie and the Selkies.” 

“But you did,” says René. He’s calmer than he had been in his earlier raging accusations, but his voice is cold. “You took my sister’s skin. You killed her, or you’re protecting who did. Do you think you’ll escape consequences by being beloved of the sea witch?”

She meets his eyes. “I think you'll be in a lot of trouble if you try to take vengeance without proof.”

“What?” asks Patrick.

I sigh, not wanting to waste time going over this again. “Tybalt found Isla’s skin in Elsie’s room. I think it’s more likely to have been planted there. But instead of arguing about it some more, I’m going to find Rodrick. He can confirm her story.” 

At this point, for Elsie to not be Pete’s kid, there’d have to be something way more bizarre going on, but it’s a way to appease René while getting access to another source of information on the Duchy. 

“I can take you to your sister, if you would like,” Nolan offers. 

René hesitates, seeming torn. 

I try for an encouraging smile. “I have plenty of Undersea guides now. You should stay with your sister.” 

“I would appreciate that,” says René. Nolan beckons for him to follow, and the two of them walk across the courtyard to the apartment where Poppy sits with a dead woman, counting down the minutes of her decay.

“I’ll go with you,” Elsie says quickly. “Rodrick’s known me since I was a baby, he’ll tell you that.” 

“Since you’ll have a better idea of where to find him, sure,” I say. “Tybalt?”

“As my lady wishes,” he says, sounding quietly relieved. 

We walk out of the courtyard, led by the girl who is definitely lying about something, and away from the people I'm still struggling to save. 

There are no true days or nights in the Summerlands, which exist in an eternal, tangled twilight, but time still passes, and we’ve been in the Duchy of Ships long enough that most of the people who were awake when we arrived are in bed by now, leaving the docks and byways largely deserted. Not entirely: there’s always someone awake in Faerie, no matter what the clock tries to say. Humanity has their night owls, and the fae have their morning people.

Some of them look at us curiously as we pass, and some nod to Elsie, or smile at her. I could ask one of them who she is, but we’re on the way to Rodrick anyway, and the fact that she’s clearly a citizen of the Duchy makes it unlikely she’s lying about being Pete’s kid. 

There’s more I want to run by Rodrick than Isla’s death, anyway. Whatever’s going on, it’s bigger than a murder. If Torin successfully seizes Saltmist, it would destabilize the region. The Mists have enjoyed multiple centuries of relative peace. A war would risk everything. Our people, our ability to hide from humanity, everything.

The thought hits me with such force that I stop walking, eyes going wide. I’m dimly aware of Tybalt also coming to a halt, turning to look at me with bemusement and no small amount of concern.

“October?” he says. “What is it?”

“I think we’ve been looking at this the wrong way,” I say. “I think it’s not about the Selkies at all, except for the part where it’s entirely about the Selkies. Who knew—”

That’s as far as I get before a fist slams into my jaw, sending me reeling. My assailant hits me again before I can do anything more than see stars and blotches of vivid blackness dancing across my vision, like my head has suddenly become the site of the most exciting rave in the Westlands.

Tybalt roars with rage and—I suspect—relief: here is something he can deal with. Here is something he can hit. I take another step back as I hear the distinctive sound of an enraged Cait Sidhe slamming into whoever was foolish enough to attack me. My jaw feels broken. I touch it gingerly, trying to will the bone to knit back together faster, before the situation gets worse.

I remember Elsie and turn to find her staring at the fight, wide-eyed, her hand moving to a blue bracelet on her wrist. 

“Run,” I order weakly, my still healing jaw refusing to let me shout. I’m pretty sure Pete won’t be in the mood to help us if we let her daughter get stabbed.

“I have weapons,” she says. 

Fortunately, I have experience in dealing with teenagers who won’t get out of the damn line of fire. I shove her, hard, in the direction of the dock. “Y’ c’n sw’m,” I mumble, my jaw mending even as I speak. “Get help.” 

She stumbles backwards. For a moment, it looks like she might disobey me, but then she steps away and jumps backwards off the dock in a thick swirl of salt sea magic. Backwards. Even the thought of that will haunt my watery nightmares. 

Chapter Text

I hit the water as an otter, legs first, sinking until I roll myself into a proper dive. I dive underneath the Duchy, emerging on the other side at the nearest ladder, fast in my panic.

Shifting back, I clamber up the rope ladder, my hands still wet. My grip slips, and it’s only my reflexes that stop me from falling back down. I force myself to go slower after that, telling myself that Toby and Tybalt will be okay. She’s a hero. She knows what she’s doing, doesn’t she?

I clamber up over the edge of the dock and look around for help, and find the place deserted. It’s morning, but there should be someone. This isn’t meant to happen. The Duchy is meant to be safe.

“Rodrick!” I shout. “Maritza! Anyone!” Mom, where are you?

No one answers me. I give up, running in the direction of the guest courtyard instead, using a shortcut that gets me there after barely a minute.

I run towards the gates, shouting, “Help!”

Dean and his father reach the gates first, Quentin just behind them, who shouts back, “Where’s Toby?”

Tentacles wrap around my ankles and pull, sending me sprawling to the ground with a shout of surprise. I roll onto my back, kicking with all my strength at the now revealed Cephali. There are a dozen of them; all of them had been camouflaged, and I hadn’t noticed the signs in my rush.

The gates crunch open, and Dean throws something at the Cephali with a fierce cry. Someone grabs me from under my shoulders, pulling me forwards, and I shout in pain as the suckers around my ankles constrict, keeping me in place.

Thwack. A knife embeds itself in a tentacle, and the Cephali lets go. I’m dragged through the archway, and Patrick snaps the gates closed behind me.

“We need to lock the gates!” he shouts, holding them shut. Marcia hurries out from the rooms with a sprig of rosemary and starts chanting.

“Are you okay?” asks Quentin.

I blink at him, disorientated by how fast everything is happening. He’s the one who dragged me in. Am I okay? I look at my ankles. There’s red rings where the tentacles had constricted around me, and now that the adrenaline is fading, they burn.

“I’ll be fine,” I say, letting him help me back to my feet. It stings, but I can stand okay. “I appreciate the hand.”

“What happened to Toby and Tybalt?”

“We were attacked, she sent me to get reinforcements.”

“I think she’ll have to do without,” Patrick says grimly.

I follow his gaze. A contingent of Merrow guards are marching towards us, joining the Cephali. They charge at us, spears in hand, and only backing out of their range saves us from getting stabbed.

“They can’t do this,” I say, staring. “You’re guests! They can’t just attack you!”

“Your mom isn’t here to stop them,” Dean says.

“It’s against the rules whether she’s here or not!”

Quentin smiles. “Strangely, telling people that murder's illegal hasn’t ever stopped them trying to kill me. And a lot of people have tried to kill me.”

“But it is,” I say. “Haven’t these people heard of Oberon’s Law?”

“This is a war of conquest,” Patrick says, giving me a strange look. “Surely your mother explained the ways of the Merrow?”

“Maybe they have the right to attack the people of Saltmist, but not the rest of us. Unless they're declaring war on the Duchy of Ships too, which is a very bad idea.”

“Not everyone does things by the letter of the law,” Patrick says, “and they rarely face consequences for breaking the rules, because the victors can rewrite history however they like, and who’s going to hold them accountable when they’ve made corpses of their enemies?”

I want to say Mom, but I know that isn’t true if rules are broken outside the Duchy. She’s stepped away from all her descendants, she doesn’t get involved in their politics anymore. I’ve never questioned whether that’s always a good thing until now. “Someone should.”

“A lot of things aren’t how they should be,” Dean says. “What are we going to do about this one? They’re still stabbing at us!”

The Merrow guards are jabbing their spears through the gates, as if their arms will spontaneously grow enough to catch us. Maybe I should feel scared, but mostly I feel annoyed.

Nolan, Cassandra, Peter, and René hurry through the doorway, all of them carrying weapons. René has a vicious-looking wooden sword with jagged thorns running along its cutting edge, Peter has a small trident, and Nolan has a longbow from somewhere.

“If Nolan shoots at people, that won’t accidentally be the Mists declaring war on the Undersea, right?” Quentin asks.

“Only if I kill someone.”

“Uh, okay,” he says. “Where can we get weapons?”

Cassandra leads him and Dean inside, while Nolan sets himself up to take shots at our attackers, and Peter and René charge at the gates. I’m about to take the bands off my wrist and unsheathe a weapon when Patrick tugs me backwards, further away from the gates. “You’re not getting involved,” he says.

I stare at him. “What?”

“This isn’t your fight—”

“—They attacked me—”

”–And I don’t want to have to answer to your mother if you get hurt. I can’t keep an eye on both you and Peter.”

“I’m not Peter’s age. Quentin, when were you born?” I call out.

Quentin appears in the doorway with Dean, carrying a sword. “Uh, ninety five?”

“See, I’m older than him!” Only by a year, but it’s the principle.

“Quentin’s a squire, and I don’t need to avoid the wrath of his parents.”

Marcia pipes up, “I could use some help making ammunition.”

“Help Marcia,” he nods. “Please, Elsie.”

It would be immature to waste more time refusing, and he is a Duke. He arguably has the right to order me around. I hadn’t thought I’d miss people treating me like a murder suspect, but being treated like glass is just as annoying.

I hurry to join Marcia in assembling the explosive bowls.

“Have you done marshwater charms before?” she asks.

“It's like changeling alchemy, right? Mom taught me a bit before my magic came in, I've not really used them since I was ten.”

“You know the principles, then,” she says approvingly. “Just copy me.”

She slows down so I can see her picking the right quantities of each ingredient, mixing them together in the glass bowls and steeping them in water.

I copy her, focusing hard on getting it right. The water in hers turns a bright yellow, while mine stays a paler shade.

“That's good,” she praises, setting both our creations aside for someone to throw. “Just like that.”

We assemble them quickly from then on. “I'm glad you did get home safely in the end,” Marcia says. “It wasn't a good time to be wandering about the Mists. Thank Oberon you didn't run into Oleander.”

“Who?”

“She was an assassin,” she sighs. “She killed Lily.”

That had been Marcia's liege, if I'm remembering right. My eyes widen. “There was an assassin in the Mists that day? Did she get away with it?”

“Someone killed her.”

“Oh. Well, that's good?”

“It is.”

I try to think of something less fraught to talk about, but Marcia beats me to it.

“…René said you hate the Selkies,” she says, which is absolutely a fraught subject. “He thinks that's why you killed Isla.”

I frown, hurt. “Do you really think I’m a murderer?”

“No,” she says. “But that doesn’t mean he’s wrong about the first bit.”

“I don’t hate Selkies.” I shake my head. “I grew up with them. My best friend is Selkiekin.”

“Will she still be your best friend if she takes a skin?”

“She isn’t getting one. Anyway, I don’t hate anyone just for being a Selkie. I hate it when they talk like their whole clan is entitled to a skin, like Faerie owes them one just for wanting it. They know where the skins came from. Do they want there to have been more dead?”

“They wish that giving their child immortality didn't cost them their own,” she says. “Inheritance was always meant to be in the blood.”

I know she probably just means magic, but her words prick at me. Blood says my mom is only my aunt. Blood says I'm not her heir. “I guess. Why do you care anyway? You’re…” I realize belatedly that I have no idea what Marcia is, beyond changeling. “Landfae,” I finish lamely.

“Oh, I’m not much more than a merlin,” she smiles. “But Selkies live on the outskirts of fae society, like changelings. I understand what that's like.”

I like Marcia. She was kind to me when I was just a stranger collapsed on a bench, the opposite of all the bullies at the Queen’s Court. It’s uncomfortable being chastised by her, however gently, like I’m now the one being unfair and bigoted. “You think I need to be kinder to the Selkies?”

“You have the right to feel however you like about them. What happened to the Roane was a tragedy,” she says, deep sorrow burning in her voice. I wonder suddenly who told her the tale, and why. “But the Selkies are going to be reborn into something new, something old. It would be a kindness, I think, to let them leave their shame and sin behind them.”

“You sound like Mom when she’s being all wise and ancient,” I sigh. Mom’s said the same kind of stuff about the Selkies. I’ve never understood why she takes their side over her own sister’s.

She giggles. “If I was as wise and old as her, I wouldn't lose half my bread to the pixies.”

“Well, we don’t get pixies at sea,” I point out. “You're at a disadvantage. Also, Aldridge makes all our bread, and he always sees thieves coming.”

“Are you speaking from experience?”

“I've never tried to steal bread,” I grin. “Just cake and cookies. It’s a holiday tradition.”

Marcia laughs.

“I swear on Oberon’s ass, I can’t leave you people alone for five minutes,” says a familiar voice.

I startle, dropping the glass bowl in my hands and jumping to my feet. Toby and Tybalt are suddenly only a foot away.  

“Toby! You’re alive!” I exclaim, relieved that I hadn’t abandoned them to their deaths. Then I register how very bloodied her dress is and stare. “How are you alive?”

“I heal fast.”

Quentin turns around too, sporting a shallow cut on his left cheek. “Took you long enough.” He pauses. “Somehow I expected less blood.”

“Amateur mistake,” Toby says. “Get away from that gate before you get hurt.” She strides forward. “Seriously, you cut your face? What’s Dean going to think of that? Where is Dean?”

“Poppy and Dean hauled Peter into one of the apartments and locked the door,” says Quentin. “We were letting him fight at first, only it turns out he’s skinny enough to fit between the bars, and after he nearly got grabbed, twice, we decided it was better if we kept him out of reach.”

“Good thinking.”

“No one let me fight to begin with,” I complain.

“Good thinking,” Toby repeats.

The Merrow guards are still throwing themselves against the closed gates, but it holds strong. Either it has seriously good craftsmanship, or really good charms, or both.

Cassandra runs out from her hiding place behind Nolan, grabbing onto Toby. “Aunt Birdie! You have to stop them! You have to stop them before they do something that can’t be taken back!”

Auntie? I hadn’t realized she was related to Toby (and so, presumably, to me?)

“What are you talking about, Cass? I mean, there’s reason to worry about Nolan putting an arrow in someone’s throat, but I’m pretty sure this is a skirmish of war right now, so he’s not going to get in too much trouble if he does.”

Cassandra shakes her head. “No, no, no. Not our people—theirs. They’re going to do something they can’t undo, and I can’t see what happens after that, but it’s bad. Please, you have to stop them before it’s too late.”

Toby frowns. “Honey, what do you know? Did someone tell you something?”

“I—” She hesitates. Then, in a rush, she says, “I can read the future in the movement of air sometimes. I’m an aeromancer. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, I really am, but Karen said not to, and she’s always been better at seeing the clear paths than I am, I’m sorry.”

I watch her with new interest. She’s a changeling Seer too?

“Cassie… are you saying you’re a soothsayer?”

“Yes.” She nods. “I am. Not the best, but I am. That’s why I knew I had to convince the Queen to send me on this trip, with or without Nolan. Bringing back the Roane changes things. It makes the future easier to see, but it also makes it more malleable. There are people who don’t want that to happen.”

“What about you?” asks Toby, and I stiffen, ready to defend the Convocation if she says something offensive.

Cassandra grimaces. “I don’t think it’s mine to decide, and this has been coming for a long, long time. This is supposed to happen. Things have been broken for hundreds of years, Auntie Birdie, and the air moves too fast for me to see how the fixing ends, but I know we’re supposed to be fixing things. But you have to stop them before they go too far, or things stay broken forever.”

A chill runs through me. What they’re doing could truly ruin the Convocation. I’d been thinking that once my mothers came back they would solve everything, but it sounds like there’s a future, one poised to come to pass, where the Roane won't return for some reason. I have to stop it.

“Who is ‘them,’ honey?”

A rousing cheer rises from the guards. “Sir Daye, it seems I have something that belongs to you,” a Merrow calls smugly. The man from the Bluefin ship, the man who attacked Toby– he must be Dianda’s brother, I think Toby said his name was Torin.

A Cephali stands beside him, skin flashing warning bands of blue and orange. He’s holding a Selkie girl’s arms behind her back with two of his tentacles, twining them around her arms so there’s no chance for her to break away. She thrashes valiantly, but it’s no use.

“Toby!” she shouts. “Get these fuckers off me!”

Toby strides toward the gate, a blood-drenched nightmare of a woman. “It’s obvious you have Gillian because you think you can use her, Torin,” she snarls. “You’re wrong. Let her go.”

“I don’t know,” he says. “It seems to me that she’s been plenty useful already. You’re not fighting off my people anymore, when they were only here to collect what was mine by right. What will you give me for your daughter, Sir Daye? Your own hand? Your own head? Or maybe the proof of my sister’s degeneracy? Give me the boys, and I’ll return your Selkie brat.”

That girl is Toby's? Did she marry a Selkie or something? Why hadn't Annie told me about any of this?

“My sons are not for sale,” spits Patrick. He has a glass bulb in each hand, and looks ready to start throwing again.

I’ve grown up as an only child, I have no living siblings, but I always wanted them. I don’t understand how he can betray his sister like that. How he can hate her so much that he would kill her children to conquer a Duchy. He’s the one that ought to be half-Daoine Sidhe.

Patrick shouldn't need to fear for his sons, they should all be safe here. This is the Duchy of Ships. It’s always been boringly safe, idyllic. How dare they break that peace? How dare they threaten the return of my family?

I’m my mother’s heir. The Duchy will never truly be mine if I can’t defend it, if I have to always wait for Mom to handle any challenge.

Before Toby can respond, I stalk forward to the gates, glaring defiantly at the small army assembled outside.

“I’m Elspeth,” I say. “I'm the heir to the Duchy of Ships. I’m the youngest daughter of Amphitrite, Firstborn daughter of Titania and Oberon, and you're standing on her ship. You swim in her ocean. This is my home and I'm coming out, and none of you are going to be foolish enough to hurt me.”

“Elsie,” hisses Toby, “I think Pete will kill me if something happens to you.”

“Oh, now you believe me?” I huff.

Her expression is concerned and apologetic, so I spare her a reassuring grin before disappearing into otter-shape.

I slip through the holes in the gate and shift myself back, standing in front of the army. They all have spears and tridents and swords, but my eyes are drawn to the Selkie girl, Gillian, trapped in the grip of a Cephali. She struggles against their tentacles, terror and rage in her expression. The Duchy promised the Selkies safety, today more than ever, and I can’t let her down.

I don’t draw my weapon. I can’t show any fear. The key here is confidence, and drawing my sword would make it seem like I'm doubting my protection. It's more intimidating when someone seems harmless, yet doesn't care at all about all the pointy things you're brandishing. I've grown up around two Firstborn; I know all about unsettling people.

I glare at them, straight-backed, my head held high. “How dare you abuse my mother's hospitality?” I demand. “You've broken every rule we have and ones we didn't even think to make, and now you threaten a Selkie child to hurt her mother? On the eve of the return of the Roane?”

“You don't look much like a Merrow,” says Torin, looking me up and down. “I’ve heard tell of Amphitrite’s daughter, a girl with promise and potential.”

I frown. From who? I’m meant to be a secret, outside of the Duchy, but gossip can spread.

“But you’re a changeling,” he says, eyeing my ears with derision. “You're heir to nothing.”

“Mom says I am. Want to argue it with her? I hope you do, I think we'd all enjoy watching you get punched.”

He shakes his head. “You could never hold a Duchy. Amphitrite would never saddle her land with an unworthy successor, and she doesn't interfere in our affairs.”

I glare him down, utterly calm. I'm not a little kid anymore, and I know Mom will back me up on this as surely as the tide will ebb and flow. “You broke her rules first.”

He scowls. “She will understand why we have to disrupt the Convocation. We're doing this to aid her- the sea witch is working against her.”

“Uh, no she isn’t?” I say, forgetting my anger for a moment in my confusion. “Antigone is her favorite sister.”

“She plans to restore the Roane. They died for a reason. The Roane spread lies across the water and attracted the eyes of the land. They sailed into our waters, they attacked our fiefdoms, and for what? For a glimpse of a future that could yet be changed? The Roane died to grant peace to the seas.”

I stare at him, wordless.

My dead siblings haunted my childhood. My mother lost more than anyone can bear to lose. They never hurt anyone. They were a family. They were my family.

Annie didn't want me. I was a mistake, because she didn't ever want more children to lose. But when I happened anyway, she did everything she could to protect me and love me, and because of her awful sister, she couldn't raise me.

I see the future too, in the blood. I could bite Torin, and maybe I would see his death reflected there. He would think I'm better off dead, for being able to see his end. He thinks I don't have the right to exist, that it would be better for Faerie if I didn’t.  

“You understand,” he says, direly misinterpreting my silence.

I've never felt so much anger, so much hate, before. I'm burning with it. I wish I had my mother's power, that I might terrify him with magic, that I might grind him to dust, that I might show him terrible things until he screamed.

I bare my teeth, which are too big and otter-sharp in my mouth all of a sudden, and snarl, “My mom loves her sister. She loved her nieces and nephews. How dare you say such a thing? The Roane deserved to live!”

I storm forwards, forgetting all caution in my rage. “I can give you a future to fear,” I say, with quiet malice. “I would break Oberon's Law for you. I would carve you up and leave you for the Almere to feast on. I would leave you as bones rolling in the deep, child of my grandnephew, if that would bring a single one of them back, and it would be right and fair!”

I know how to imitate the language and cadence of a dramatic Firstborn. I walk weaponless to stand face-to-face with Torin, armed with only words, and he flinches from my fury. I’ve never felt so powerful before.

I round on the Cephali holding Gillian. “I'm out of patience. If you don't let her go, I'll tell Mom all about how one of you attacked me earlier. You might believe Amphitrite will overlook the assault of Selkies and a war of conquest, but do you really think she won't defend her own daughter with the might of a thousand storms? Do you want to learn why they call her The Devouring Deep?”

The Cephali flashes blue, his eyes going anxiously to his comrades.

“I’ve never seen an otter shapeshifter before,” points out the orange one next to him. “Have you?”

His eyes widen and he releases Gillian in an instant.

“Gillian, come to me!’ Toby shouts.

She runs for the gates but Torin roars in rage, lunging for the girl. I jump in front of her, grabbing the band off my wrist and flourishing it at the same time. It's the first time I've unsheathed it in a fight, but it erupts without issue, Torin nearly impaled on my sword.

The blade gleams oil-dark in the light, and he’s close enough that he must be able to catch some faint wisp of its magic. Doubt enters his eyes for a moment but he shakes it away, grabbing a sword from one of the other Merrow. “My First respects war, strength, and blood in the water. I have as much right as you to sail on her seas!”

“Elsie!” shouts Toby, and I hear the gates rattle in the distance. “Run!”

She isn’t Undersea- she doesn’t understand. I started this challenge. Torin has dealt me several insults, and I can’t let them go unanswered. I refuse to be a coward.

I attack, screaming a war-cry as I slash at his chest. When I was little, I wanted to fight Eira Rosynwhyr. I know I can't— I’d die and Annie might die avenging me. But I can fight this man who repeats her cruel words, who dares to presume Mom would believe them too, so he can have all my hate.

He blocks my blade with his own, pushing it aside easily and making his own attack. I recover in time to parry, but I can’t help but notice the difference in our blocks: his are like Mom’s, an overwhelming force that knocks my weapon aside immediately, whereas mine last for seconds, my sword shaking with the effort as he presses against me, testing my strength.

He’s much stronger than me, I know that already, but he can’t win. I’m fighting for the honor of the Duchy, the honor of the Roane, for the sanctity of my mother’s Convocation. I let out another war-cry, making it seem like I’m just going to do another head-on, but switch into going for his side.

He still blocks, but only barely, and he doesn’t have time to push my sword away, letting me weave to the side and attack again. This time, my blade catches his side, slashing a shallow cut above his waist.

He bellows in pain and anger, and the smell of blood, sharp and bright, distracts me. It glistens on my sword, promising answers.

I notice the sword about to stab through my stomach just in time, weaving to the side and parrying, his blade glancing off mine.

He advances again and this time I jump backwards as I parry, no longer trusting my strength. I don’t have time to recollect myself before he attacks again and I bring my sword up just in time, but the kick to my ankle takes me by surprise.

I stumble and stab at his thigh. As he blocks me, he hooks his foot around my ankle and pulls, and I lose my balance entirely. My sword scratches at his legs as I fall, but it clatters out of my grasp when I hit the deck.

Before I can even catch my breath, a great weight crashes on top of me, pinning me down. Torin’s knees press against my sides, his hands on my shoulders, and I can hardly move at all.

I gasp, fighting to breathe under his crushing weight. It isn’t fair. A real daughter of Amphitrite wouldn’t be beaten by a great-grandson. A worthy heir wouldn’t be pinned and helpless, at the mercy of a bully. How can I ever be Captain?  

I struggle, biting at any part of him I can reach. My teeth-turned-fangs catch his chin and I bite deep.

He yells, but my satisfaction is short-lived as the blood hits my tongue. I’m big and strong, anger burning in my blood as I smash my enemy against the floor with all my strength. She is weak, limp like a doll in my hands, undeserving of the honor she claims, and the mother of us all will understand, like my own mother before her. There has never been a place for weakness in the Undersea.

Pain shoots through me, something bursting through my stomach, setting all my nerves alight with agony, and I scream—

I'm lying on the ground again, crushed against the wood, and the lack of air in my lungs strangles my scream. Finally, too late, I am afraid.

“Stupid changeling,” he hisses, his blood still dripping onto my face. Even now, it sings to me. “It’s time someone taught you your place.”

He grabs my hair and slams my head against the deck. Blinding pain overwhelms me. I can't breathe, can't think, I’m not even sure if I make a sound beyond a whimper.

I would have begged surrender then if I could, but he doesn’t give me the chance. He slams me down again, even harder this time, and there’s an awful sound like the crunch of bone as an even greater pain explodes in my head and—

—I open my eyes. Time seems to have passed without me. Torin is still on top of me, but he’s dead weight. The smell of his blood is strong, too strong. 

I hear Mom’s voice. It’s full of fury, a storm ripping through the sea. “What the fuck is going on?”

Chapter Text

“I’ve never seen an otter shapeshifter before. Have you?”

The Cephali keeping my daughter captive stiffens with fear and lets her go. There isn’t time for relief, she isn’t out of danger yet.

“Gillian!” I shout, rattling at the gate. “Come to me!”

My girl runs faster than I’ve ever seen a Selkie manage without tripping. Torin lunges after her, but Elsie jumps in his path. It’s brave of her, and stupid, and I desperately hope that Torin isn’t foolish enough to hurt her.

I still haven’t gotten the gates open by the time Gillian reaches them. She stares at me, eyes wide with fear. “Mom?”

“Gilly,” I say, wishing I could hold her. “It’s okay now. You’re safe.”

Tybalt stands in front of her, claws unsheathed, growling low as he stares down Torin’s men. Gillian looks away from me, turning to watch the duel. “Isn’t someone going to help her? She’s like my age.”

She has a point. “Someone get this damn gate open!” I shout, shaking the gate again. “Elsie! Run!”

Like all the foolhardy teenagers I know, she ignores me.

“Cassandra?” Marcia asks. “Is it safe to?”

“I think so,” she says uncertainly, her eyes fixed on empty air.

Marcia pushes past me, taking my place as she fumbles with the lock.

“Tybalt,” I prod. He's already on the other side, he could intervene.

“The Undersea is like my Court in some respects, as I understand it,” he says. “I would not interfere in a duel of Raj’s.”

The Merrow are born fighters, like the Cait Sidhe. Children of Firstborn are often more powerful, and Elsie’s presumably been trained by Pete herself. Even with his age and experience, she should have a shot at holding her own. Intervening in their duel could damage her standing within the Duchy.

Elsie gets a slash in on him, but she seems dazed in the moment after. I hope she knows what she’s doing.

The gates finally fall open and I rush through them, tugging Gillian into the tentative safety of our stronghold. For one short moment, she turns it into an embrace, burying her face against my shoulder and closing her arms around my chest. It’s everything I’ve ever wanted in this world, and it’s all I can do not to cry when she pulls away just as quickly. “Who are these people? What’s going on?”

What is going on? How much of everything that’s gone wrong is Torin responsible for?

I turn my focus back to the duel just as Torin sends Elsie plummeting to the floor. I wince and hope he’ll have the sense to accept her surrender.

Cassandra gasps. “Aunt Birdie! You have to stop him!”

Apparently, he’s direly lacking in common sense. Not about to be the one to ignore a Seer named Cassandra, I rush through the gates with Tybalt, armed with my knife, just as Elsie bites him. They’re both lacking in sense. He yells in pain, but she does too, an odd echo of his own cry, though I can’t see what he’s doing to her.

“Stupid changeling,” he hisses, his voice dripping with childish jealousy. “It’s time someone taught you your place.”

We’re not fast enough to stop him dashing Elsie’s head against the deck once, twice—

As he pulls her head up again, he makes a thick gurgling sound, and Elsie’s head drops against the deck one final time, worryingly lifeless.

He slumps forward, revealing the sword protruding from his back. It’s long and sharp and far less dangerous than the scowling woman standing on the deck behind him.

“What the fuck is going on?” asks Captain Pete—asks Amphitrite.

I skid to a stop. This isn’t the pirate queen, no, not at all; this is no figure from a storybook or play. This is one of the Firstborn, standing revealed with no illusions, no constraints. Her dress is a sheet of dark and living water, wrapped around her like a lover and slithering as sinuously as an eel, giving us glimpses of scaled, shark-belly skin, enough to tempt, enough to terrify. Her hair is braided with black pearls and small white beads that I suspect are bone, and her throat is exposed, revealing gills. 

There’s a soft thudding sound as several of Torin’s former guards lose consciousness and tumble to the floor. She isn’t making any effort whatsoever to dull down the sheer volume of her presence.

The Luidaeg stands behind her, a pale wraith next to her bright, brilliant sister, seething with a quieter but no less dangerous fury.

Tybalt and I freeze in place. We had been going to intervene, but given how far things went, it might seem like we were all just twiddling our thumbs watching a girl who is most probably her teenage daughter get pulverized by an angry Merrow. And we did let the duel continue longer than we should have, clearly.

Elsie’s still lying on the ground, dazed and unmoving, Torin’s body draped over her. Amphitrite seizes the collar of his shirt and hauls him to the side. His body hits the deck with an unpleasant squelch, more blood leaking out and dampening the wood.

She’s breathing, her chest rising and falling sharply, and Amphitrite swoops down to kneel at her side.

“You shouldn’t be here.” Her voice is quiet but razor sharp. “You shouldn’t be covered in blood. Annie—”

The Luidaeg moves, silent and swift. She’s at Amphitrite’s shoulder by the time Elsie waves a hand.

“S’not mine. You stabbed him.”

“He was going to kill you,” the Luidaeg says, cold anger washing off her.

“Wasn’t.” Elsie sits up with a groan. “I wouldn’t have let him. I’m fine.”

“Because your duel with my descendant was going so well. How did this happen?” Amphitrite sweeps the rest of us with her glare, and every person in the courtyard flinches. “Any of you want to explain how my daughter ended up sword to sword with her great-grand nephew?”

I move to stand in front of her, ignoring the instinct that screams at me that I should be getting away from the angry Firstborns, not closer. Tybalt follows me and so does Quentin, though I hadn’t even noticed him coming through the gates. “So, I appreciate you convincing your sister to come back, Luidaeg. Great timing.”

“Talk,” snaps the Luidaeg.

I take a deep breath, focusing on Amphitrite. “Elsie ran to get help when Torin attacked me and Tybalt. By the time we got back to the courtyard, Torin had brought his army here, and he had my daughter as a hostage. We had the gate locked down, but Elsie went back out. She made Torin’s men let my daughter go by channeling your terrifying Firstborn energy. Were your lullabies all screeds of death to your enemies or something?”

“Something like that,” Amphitrite says darkly.

“Except it didn’t work on Torin. He thought you’d approve of what he was doing.”

Amphitrite bares her teeth at Torin’s body. “Approve of careless bloodshed in my waters? Approve of attacking children?” Her scales gleam even brighter as she turns the full force of her glare on Torin’s retinue. “And the rest of you? Did you think I’d approve?”

There’s a lot of scraping and bowing among the guards who haven’t already fainted or fallen to their knees. The Cephali who was holding Gillian turns the same color as the deck.

“Where’s your courage now?” Amphitrite surges to her feet, like a tsunami rising up over the shore. “Or are you only brave when your opponents are smaller and weaker than you?”

“I’m not a child, and I’m not weak,” Elsie says indignantly. She clambers to her feet, and the Luidaeg catches her arm when she stumbles.

“I let the Selkie girl go,” the Cephali begs. “When she claimed your blessing, we did as she asked. Only Torin was fool enough to defy her. Please, Lady, spare us your vengeance. We would not cross one of the First.”

“But you did.” For as battered as she looks, Elsie’s voice still carries throughout the courtyard, clear and sharp. “You intended to disrupt the Convocation of Consequences. Torin said it.” She looks between Amphitrite and the Luidaeg. “He wanted to stop the Roane from coming back.”

The Luidaeg’s eyes burn black, the stench of bog water swelling around her. Amphitrite places a hand on her sister’s arm, but her own eyes are dark enough to drown in.

“He said the Roane died for the good of Faerie,” I add. I don’t want to upset the Luidaeg, but his motives might be important.

Now it’s the Luidaeg’s turn to glare at Torin’s body like she wants to tear it apart with her teeth.

“He didn’t get that idea on his own,” Amphitrite says darkly. “The Roane deserving their death is one of the older and crueler rumors in Faerie, and it always flows from the same source.”

She rounds on the Cephali. “Well? Did your master admit to working for another? Or did he claim this was his own idea, to bring death and destruction and call it justice?”

He shrinks back further, tentacles undulating anxiously. “If he served another, he never told me so.”

I crouch down beside Torin’s body. Pete apparently has a problem with blood magic and she’s pretty mad at everyone right now, so I'd better get permission. “Captain, may I ride his blood?”

She raises an eyebrow. “Knock yourself out.”

I take out my knife and cut into his arm, bringing the blade to my lips.

Gillian gasps. “Toby, what are you doing?”

“We need answers. I might be able to get them from his blood.”  

“No. This isn’t okay.” She takes a shaky breath and steps back. “None of this is okay! You’re some kind of fairy vampire, and these people grabbed me, again, and they hurt me, all so they could make you do what they wanted you to do. Am I always going to be a target because people want to make you suffer? I can't do this, Mo– Toby, I can't.”

I stare at her. “Gillian…”

“I’m done. I’m part of Faerie now, and I know that means I can’t walk away entirely, but I’m still done. I can’t take this. I am… I’m so sorry I was mad at you for all those years, for leaving. You didn’t have a choice. Now I'm mad at you because you won’t stay away. So please, stay away. Whatever the hell it is you're a part of, leave me out of it. I don't want it.”

She turns and stalks away, deeper into the Duchy of Ships. I gape at her, barely able to comprehend what’s just happened. Then I turn to the crowd in the courtyard, fixing my attention on the first person I see who isn’t in the middle of doing something terribly important. “Quentin, go after her.”

“You’re about to ride the blood of the dead again,” he says, skeptical.

“Promise not to drown this time,” I say with forced brightness.

“He didn’t drown!”

“Promise not to get magically impaled?”

He rolls his eyes but nods, trotting after Gillian.  

I ignore everyone’s stares, instead dipping my head to the stagnant blood and let the memories take me.

I gasp, pulled back into the present. Creaking wood beneath my knees, the rhythmic movements of the sea, a hand on my shoulder, anchoring me. Tybalt’s hand. I draw in a breath and struggle to my feet.

“It was Evening. She came to him in his dreams.” I look to René. “He killed Isla Chase.”

René’s face crumples, his hands bunching into fists. “If the man was not already dead, I’d kill him myself.”

The Luidaeg’s grip on Elsie’s arm must have tightened, because she yelps and pulls away. The Luidaeg blinks and her eyes soften at last, tendrils of green slipping through the darkness as she looks from Elsie to René. “No Selkies were meant to die here.”

“Now you see why I challenged him?” Elsie lifts her chin.

“No,” Amphitrite says. “He deserved to be challenged, but there was no reason for it to be you. In fact, I distinctly remember putting you on a ship before the Convocation started.”

Even Elsie can only hold the weight of Amphitrite’s gaze for so long. She looks at her feet, muttering, “I just wanted to see the Convocation. I wasn’t going to interfere, but then someone died, and none of you were around.”

“To be fair, Torin was trying to drag her into this himself,” I volunteer. She saved my daughter, the least I can do is try to get her out of trouble. “He was trying to start a feud between you two. He planted Isla’s skin in Elsie’s room, thinking it’d make you fight over her death." 

The Luidaeg's gaze sharpens. "Did someone tell him to do that?" 

"He wasn't planning to kill Isla." I bite my lip, deciding not to volunteer the exact nature of their relationship in front of René. The dead can keep some secrets. "But she told him Amphitrite had a daughter, and that turning the Luidaeg against her niece could endanger the Convocation. I guessed it might be something like that, but the whole secret daughter thing was suspicious.”

Amphitrite and the Luidaeg exchange an unreadable look.

“Everyone on the Duchy knows who Elsie is,” Amphitrite says. “That doesn’t mean I want the whole Undersea bothering her before she’s ready. You of all people should know that being the child of a Firstborn attracts attention.”  

I nod. “I get why you didn’t introduce us, but living through murder mysteries makes you paranoid. She turned up out of the blue when I was on my way to talk to the Selkies, claiming she found the body before we did.”

“And bit it,” Tybalt adds.

I had been going to leave that part out, for Elsie’s sake. “A stranger showing up and inserting herself into the investigation is going to raise red flags.”

Elsie is looking paler by the moment, and Amphitrite’s glare doesn’t help. “You bit a corpse?”

“I know you don’t approve of riding the blood,” Elsie says, her tone strangely pointed. “But I wanted to see if I could learn anything.”

The Luidaeg’s eyebrows have nearly climbed into her hairline. “And how did that go?”

“Not great,” she admits. “I didn’t get anything.”

“Toby’s magic nearly drowned her when she tried to ride Isla’s blood,” Tybalt says. “It was strange that Elsie’s did not.”

“I told you, I’m not a very good bloodworker.” Elsie glances between Tybalt and the Firstborns, clearly anxious.

I give Tybalt a sharp look. If Amphitrite really doesn’t like her daughter using blood magic–and after all the neglect in my own magical training, the thought makes me uncomfortable–no wonder Elsie’s worried. We don’t need to get her in more trouble.

“But it’s not like we completely suspected her of murder,” I add hastily. “Enough of what she was saying sounded like the truth that we let her come along with us to talk to Elizabeth Ryan.”

Something in the Luidaeg’s face tightens. “Did you,” she says flatly.

“I didn’t like her very much,” Elsie mumbles.

The Luidaeg’s eyes roil from white to black to white again, and only fade to green when Amphitrite pins her with a sharp, knowing look. I’ve never seen the Luidaeg express such strong dislike for Elizabeth Ryan before, but nearly everything else we’ve told her has been upsetting. Her emotions must be seething at the surface.

“So,” I say, unsure if they’ve calmed down enough that it’s a good time to ask about releasing Dianda, but going for it anyway, “to recap: we solved a murder, you’ve killed the murderer, can we–”

I stop, frozen by the sudden scent of fresh blood. It’s falling from Elsie’s nose with alarming speed. It’s distinct from the dried Merrow blood on her, smelling so strongly of brisk sea air and sun-warmed sand.

She staunches it with her hand, looking strangely alarmed for a nosebleed. “I’m not meant to bleed.” But then she sways, unstable, and a trickle of blood leaks from under her eyes, staining a dark track down her cheek.

Amphitrite catches her arms. “Annie, what’s wrong with her?”

The scent of the Luidaeg’s magic mixes with Elsie’s into an oddly complementary blend, as Amphitrite holds Elsie upright, and the Luidaeg cups her face.

“We should have known she wasn’t fine,” the Luidaeg snarls, but there’s a bright note of fear in her voice. “Her skull is cracked.”

“Tell me you can heal her.” For the first time today, Amphitrite sounds afraid, too. She might be as close to a goddess as we get, but she’s still a mother whose daughter is slumped in her arms, rubbing blood from her eyes.

I know too well what that’s like. If Elsie hadn’t intervened, I might have been there again, desperately trying to find another miracle to save my girl. Elsie was brave and reckless, and all I can do is hope the cost of her heroism can be paid.

“I can heal her,” the Luidaeg says, but she sounds brittle, like if someone pushes her much more she’ll shatter. Even for sisters, even for nieces, she has to demand a price for her magic. I expect her to name it, so Amphitrite knows the cost, but she only murmurs something in a language I don’t catch, and her power crests, a wave coming home to shore.

Her magic bursts around us, all swamp and sea, and as it fades, Elsie slumps in Amphitrite’s arms. The blood turns to water, trickling down her face. “Mom?” she mumbles, her voice small, sounding so young.

Amphitrite brushes Elsie’s hair away from her forehead, and suddenly she’s Captain Pete again—still powerful, but on the same dimension as the rest of us. It’s comforting, and oddly unnerving at the same time. The way the Firstborn can diminish themselves on command will never fail to unsettle me.

“I’ve got you,” Pete says gently.

Elsie blinks slowly up at her before her eyes drift shut and her head rolls to the side.

The Luidaeg runs a finger along the crown of Elsie’s head, her expression strangely raw. It almost looks like there are tears in her eyes, but then she blinks, and her face betrays nothing.

“She needs to rest now,” the Luidaeg says gruffly. She waves a hand, and all the blood—Merrow and Dòbhran—staining Elsie’s clothes turns into steam and scatters in the breeze. “And she needs to not charge into a fight at the first opportunity, but apparently that’s a losing battle.” She looks up at Pete. “She takes too much after you.”

I can’t tell if she means that as a fond tease or a genuine accusation. From the way she says it, it could be either.

Pete still looks shaken. Everyone is silent and still, no one wanting to draw attention to themselves. Before I can think better of it, I blurt out, “Hey, I never get the dry cleaning service.”

The Luidaeg turns to stare at me. For a moment, I think I’ve badly miscalculated, that she might be about to make good on her earliest promise to me and tear me limb from limb. Then she snorts. “Like you wouldn’t just get it soaked again.”

“You know, you never told me you had another changeling niece,” I say, encouraged by her return to normalcy and too curious to help myself.

“I never told you I had a sister ruling an Undersea Duchy. Some Firstborn like their privacy.”

“Like I was going to make social calls in the Undersea?” I scoff. “Well, I'm glad you were hiding a sister you actually get along with for a change. But why didn’t she have to bargain with you?”

Pete waves a hand. “Annie still owed me a favor for agreeing to host her Convocation here.”

“Arcane magical bargains beat venue hire, huh.”

Peter breaks away from his dad and runs through the gate, having apparently taken my casual disrespect as inspiration. He stops in front of the Captain and bows. “Lady?”

Pete scoops Elsie into her arms before facing him. Her eyes flick from his face to his scales and briefly over to Dean, and she smiles wide.

“You must be the other Lorden. Pleasure to meet you, kid, although I wish it was under better circumstances.”

Strangely, Peter seems immune to the Pete Effect that had made his brother faint and his mother punch her own First. I guess Pete might have taken precautions when she dimmed herself just now, because I would have bet on him being a puncher.

Peter blinks. “I never thought I would meet you, Lady,” he says, as his dad hurries up behind him. “But does this mean I can have my mom back?”

“Oh, they’ll give her up easily when I come to their ship. The man who took her is a coward and a traitor, and if he had lived, I would have denied him the name Merrow for the rest of his life. He’s no descendant of mine, and none will back his empty crown.” She glares at Torin’s retinue. “Will they?”

There are hurried murmurs of “No, Lady, never,” and she grins, satisfied.

“They’ll take us to your mother, and she’ll be free to swim the seas once more. I’d apologize for killing her brother, but I’m not sad that he no longer hunts in my waters.”

“Neither am I,” Patrick says. “If you hadn’t killed him, my wife would have risked the judgment of the Law to spill his blood in the tide, and I wouldn’t tell her to stop.”

Pete smiles broadly. “She married well. If I’ve never told either of you that before, consider my blessing given now.”

Patrick blinks, lost for words.

“So we’re going to get her?” Peter prods.

“I can’t blame any blood but my own for your impatience.” Pete looks down at her daughter, cradled in her arms. “But this one needs a place to sleep first. And then we’ll reunite a family.”

Her gaze slips to the Luidaeg. “More than one family. Your business is best finished soon, Annie. The tide’s about to turn.”

The Luidaeg nods. I swallow, hard. What I’m going to do next…        

Well. No one ever says that heroism is easy. If it was, everyone would do it.

Chapter Text

My dreams are confusing and fractured, full of urgency, my brain running fast even as my body stays still and quiet. The wood below me creaks gently, welcomingly, everything familiar.

I blink awake. I’m in my room. I’m in my room, and everything is quiet, so I must be safe.

I close my eyes, still sleep-dazed. I’d been out in the courtyard, with Toby and the others. I’d been talking, and then something had happened. All I can remember is my mom holding me, and how my face felt wet. I’d gotten water on it. Or blood.

The ship creaks. The sea ebbs and flows in the distance. Someone breathes. Someone’s here, in my room.

“Elsie.” Mom stands up from the shadowed chair in the corner. “Are you awake?”

I force my eyes open again. “Mom?”

“I’m here.” She sits on the edge of the bed, the same way she did when I was a kid demanding bedtime stories. She looks tired. “How are you feeling?”

I consider my answer. Nothing really hurts, except the dryness of my throat. “Like I slept for a week. What happened?” I flinch, pushing myself to sit. “I haven’t slept that long, have I? I haven’t missed the Convocation?”

“Not a week. More like half the night.” She reaches out to steady me as I sit up, propping up one of the pillows behind me. “Annie had to do quite the healing spell on you, and your body needed time to recover from all that magic flooding your system.” She hands me a glass of water. “Here. Sleep was important, but hydration is too.”

I can feel the coolness of the water even through the glass. I drink half of it in one go, and it helps focus my sluggish thoughts, soothes my throat.

“Healing from what?” I frown. “My head hurt before, but I didn’t think it was that bad.”

Worry creases her eyes. “Elsie, your skull was cracked. You were lucky Annie was right there when you started bleeding.” She folds one of my hands in hers. “You were lucky we were there at all.”

She sounds more afraid than angry, which is all wrong. Mom almost never sounds afraid.

“Oh,” I say numbly. I hadn’t known how long it would be before they got back, when I’d jumped into my duel with Torin. If it had taken much longer, they’d have been too late… My hand tightens around my mother’s as something clicks into place. “Maybe that’s what Cassandra saw.”

“Cassandra?” Mom frowns. “The seneschal of the Mists? No one else looked closely at your injuries, she couldn’t have seen how badly you were hurt.” She falls silent for a long moment, her eyes darkening. “Unless you meant another kind of Seeing.”

“She’s a changeling Seer too,” I enthuse. “Don’t worry, I didn’t say anything. She told Toby she had to stop Torin from doing something terrible or things would stay broken forever, the Roane would never come back. I thought it was about him hurting Gillian, that I was stopping it, but…” I trail off. I don’t know if Annie would ever be able to finish the Convocation, if she lost me.

Mom closes her eyes. She doesn’t look any older than normal, but she carries her centuries of life more obviously on her shoulders.

“So even fate could tell we nearly lost you.” She opens her eyes and brushes a thumb across my forehead. “Elspeth, I wish you wouldn’t make it so hard to keep you breathing.”

“I’m sorry,” I mumble guiltily, not looking at her. “I didn’t think any of this would happen. The Duchy’s always been safe.”

“I’m sorry, too. I promised to keep you from harm, and I promised to prevent bloodshed in these waters, and I failed to keep those promises today.” Mom tucks my hair behind my ear, an old, soothing gesture. “You don’t have a death wish. But you fail to remember your own mortality, when you leap into danger. You’re not me. You’re not Annie. It doesn’t take silver and iron to kill you.”

“I wasn’t thinking.” I look up. Her eyes glitter in the twilight, all the shades of the shimmering sea. “I hated him so much and I needed to stop him. He was hurting Toby’s kid and you weren’t there to make him stop. I bet I could have, if my magic came from you.” I swallow, ashamed of that, but Mom is the only one I can admit it to. “I– I love my magic, I love Annie, you know I do, it’s just if I had the strength you give your descendants, I could have made him stop. Like a proper heir.”

Mom inhales, long and slow, and the bright smell of mist and ozone and salty waves swells around her. She cups my face in her hands. “You are nineteen years old. The man you faced wielded his sword for decades before you were born. If you were born of my own flesh, that wouldn’t make you any more experienced.” Her expression is gentle but impossible to look away from. “Two of my children died before their majority. My blood isn’t a shield from the dangers of the sea, and not having it doesn’t make you any less my heir.”

I hadn’t known any of her children had died so early. She doesn’t talk about her other children sadly, not like Annie. But I suppose it is very different to have all of your children die so suddenly and so violently, than to lose only a couple, and it must have been a very long time ago.

Maybe she’s right. Torin proved that I’m weak right now, but that doesn’t mean I’ll always be. If I work hard at it, maybe I’ll be strong enough to properly be Captain one day.

Her words are reassuring in another way too. I’ve been practically surrounded by Merrow today, all of them saying I don’t look like them, but it's Mom’s opinion that counts, and she’ll always say I’m hers. She killed her blood descendant for me without even thinking.

“Being Merrow wouldn’t have saved you.” Mom lets go of me but doesn’t look away, her sea-blue stare unyielding. “But trying to be Merrow put you in greater danger. Elsie, you spent years learning how to fight like you. And from what the witnesses say, you threw all of that training aside when Torin was in front of you. Playing against your strengths doesn’t make you any braver.”

I bite my lip, unable to look away. “I was angry,” I mumble. “I wanted my strength to be enough to hurt him. But Mom, I did draw first blood. And that's when it all went wrong.”

I hadn’t been sure I would broach this subject. They can both be weird about my Seer powers, and there's every chance that they’ll decide this means I should never fight again, but it’s hard not to trust her when she’s being all wise and reasonable.

“His blood on my sword distracted me, my magic wanted me to… You know.” I flush, embarrassed to admit that I'd wanted to lick blood at a completely inappropriate time again. “That threw me off, we never practiced for that. Then, when he pinned me, I bit him. And, well.” I shiver, remembering the flash of agony, a sword driving through my– his– insides. “He didn’t have a lot of future left…”

Mom sucks in a breath, air hissing through her teeth. “And you Saw what remained.”

It isn’t a question.

Her hand touches her waist, even though no sword is sheathed there now. “I should have been there sooner. Before it ever got to that point.”

“It’s not your fault, you didn't even know I was there.” I bite my lip, hesitating. “But I don't think it's fair to tell me not to use the power and not let me practice. If Annie had told you not to ever use stormsinging, would you have been able to stop?”

Mom goes still as ice; a frozen block adrift at sea.

“It wasn’t Annie who wanted me to hide my magic and my nature.” Her eyes unfocus, like she’s lost in another time. “I once spent years painting over my scales with illusions, walking through Brocéliande as the least of my siblings, my water magic relegated to parlor tricks in their company because that, at least, amused them.”

Mom is the most confident person I know. It's so hard to imagine her ever hiding herself like that, bullied by her own family, who should have loved her, and I hate them for it.

“My mother would have preferred a daughter who never touched the sea,” Mom continues, eyes bright with tears. “And those years I draped myself in masks to please her might be my biggest regret.”

“I’ve spent my life since trying to be everything Titania isn’t. But perhaps I didn’t swim far enough from her shores.” She takes both of my hands, squeezing them gently. “You’re right, little otter. Faerie made you a Seer, and we should never have asked you to bury your magic so deeply, even if it was for kinder reasons. Annie isn’t Dòbhran, but she deals in futures and blood in her own ways. When this Convocation is over, we’ll speak to her about how she might train you.”

“You're nothing like Titania,” I say firmly. “As your daughter, I should know.” Titania was petty and cruel, and Mom deserved so much better from her family.

I squeeze her hands back, wishing there was something I could do about the pain in her eyes. But I understand enough to know it's like Annie's pain, something no one can fix without turning back time itself.

“But thanks,” I say quietly, relieved that I won't be the one to convince Annie. I do think she'll be persuaded by the argument eventually, but she can be intense when it comes to my safety.

Mom breathes out, the tension in her shoulders thawing. “I know this isn’t the first time we’ve overstepped in trying to protect you. I can’t promise it’ll be the last. But thank you, for holding me to account. Your blood magic is your birthright. You deserve to understand it.”

I smile, relieved that she's so convinced of my point. The protectiveness of two Firstborn can be overwhelming, and ever since my city escapade, their rules on staying inside the Duchy have been as much a physical law as gravity. But I can still be right, and Mom won’t just listen to me, she can admit when she’s wrong.

“But,” Mom adds, raising an eyebrow, “I have to say, when we asked you not to use it, I didn’t expect you to run around telling people that I don’t approve of any blood magic.”

I redden, ducking my head. “Toby almost drowned from riding Isla’s blood and I didn’t even know that could happen, which is really weird when you’re claiming to be a bloodworker. It was the first excuse I could think of!”

Mom rubs her forehead, like she’s trying to get rid of a headache. “A bold choice, considering Toby came here to do blood magic. Thank Dad she hasn’t thought about that too hard.”

“Oh, yeah,” I wince. “I don't think I said anything else that doesn't add up, mostly it was the truth.” Apart from slightly overstating my authority, but Mom doesn’t need to know that. “Except Toby thought it was weird when I said I'm Annie's favorite niece, I forgot we're cousins. And I guess Annie can't call me her niece in front of Toby, can she? Will that be a problem?”

“Annie’s had centuries of practice talking around truths she doesn’t want to speak. I’m not worried about that.” Mom blows out a breath. “But the blood magic lie, now, that’s suspicious. And Toby and her merry band all got a good look at you and what you can do, little otter. I’d best fog their memories before they set sail.”

“As long as you don’t delete me entirely,” I nod. “If they ever come back, I'm not starting from scratch. It took dueling a Merrow to convince them you’re my mom!”

I know they're not coming back. Even if they did come for dinner for some reason, Annie would be too worried about me somehow bleeding over dessert to let me spend more time with Toby. But it's nice to pretend.

“That would create too many holes,” Mom agrees. “Someone clearly dueled a Merrow, after all. But the details of what you said, what you looked like, what your powers are…those are malleable. We’ll take care of it.”

“Make it so I turn into a shark,” I grin. When I was little I took the Mother of Sharks thing too literally and thought that would be my power for sure.

“Your feedback is noted,” Mom says dryly, but she smiles back with a mouth full of shark teeth.

I give her a hopeful look, unsure if I’m about to push my luck too far. Nearly dying seems to have spared me from the lecture to end all lectures, but I don’t know how long that will last. “But I can still watch the Convocation, right?”

“I’m sure we can find you a vantage point far away from Toby, to watch her cast her spell. Since she already knows you, there’s no point in sending you away again.” Mom’s smile vanishes, her expression somber again. “But I haven’t forgotten that I did put you on a ship, and you agreed to set sail. Did you always intend to go back on your word?”

I resist the urge to look down, meeting her eyes. “No. It was… Having that talk with Rhona put me in a mood. I couldn’t stop thinking about Selkies and skins and how it wasn’t right that I wasn’t there to see it all happen. If it wasn’t part of a bargain, I think I would have tried to convince you of that instead, but I knew you couldn’t change your mind even if you wanted to.”

Mom rests a hand on my shoulder. “I don’t regret sending you away. I didn’t know how dangerous the Convocation would be, but you could have avoided both the danger and the risk of revealing your identity by staying away.” She squeezes my shoulder. “But you are bound by blood to the skins of the Roane and by magic to the Selkies, and maybe it is right that you’ll witness the return of your sibling descendant race.”

“I hope Annie will see it that way too,” I say quietly. “Is she mad at me?”

“She’s upset,” Mom says. “She came here to bury her Roane children, and her only living child ended up bleeding all over her. She wasn’t happy, but she was more scared than angry. So was I.” Mom smiles gently. “But you should talk to her yourself. She wants to see you, once you’re up to it.”

It’s uncomfortable, being reminded that I really had almost died, that there was a broken future with my mothers left alone and hurting. Annie shouldn’t have sent me away, but she hadn’t deserved that. “Okay.” I breathe, taking stock of my body. I feel tired and strange, but not sick, and no sorer than the worst of swords training had left me. “I think I just need… dinner? I have no idea what time it is.”

“Dinner,” Mom agrees. “It’s not long after midnight, but you skipped lunch. You’re due an early dinner. And another glass of water.” She stands, taking my nearly empty cup. “I’ll have food set out in the kitchen, and once you eat, you can learn what’s happened while you slept.”

“Something else happened?” I ask, slowly getting to my feet. “Nothing bad?”

“Quite the opposite.” Her smile is the brightest it’s been since I woke up. “But it’s Annie’s place to show you, not mine.”

I follow her out of my room, suddenly impatiently curious. It’s hard to imagine what surprise turn of events could put such a smile on her face.

After filling myself up on a meal of battered fish, I find Annie sitting on the shiny floor of the lighthouse. She’s clutching a Selkie skin in her hands, her eyes tightly closed.

She looks up at the sound of my footsteps, but her building scowl vanishes when she sees me. "Elspeth."

I sit down next to her. "Mom said you'd be here. She said you had something good to show me."

She looks at me-- no, into me, her eyes bearing into my skull.

"I'm fine,” I say.

“Where have I heard that before,” she says, skeptical. Then she sighs, lifting her hand to present the mottled dark grey skin draped over it. "This was Aulay’s. He was my son. My gentle boy. He was loving and clever and sweet, and so much like his father.”

I listen, hungry for details about the original Roane.

"He loved easily. He wandered from my shores from time to time, falling in love with human maidens. He brought back a child once, Paden, a beautiful boy, and set him in my arms. His mother could not care for him, so he suckled from my own breast, and his father loved him so very much. Paden was safe with me when his father died and though he’s gone now, his grandchild bakes your bread.”

I breathe in sharply. If Paden hadn’t been safe with Annie, Aldridge would never have existed. I try to picture my brother, imagining him to look a lot like an older version of Aldridge.

“He would have been fond of you. He would have encouraged your mischief, though. He understood the call of wanderlust."

I look down. "But he won't because he's dead,” I say dully, “because the world isn't safe for us."

To my surprise, Annie slips her other arm around me. "Not actually where I was going with that. I'm not trying to scare you this time. This is only part of his skin, one piece of five."

"What do you mean?”

"Toby convinced me the Selkies deserved more than what was bargained for. That it wasn't fair to end them so suddenly, with so many left on the shore. She figured out we might be able to divide the skins, and she convinced me to try. She saw where to cut and Pete and I divided them together. One skin became five. Five new Roane to swim in the seas.”

“And you can do that with all of them?” I whisper.

“We already have. Some could be cut in fewer places, some more. We're going to distribute them soon. The clan leaders are telling the tale one final time, counting everyone who still wants one, and who wants to stay as a Selkie for seven years. I already know we'll have more than enough.”

“Whoa,” I breathe. Everyone who wants to can become a Roane now. The people most scared about the change can even have more time to get used to the idea. "Toby's pretty great."

But this means Rhona can have a skin. What will that mean for us, if she takes one?

Annie’s mouth quirks ever so slightly. "She can be, but take her as a role model and I might have to kill her. What were you thinking, by the way, drinking Isla's blood? You do realize you see the future? Which the dead, quite famously, don't have."

I flush. "I wouldn't have done it if you'd trained me in how to use my blood magic! I never usually get the chance to try it.” Except on myself and Aila, but I’m not going to admit to that part, I’m in enough trouble as it is. Annie doesn’t even know I have a girlfriend. “I bit without thinking, it was instinct. Magic wants to be used."

Annie sighs. I look at her more closely. She looks so tired, and there’s sadness behind her weariness. Toby helped her fix the Selkie problem, and now there’ll be so much more Roane than before. Shouldn’t this be exciting?

"When is it going to happen?”

"Toby's ready," she says.

I frown. "And you're not?"

"I have to bring back my first descendant race," she says, "when my second almost ended today."

I wince. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to."

"People rarely mean to die."

"Yeah." I swallow. "But you and Mom saved me. You always save me."

Annie closes her eyes again. She stays like that, silent and still, for a long moment, long enough that I think I’ve said the wrong thing. Her embrace comes as a surprise, but I settle into it, though her grip is uncomfortably tight, like she thinks I'll slip through her fingers.

"And what if I can't, next time? If I'm too late? I'm not a god, Elspeth." Her voice breaks. "I can't protect you from everything. I can’t protect you from her."

"I know."

"I don’t think you do.” She looks at me gravely, her eyes the color of sea-tossed glass. “She knows about you. She knows you as a daughter of Amphitrite, and she still nearly killed you by accident.”

It is weird to think that the aunt I’ve always feared has heard of me, enough to make me part of her scheme. “Torin didn’t know I would be a changeling, so she can’t know much about me.”

“We’re lucky that Pete killed him,” she says darkly. “If he’d lived long enough to sleep again… His description of you and your powers would have piqued her curiosity. A lot was sacrificed for the protection of that pretense, and you almost broke it forever by staying.”

“I’m sorry,” I say, my voice small. Annie gave me up to her sister for my protection. I couldn’t have known disobeying them would risk ruining all that, but maybe I should have trusted that they know better.

“Do you believe me now, that Seers are still in danger? That Merrow nearly killed you merely for standing up for the Roane. He didn't even know what you really were."

"I believed you already," I protest, pressing my face into the crook of her neck, hiding. "I just thought the Duchy would be safe. I didn't know Merrow would come and Mom would leave."

"Nowhere is ever entirely safe, all of the time." Her voice hardens, a new chill to it. "And when you saw trouble, you threw yourself into it. You chose to put yourself in danger at every turn. Why?”

I uncurl myself enough to meet her eyes, reaching for the steely righteousness I’d felt at the time. "I'm the heir to the Duchy, I couldn't let its order turn to chaos. Mom promised it would be safe here for Selkies and Selkiekin; Torin was hurting people and making a liar out of her. Someone from the Duchy had to stand up to him, not just our guests, or we’d be failing as hosts. Some things are more important than staying safe."

The anger and arguing I’m bracing for doesn’t come. Annie strokes a strand of hair out of my eyes, her touch gentle. "My brave girl," she whispers, and the sadness in her voice runs as deep as the sea. "We're not meant to be heroes. We're lighthouse-keepers and custodians of the sea, oracles of the ocean and ladies of the lake, never heroes. Please, Elspeth. Don’t be a hero. Don’t make me eulogize you."

Her words are softly spoken, but sink sharply into my thoughts. I don’t ever want to be the one that makes her sound so sad. I don’t want to be reduced to a cautionary tale.

“We're?" I ask.

"My own father bade me not to be a hero," she says.

"Did you listen to him?"

"I chose to be my mother's daughter," she says, which isn't quite the same thing as yes. Annie's tricky like that.

"Is that why Toby has so much blood? Cos she's meant to be a hero?"

She chuckles. "Toby has a normal amount of blood. She just makes it almost as quickly as she loses it.”

Annie sobers, looking at me with a pleading look that I’ve never seen on her face before. "I could discipline you. I could shout at you and scare you, for breaking your promises and defying us. But that didn’t work last time, clearly, and punishment is so easy to rebel against. All I care about is this: next time there's danger, promise me you won't run towards it, no matter how angry it makes you, however much it insults what you love.”

"I promise, mother,” I whisper, and I mean it.

She kisses my head. "My sweet girl."

We stay there like that, me cradled in Annie's arms like a child. It feels safe here, like nothing could ever go wrong, the seas settled and never stormy.

It feels for a while like this moment might never end, but eventually the lighthouse door opens and Annie snaps to attention.

“Luidaeg?” says Toby. She blinks, surprised by the scene. “I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

“Haven’t you heard of knocking?” Annie snaps, and I draw away from her. Toby's memory is going to get fogged anyway, but it'll be easier if she doesn't have it pieced together already, and seeing her acting all parental could tip her off. “I’m coming. Have some patience.”

“Sure,” she says quickly. “I’ll wait outside.”

Once the door shuts behind her, Annie stands and offers me the skin that had once been Aulay’s.

"For your friend who was denied the sea,” she says. “They were twins, weren't they? One must have been left out.”

"You remembered," I say quietly, standing up. “Rhona. She cried when they picked her brother.”

I don’t take it. Annie raises an eyebrow in question.

“I don’t know if we can still be friends, if she takes a skin even after hearing the truth. You’d never be friends with a Selkie.”

Annie looks at me for a long moment. If she was anyone else, I would have called the look in her eyes vulnerable.

“Pete told me that you had a fight with your friend, after I told you what the Selkies were.”

I nod.

“She thought it wasn’t fair of me to tell you like I did.”

I look down. Annie had scared me, but I’d scared her first by running away.

“I didn’t mean for you to hate the Selkies,” she says quietly.

“But you do.”

“When they begged for my mercy, the blood of their parents on their hands, my flensed children at their feet…” Her voice shakes. “I was mad with grief. Vengeance was denied to me. But I Saw what could one day be. That there would be a bloodworker who could restore the Roane; not my children, never my children, but their magic. I could still ruin my sister’s attempt to eradicate Seers from Faerie. I bound them. I made the skins their burden to bear for generation on generation. I made myself continue through the centuries, all so I could be here, to see their restoration.”

“You Saw Toby?” I ask quietly. “Even that long ago?”

“I Saw her race. The details were not yet so settled.” She closes her eyes. “Yes, I hated them. But I needed them. I needed them to wear the skins, to keep the magic alive and safe.” She opens her eyes, still that gentle green. “We need them now, to wear the skins one final time and become Roane.”

I take the skin from her hands, holding it reverently. I can faintly taste my mother’s magic on it, but it’s bloodless, dried clean long ago. “Do you think… This is what they would have wanted?”

Her breath hitches. I don’t think many people could get away with asking that, questioning her own judgment, but for me, she answers. “I’ve asked myself that a thousand times, Elspeth. They were kind and trusting and generous. They shared their prophecies freely, when it seemed like foreknowledge might avert disaster for total strangers. But I can’t be sure.”

I bite my lip. “I don’t know if I would. Does that make me selfish?”

She looks at me sharply. “It won’t happen to you. I swear it. But it isn’t selfish. I would rather don a night haunt’s wings or an Almere’s teeth than become something to be used. I’ve had enough of that in life.”

I trace the pattern of Aulay’s spots. Becoming a scrap of fur sitting on the skin of a stranger is a horror of my nightmares. “But… if I was dead and Rhona alive, maybe I would be okay with it then, so that she could live forever. But Rhona would be a stranger to Aulay.”

“He would have loved you. He loved all his little sisters. Would it make you happy, for your friend to have the gift of immortality, and the wide open sea?”

“Yes,” I whisper.

“From everything I know of my son, if he could still speak… He would make that gift to his little sister of the far future. He would want to see you happy.”

Slowly, I nod. A few years ago, being able to make Rhona part of Faerie would have been a dream come true. It’s impossible for it to be entirely uncomplicated again, but maybe there can still be some joy in it. If I can think of it as a gift from my brother, rather than something stolen. “Thank you, Aulay,” I whisper, stroking his skin.

Holding it carefully with one arm, I brush away tears with my other hand before hugging my mother. I know how hard this conversation must be for her, but I think she’s trying to do better by me than when she first told me the truth.

Annie hugs me back, holding me tight. Her tears leak onto my cheeks, but when she pulls back, she looks entirely composed. She kisses my brow and takes a step back. “I’m ready now,” she says. “Go find your friend.”

I nod and hurry out of the lighthouse to look for Rhona. We’ll finally be able to swim in the sea together, a seal and an otter playing together in the waves.

It’s weird to see the Selkie side of town so full of people, and yet so quiet. There’s no buzz of activity, no one has anywhere to go or anything to say. Everyone’s just waiting, watching. I feel their gazes on me, heavy with anticipation. It must look strange to them, a lone teenager carrying a Selkie skin before the official distribution begins, but no one challenges me.

One man steps into my path, about to ask a question, before abruptly shying away, guilt clear on his face. He looked at me and saw a Roane, and he’s more right than wrong, but I need to get out of view before anyone else can make the same assumption. These are Selkies who don’t know the Captain and might not trust her word over their own instincts.

“You’re okay,” says a voice to my left.

I turn around to see Toby’s kid standing in a little alley between houses. She’s a girl of about my age; her hair’s a shade darker than mine, shot through with silver, and she holds herself awkwardly, like even her human skin doesn’t quite fit. A silver sealskin is tied around her shoulders, knotted tightly.

“Gillian, right?” I ask, ducking out of the walkway, the skin still cradled in my arms.

“Yeah. Quentin said you’re Elsie. I heard you collapsed?”

“Annie healed me,” I say brightly. “I’m fine now.”

She frowns. “Is that the sea witch, or a different Annie?”

“Same one.”

“Oh.” For a moment, she seems about to comment on that, but I’m glad she doesn’t. The Selkies never have anything good to say about her. “Thank you. For— Oh, shit, I’m not meant to say that, right? What am I meant to say?”

I smile, bemused rather than offended. She’s the child of a changeling, it’s no wonder she’d be a bit unused to fae culture. “Mostly we go for praise instead.”

“Okay. That was some, um, real good swords-ing?”

I raise an eyebrow. “Until I got knocked flat?”

“Real brave swords-ing,” she amends, and I laugh. “I really appreciate not being the one flattened.”

“I’m glad you’re okay,” I grin, allowing myself some pride. It wasn’t the smoothest moment of heroism, and yes, I’d meant my promise to my mother, but I had saved someone. “But I'm very banned from challenging any more homicidal Merrow.”

“I'm not surprised. Your mom is scary.” She hesitates. “Why… why did you do it? Was it because you’re friends with Toby?”

I blink. “I only met her today, and I was sort of a murder suspect in her investigation the whole time. She is my cousin I guess, but that was the last thing on my mind. You’re a guest of the Duchy, you were meant to be safe here, and my mom, my aunt, Rodrick, none of them were there. Someone had to step up.”

I can see that she doesn’t understand, her eyes wide with confusion. “Is that what it’s like in Faerie? You’re responsible for the safety of a whole Duchy, even though you’re not even old enough to drink, just because of who your mother is?”

I don’t know what she means about old enough to drink, I've been allowed alcohol for a while. “Mom doesn’t think I should be,” I admit. “But she wasn’t there, and I wasn’t going to let someone kill a Selkie girl in front of me, today of all days.”

She looks down, eyes settling on the skin I’m holding. “Oh. I’m not much of a Selkie.”

I frown. “It’s literally impossible to be half-Selkie. You either are one or you’re not.”

“I only became one a little while ago. I wasn’t in line for a skin. I jumped all the queues, because I was dying, and because Toby knows the sea witch. Everyone low-key hates me.”

Toby having a Selkie kid I’d never heard about makes a whole lot more sense now. I stare at her. “The sea witch herself gave you a skin, and you think that makes you not properly a Selkie? You have her blessing. I don’t know if a Selkie’s ever had that before.”

“You really think so?” she asks.

“I know so,” I say firmly, though I can’t really back up my words. A daughter of Amphitrite has no moral authority here. “You’re all about to become something new, and there’ll be space for everyone in this sea. You’ll learn how to be Roane together.”

There’s spark of hope in Gillian’s eyes. I begin to make a swift exit, feeling like I’ve bestowed a great wisdom, before remembering what I actually came here to do. “Um, have you seen a human girl around, about our age, copper-ish hair?”

“I saw a pair of twins like that. I think they went down to the sandy bit?”

I nod. “Maybe I’ll see you around,” I say, slipping back into the street.

I should have figured they’d go there. I hurry down to our little artificial beach, dodging the curious gazes of the waiting Selkiekin.

I find the two of them sitting at the edge of the dock, legs dangling over the edge. Ronan’s arm is slung around Rhona’s shaking shoulders.

He turns his head at the sound of my footsteps, soft against the sand, and pulls himself away from her. “Elsie! Maybe you can talk her round.”

“What?”

“She doesn't want a skin anymore. I get that we can't force her if that's what she wants. But I don't want to do this alone, not when we don't have to! When we could swim in the sea together. It's all we ever wanted."

He looks so sad and confused and dejected. I wonder how heavy the guilt had weighed on him yesterday, when he'd been the chosen son, leaving his sister alone on the shore.

"I'll talk to her," I promise. "Give us some space."

He nods, moving away as I approach the edge, sitting down next to my oldest friend.

"I don't wanna talk," Rhona mumbles, wiping at her eyes. "I've made up my mind."

I stay quiet for a moment, exhaling slowly. "Do you remember the first time I shifted?"

"Of course," she sniffs. "We were jumping off here. I was too scared to."

"You were sensible," I say. "Mom wishes I was more like you."

"It worked out for you. Your powers came in."

The waves froth playfully beneath us, and I'm filled with nostalgia for that long ago day. Everything had changed, and nothing had changed, because Rhona still loved me the same.

"Yours still could," I say. "Look."

I feel her stiffen as she finally notices the skin cradled in my hands. "No."

"It's everything you ever wanted."

"Make up your mind, Elsie," she hisses. "You said being passed over meant I got to stay innocent. That makes everyone who takes a skin guilty."

"I... I did," I hesitate, unable to properly explain what has changed my mind, who has changed my mind. "But when I said it, I thought there would be no way for you to ever get a skin."

"So you don't think this whole thing is messed up? You were just pretending to be morally offended?"

"It's the most fucked up thing I've ever heard," I snap back. "But today, I saw a man attack a Selkie girl to hurt her mother. I can't leave the Duchy because my mother's enemies would kill me to hurt her. You don't need to be forgiven. What your ancestors did should have nothing to do with you."

"It does if I profit off their crimes. I'm human. If my ancestors hadn't slaughtered a bunch of people, I'd never be able to become fae."

"After I found out the truth about the Selkies, I felt weird about them too," I admit. "But Mom explained some things to me that helped me understand."

"What things?"

"Faerie needs Seers. That's part of why the Roane were targeted, because some people don't want anyone to see the future. The last Roane, they've risked themselves throughout the centuries to pass on important prophecies to the rest of Faerie. Lots of bad things would have been worse, if they hadn't. Faerie needs Roane to swim in the seas and see what's coming in the tide, and be brave enough to tell us, even when it's not what anyone wants to hear."

Rhona blinks. "Really? Faerie needs us?"

"Apparently." I shrug. "That's why A– the sea witch made the Selkies in the first place, instead of letting the night haunts or the Almere take the magic." I don't actually know whether the Roane died at sea or on land. I don't want to find out.

"So... We'd be doing something important, not just taking,” she say slowly.

"Exactly." I trace the patterns of spots with my finger, trying to imagine the brother I can never meet as a living seal, fat and floating. "This was Aulay’s.” He was my brother. “He’s Aldridge’s ancestor. He dallied with human women and he had a changeling son. He was sweet and clever and he loved his family.”

"How do you know all that?" Rhona asks, her voice small and wondering.

"The sea witch is my aunt. She knows my best friend is Selkiekin. She gave me his skin, to give to you."

Rhona squeaks, flinching. "The sea witch knows who I am?"

It hurts to see my best friend scared of my mother. But maybe there's something important in how she gave a skin to me, her only living daughter, and convinced me to give it to my closest friend, descendant of the murderers of her children, like maybe it's the first fragment of forgiveness. "She isn't a monster."

"My mom says she's been punishing us for fifteen hundred years," she whispers. "She's our monster."

"She's ready to make you Roane," I try. "I think she's ready to stop."

"Maybe." Rhona bites her lip. "If I take it... You won't look at me differently?”

I look away. "If you were becoming a Selkie, it might," I admit. "I don't know. But you get to skip to Roane. The skin will be a part of you, not something you wear. It's different."

"You promise?"

"I swear it. By ash and oak, by rowan and thorn, you'll always be my friend."

Rhona looks away from me, her gaze turning to the waves beneath us. Slowly, she stands up, and says, "Okay. I think I want to be Roane."

I stand up, careful to keep the skin from touching the wood. "You have to be sure."

"You know I never feel completely certain about anything," she says quietly. "But I want to swim in the sea. I want to help Faerie see the future."

"That's good enough for me," I decide. I take a breath, steadying myself. I’ll never know my brother and he’ll never know me, but I hope he would approve of his seal form living on like this, his skin tied around human shoulders one final time.

"Keep the magic alive, use it well, and don’t forget his name.” I drape the skin around Rhona’s shoulders, tying the ends together.

Changes sweep over Rhona. Her light brown eyes darken, webbing growing between her fingers. Soon, her eyes will be mirrors of mine, only larger. We'll be like sisters, look like sisters. Hopefully she won't question the weirdness of that.

She blinks in wonder, touching the webbing between her fingers. “Thank you, Aulay,” she whispers. She looks up at me. “I’m really a Selkie?”

“Yep, and not for long.” I grin, turning to the edge of the dock. "Dare you to jump.”

"I don't even know how to shift yet!"

"Your body will work it out. Mine did, right?"

Rhona takes an uncertain step to the edge, still anxious. "Or I could climb down the ladder..."

"We can jump at the same time," I offer, stepping forward and offering my hand. "It's literally impossible for you to drown now. If you don't like how the falling feels, you won't have to do it again."

She meets my eyes and smiles a little, taking my hand. "Okay."

We bend our knees together and jump. Ronan whoops as we fall, pulled apart by the thrilling force of the air.

By the time I hit the water, I'm an otter, but it happens so quickly, so instinctively, I don't really feel the moment of shifting. The force of something much larger landing next to me shoves me away until the momentum fades, letting me roll into a change of direction.

There's a seal bobbing in the water, moved wholly by the waves.

I swim to her, tapping the top of her head with my paw before diving away. You're it.

I feel the water rippling around us as the seal chases me, forced to figure out how this whole swimming thing works in the process.

Soon, there'll be the Convocation, which will remake Rhona and all the Selkies, changing them forever. But for now, it's just us, playing like we're still kids, and I can believe this is the future my brother would have wanted.

Chapter Text

I polish off my third sandwich easily. To no one’s surprise, casting the biggest spell of my life has left me ravenous. Tybalt keeps handing me bottles of fruit juice, which disappear just as quickly.

Gradually, the dizziness fades. I lean sideways into Tybalt’s arms, watching the new Roane and the remaining Selkies lounge on the docks and splash through the water. The squeals of delight from the children as they shift to seals and back haven’t stopped.

The Luidaeg sat for a while on the pier, legs dangling into the water. The Roane and Selkies gave her a wide berth, and she looked exhausted, for all that her eyes still sparkled with a joy I’d never seen before. She’s disappeared now, but I figure she’ll find me when it’s time to go.

Her descendant race swims in the sea again, but none of them really know her. Even those who met Cousin Annie only knew the persona she wore. How long will it take for her to build a new relationship with these Roane, who were once Selkies and Selkiekin? How long will it take for her to love them, without hating them at the same time?

It’s a troubling question, but it’s not a problem I can solve.

The latest burst of giggles is close by, and a familiar face pokes out of the water. Elsie has her arms thrown around a copper-haired girl, the two of them laughing together.

The girl scrunches up her face. In a moment, she’s a dappled gray seal, and Elsie vanishes into a lithe, furry form, twining around the Roane girl. The two tumble together in the water, until I nearly lose track of whose flipper is whose.

I breathe in the smell of lemons ripe on the tree and sea soaked driftwood, the smell of a sun-scalded sandpit and a salty breeze. Their magic calls to me as the magic of all the Roane calls to me now. My fingerprints are in their blood. I know them all, in a strange, undefinable way.

It’s only after another sip of sweet berry juice that I do a double-take. Elsie isn’t Roane; I didn’t cast any magic on her today. Has the spell really gotten me that out of sorts?

The closer I pay attention, the more it’s obvious that Elsie’s blood doesn’t sing to me the same as the Roane girl’s. But her magic is still overwhelmingly familiar, like I’ve known her for years, when in reality, I’ve only witnessed her cast a couple of spells. It hadn’t felt like that the other times she called her magic before me.

Elsie bursts back into human form, grinning, and she must catch me watching from the pier, because she says something I can’t hear, and the two girls swim over to tread water in front of me.

“This is my friend, Rhona,” Elsie says, and Rhona gives an embarrassed half-wave. “The one I told you about.”

I smile. “Looks like you got your skin after all.”

“Yeah.” Rhona ducks her head. “I didn’t want to take it at first, now that I know what they are, but Elsie convinced me.”

“Really?” Given how much she argued with Liz and René about the Selkie skins, I wouldn’t have expected that of her.

“Really,” Elsie confirms. “Faerie needs the Roane. Taking a skin now, it’s making things right. As right as they can be.” A shadow crosses her face, even as she gives me a soft smile. “I’m glad you talked Mom and Annie into dividing the skins. You brought so many more Roane back into the world.”

An unspoken thank you hangs in the air. I nod on impulse, and her smile brightens as she and Rhona dive back into the sea, their webbed toes shifting into flippers.

I’m surprised at her change of heart towards the Selkies, but I’m not surprised at her earnest belief in making things right. She sounded ready to tear Torin apart for saying the Roane deserved their deaths. Maybe Pete told her the story of what happened when she was little, and she grew up wanting to avenge them. Or maybe the Roane remind her of herself, both sea fae who trade feet for flippers.

I set the bottle down.

Elsie isn’t Roane. I would never have mistaken her for one when I met her—the taste of her bloodline in the air is distinct.

But Elsie hasn’t swum far, and the more I look, the more she physically resembles Rhona. Not close enough to be the same line, but enough to be something. Rhona’s hair is streaked with darker stripes, and Elsie’s with lighter, and Elsie’s eyes aren’t as big and bold as a Roane’s–but they still both have highlights in their hair, both have distinctly green eyes, both have webbed feet, even if Elsie’s hands aren’t webbed.

It’s not that weird that the children of two different Firstborn would look similar to each other. But it’s rare for the children of Maeve and Titania to so closely overlap in abilities.

And Pete is definitely a daughter of Titania. The Merrow have always been claimed by the Summer Queen, and even the Luidaeg said she was Pete’s mom.

I stretch my legs out in front of me, still watching the girls. The similarities feel important—something I should have thought about earlier, if I hadn’t been so distracted by the question of whether Elsie was involved in Isla’s murder. A brand new kind of fae, and an old kind returning, their magic oddly alike.

The girls shift into sea mammals again, and I inhale deeply. I know what Pete’s magic smells like now, the churning ocean of scents that defines her. So I push aside the lemon and driftwood smell of Rhona’s magic and breathe in the scents of hot sand and sea air—except it’s not any sea air, but an earthy, fishy breeze blowing over the mouth of an estuary, where freshwater meets salt.

It’s a subtle distinction—too subtle for probably any other kind of fae to notice. But I remember the crackling taste of Pete’s magic, and it was centered on the scents of deeper waters, the open sea. Elsie’s isn’t.

But it’s familiar in a different way—so familiar I don’t know how I didn’t see it sooner. The Firstborn whose magic smells of brackish water and all that blooms there—the smell of the land and water below Elsie’s shoreline air—is the Luidaeg.

The sounds of children splashing and screeching are abruptly far off. A girl who is also an otter swims in the sea in front of me, a girl who refused to let me taste her blood because supposedly her mother dislikes that kind of magic—except Pete let me perform a frankly terrifying act of blood magic on her shores, blood magic that changed Faerie itself. Riding someone’s memories is so commonplace in comparison.

But blood always tells.

“October.” Tybalt’s hand on my shoulder jolts me out of the fog. “What’s wrong?”

I shake my head, dazed. “I’m not sure. Things are either starting to make sense, or I’ve become a conspiracy theorist.”

He frowns. “You think Torin had even more allies?”

“What?” It’s a perfectly reasonable conclusion to jump to, but it’s so out of line with my thoughts that for a heartbeat, I only stare. “No, this isn’t about him. I don’t think anything’s wrong, but….”

“Your vagueness is more than a little frustrating.”

“I know.” I curl my fingers into his. “But if I’m right… this might not be my secret to share.”

If I’m right, the Luidaeg didn’t mean for any of us to know. She might count us as friends, but her trust only stretches so far.

But I can’t blame her, not after hearing her anguish when she talked about pouring magic into the skins of her children, trying to preserve them all on her own. Refusing to risk another betrayal. Of course she would keep this secret.

And she said it herself, didn’t she? When you want to keep a secret, you send it out to sea.

The more I turn it over in my mind, the more I’m sure. I can’t remember the Luidaeg ever saying that Elsie is a descendant of Titania–or even that Elsie is Pete’s daughter. She didn’t contradict Pete, but failing to tell the truth isn’t the same as lying. And when Elsie was bleeding onto the deck, for a moment she looked as scared and angry as her sister–like a mother whose own child was hurt.

When the Luidaeg healed Elsie, when their magic blended together–I’d felt how similar they were, even then. But after watching someone hold a sword to my daughter’s throat, watching her run from me again, my heart was too broken to understand.

My eyes still sting at the thought of Gillian. I haven’t seen her since I made her fae forever. She was sure of her choice, but it was the resigned sureness of someone who doesn’t have any good options, and I don’t know if she’ll ever forgive me. She isn’t splashing in the sea with the other Roane, which means she’s tucked away in the Ryan house, or she’s found somewhere else to hide.

And that thought of the Ryan house–of how fraught it was talking to Liz, of how I wouldn’t blame Gillian for avoiding it–is enough to jostle the memory of my conversation with René. It’s enough for my stomach to drop all the way to my toes.

The sea witch kicked her out when she strayed and got herself pregnant.

Elizabeth Ryan is the only person I’ve ever heard of the Luidaeg having a relationship with. There must have been others over her lifetime, but the Luidaeg dated Liz recently. René said they broke up over a pregnancy a couple decades ago, when Liz was human.

Elsie is nineteen years old. And she’s as much a changeling as I am.

“You claim nothing is wrong, but you seem to be trying to squeeze all the blood from my fingers.” Tybalt’s voice is once again my anchor, and I loosen my death grip on his hand, curling my arm through his instead.

“Sorry.” I lean my head against his shoulder.

“Sorry isn’t an answer. October, please tell me what you’re thinking.”

“I’m thinking….” I draw in a shaky breath. “I’m thinking that a lot of people are very good liars.”

Logic says Liz’s pregnancy had to be the result of an affair, but Firstborn magic is weird enough that I can’t rule out two women conceiving a baby. René also said the child died, which would make it impossible for her to be Elsie, except–

The pieces click together into an alarming puzzle. A Firstborn, desperate to keep her only living daughter safe, insistent that she has to be hidden away at sea. Liz, giving up her newborn to the sea witch and telling the world she lost her baby. An adoption for the good of the child, no matter how much it hurts.

You know nothing about what Elizabeth Ryan has paid, the Luidaeg said.

But Liz snapped at Elsie like she meant it, like she resented Elsie’s intrusion in her house. There was no recognition in either of their eyes. I might believe Elsie could fake that, but I doubt Liz could lie that well. She was too drunk, too out of sorts.

If I’m right, Liz and Elsie don’t know each other. Liz never knew where her baby was taken, who she grew up to be. And maybe that was by choice, but I don’t think so. There is too much hatred in her eyes whenever she looks at the Luidaeg.

I’ve built myself a new family, slowly and surely, but missing Gillian’s childhood will always hurt. And if Liz has a daughter splashing in the sea only feet away from me, and the Luidaeg kept them apart–that’s too close to what Janet did to me. I don’t know if I can forgive that.

Or maybe this is nothing but an outlandish theory. But if I talk to the Luidaeg, her confirmation or denial will be answer enough.

“I’ll explain everything later. I need to do something first.” I press my nose to Tybalt’s cheek in apology and stand, staring out at the water. The Luidaeg must be back in her cabin. It’ll be a good place to ask questions away from listening ears.

I’ve only taken a few steps before I remember that I’m in the Luidaeg’s debt. I have to do the next thing she asks of me.

If the worst of my theories is true, if she forced Liz to give up her child at birth and never let them have a relationship, she could make me complicit in the secret just by calling on my debt. Worse, as she’s so fond of reminding me, she does have the power to harm me. She could bind my tongue without violating her geas at all.

She’s my friend, but she’s also a grieving mother who only barely agreed to stop punishing the descendants of her children’s killers. If she wanted to keep Elsie from Liz, if she believed it was that important, she would.

“Tybalt.” He’s on his feet now too, staring at me with such concern I want to let myself fall into his arms. “If the Luidaeg comes back, you can tell her I’ve gone to talk to Liz with Elsie. Just….” I swallow. “Just give me a headstart.”

He steps forward and cups my cheek with his hand. “I wish you would tell me what you’re up to.”

“I know.” I close my eyes. “But I need to be sure first. Trust me?”

“Always,” he says, and when he kisses my forehead, I almost lose the will to move. I’m exhausted enough as it is, and dragging myself into whatever this is won’t be restful, I’m sure of that. But if I’m right, then Liz deserves to know her daughter, whatever the Luidaeg might think.

Most people would call pissing off the sea witch twice in one day a stupid, possibly deadly move, and I wouldn’t disagree. But what is being a hero, if not making stupid, possibly deadly choices?

I break away from Tybalt’s touch and walk down the docks, stopping near where Elsie and Rhona are diving, my throat tight.

“Elsie.” It comes out too quiet, and I try again. “Elsie!”

The otter somersaulting in the water turns back into a green-eyed girl, who swims closer. “Toby? Is there a problem?”

“Can I talk to you?” My heart thuds against my ribcage. I’m stumbling into something I don’t understand, but Liz’s burning anger towards the Luidaeg echoes through me, and I don’t think I’m wrong. I wish I was.

“Now?”

“Please.”

She hops out of the water, calling, “One moment!” to the seal bobbing in the waters. “What is it?”

“I have to ask someone a few questions, and I want you to be there.”

“Is this about what that Merrow was doing?”

“No, it’s not. I can’t explain right now, but I will.”

Elsie looks as baffled as I’d expect, but nods. “If you think it’s important, I’ll come.”

“I appreciate it.” It’s close enough to thank you that she looks startled, but I start walking before she can ask more questions.

Elsie must know which Firstborn she’s descended from, or she wouldn’t have made sure I never tasted her blood. If I let on that I know the truth before I talk to Liz, I risk spooking Elsie and sending her running to the Luidaeg or Pete. I don’t like holding my cards so close to my chest, but I want her to hear whatever I learn from Liz. She deserves that, too.

I step up to the Ryans’ porch, Elsie at my shoulder, an echo of our visit this past evening. Shoving down the churning apprehension in my gut, I knock.

Chapter Text

Elizabeth cracks open the door. “What do you want now?”

“No murders this time, I promise.” I shove my hands in my pockets. “This has nothing to do with Isla’s death. But I do have questions for you. You’re not going to like them, but I need you to trust me.”

She barks a laugh. “Why should I? You came in and upended our way of life. You’re Annie’s creature.”

“Toby brought back the Roane.” Elsie leans forward with all the bold confidence of Captain Pete. “So many more Selkiekin are part of the sea now. You can’t be angry at that—it’s what you wanted, too.”

Liz ignores her. “And you brought the kid again. Care to explain why?”

“I can’t, not yet.”

Her eyes flash. “The sea witch does like keeping people in the dark, doesn’t she.”

“The Luidaeg didn’t send me,” I say. “She doesn’t know I’m here.”

“You’re going to show up on my doorstep and claim it has nothing to do with Isla or Annie?”

“It has a lot to do with the Luidaeg,” I admit. “But she wouldn’t be happy if she knew I was talking to you.”

Elsie stares at me, frowning. “You didn’t say that before.”

“Didn’t you disobey Pete to stay for the Convocation? Since when are you intimidated by a Firstborn?”

“I’m not intimidated!” Elsie’s clearly gearing up for an argument, but before she can get that far, I turn back to Liz.

“I'd rather not stand on your porch until you decide to let us in.”

Liz glares at me, but there’s no force behind it. Her eyes, now the brilliant green of the Roane, are more weary than angry. I’m not sure if what I’m here to ask her will change that.

She looks away first and lets us inside.

“Can we go somewhere more private?” I ask, once the door is shut. “This isn’t something I want people overhearing.”

“No.” Liz takes a sip from her tumbler and leans against the wall. “If you’re not here on behalf of the sea witch, then you don’t get to order me around. This is my house. We’ll talk where I say we’ll talk.”

I don’t hear anyone clattering around nearby, and I did talk about a murder right in this living room already, but the questions I’m about to ask are more personal. I hesitate, and Elsie takes the opportunity to whirl on me again.

“What is this about?”

Liz eyes her. “So you don’t even know why you’re here? Wonderful. The sea witch’s dogsbody and the Captain’s daughter in my house again, and only one of us has a clue what’s going on.”

“Elsie, please.” I spread my hands. “I need to ask Liz some questions, and I need you to listen.”

“What questions?” Liz asks suspiciously.

I take a deep breath. “I need to ask you about your first child.”

It’s as if I’ve punched her. The tumbler nearly slips from her hand, and her eyes are wide and burning with shock.

“Get out.” Liz jabs a finger at both of us. “I should never have let you in, but you’re going to leave, and you’re going to count yourself lucky that you’re beloved of the Firstborn.”

“Liz, I can explain—”

“I bet you can.” She’s gripping her drink so tightly her knuckles are white. “I should have guessed how quickly the gossip would travel, now that Annie’s revealed herself.” She takes a long swallow and stares at me, eyes dull. “So you’ve heard the stories, and you think you understand, and you want the juicy details. Well, you’re not getting them.”

You think you understand. The dread pools faster in my stomach, my suspicions flaring brighter than ever.

I hold up my hands. “That’s not why I’m here. I swear, if after we’ve talked, you don’t think there was any point in me coming here, then—then I’ll owe you a favor.”

That gives her pause, but Liz still shakes her head. “I’m not selling you gossip either. And there’s no other reason you would ask about her.”

Her.

“Everyone thinks you had an affair,” I gamble. “But you didn’t, did you?”

If I thought she looked shocked before, it’s nothing to the look on her face now. Her eyes briefly soften, as if the world has let in a crack of light. But the hardness returns with a storm, her eyebrows furrowing together, her drink slamming on the nearest table.

“Don’t mock me. Only one person has ever believed me. Why would you?”

Those words alone confirm so much. She’s insisted on her innocence before, no matter how absurd it sounded. And only one person–presumably the mother of her child–eventually realized she was telling the truth.

“What René said didn’t sound like the whole story.” I take a deep breath and another risk. “I think there’s a part of it you haven’t been able to talk about. I’m not sure you can, you could be bound to keep the secret, but I think I have enough of the pieces already. Everyone thinks you cheated, and everyone thinks your baby died, but neither of those things are true, are they?"

Liz’s face crumples in confusion, which isn’t the reaction I expected.

“This is really weird, Toby.” Elsie looks back and forth between us. “And it doesn’t sound like it has anything to do with me?”

“I think it might,” I say carefully, but apparently not carefully enough, because Liz lets out a near hysterical laugh.

“Oh, you can’t be serious.” She takes an uncomfortably long swig, tipping the tumbler back to catch every drop. “That’s why you dragged the Captain’s daughter into this?”

My stomach sinks. Either she doesn’t want it to be true, or I’ve gotten something wrong.

Liz strides over to the sideboard and pours herself another drink, splashing liquor onto the carpet. Elsie backs several steps away from her, throwing me a questioning look that I don’t know how to answer.

“Fine,” Liz says unexpectedly. “You can come upstairs, and I’ll tell you the truth–the real truth.” She waves a hand at me. “But only because you owe me a favor, for showing up at my house and making me talk about Lilianne on today of all fucking days.”

Lilianne. The allusion is so obvious it hurts.

She marches towards the stairs without waiting to see if we’re following.

Elsie grabs my arm. “Toby, seriously. Who’s Lilianne? What’s going on here?”

“I don’t know.” My mouth is dry. “I thought you needed to be here, but...”

“Oh no,” Liz calls over her shoulder. “You brought her into this. You insisted she had to listen. So both of you get to know exactly what the sea witch did to me.”

“What?” Elsie blurts out, but Liz doesn’t answer. She starts heading up the stairs one at a time.

“Something happened a while ago between Liz and the Luidaeg, and whatever it is, it’s not what people think. It might not be what I thought, either.” I gently tug my arm out of Elsie’s grip. “Whatever the story is, I have to hear it. But maybe you should—”

Elsie throws me a look and heads for the stairs. “I’m not leaving when none of you have said anything that makes sense.”

I follow her up, and we all make it into Liz’s bedroom. Liz sits in a thick armchair in the corner, and since I’d rather not take up Liz’s own bed, I’m left awkwardly standing against the wall. Elsie has no such qualms and perches cross-legged on the end of the bed.

“What are you going on about?” Elsie says, before anyone else can speak. “Why do you keep talking about Annie like she’s done something awful?”

“Because she did. She played the part of my loving girlfriend so well and didn’t give a shit when it actually mattered.” Liz takes a gulp of liquor. She seemed surprisingly sober when she opened the door, and I doubt plunging into her usual level of inebriation will help this conversation, but I can’t exactly make her stop.

“You can’t be serious.” Elsie’s looking at Liz like she announced she’s an alien. “Annie would never be in a relationship with a Selkie.”

“I wasn’t a Selkie at the time, obviously.” Liz swirls her glass. “When we first met, I was sixteen, human and innocent.”

“Wait, you were sixteen?” I blurt out. Logically I knew Liz couldn’t be much older than she looks now, but sixteen is a child, by every legal standard.

She looks surprised. “You’re the first to worry for my virtue.” She laughs harshly. “I was eighteen when we kissed. The other clan chiefs act like I seduced her.”

I remember being sixteen and sheltered, twenty-five and taken advantage of by a man who knew exactly what he wanted. For the first time, I try to imagine what it must have been like, to have the full attention of a Firstborn at that age, even if she wasn’t flaunting her power. My stomach twists.

“You’re a liar.” Elsie crosses her arms. “I don’t know why you hate Annie so much, but you’re lying.”

“You’re a foolish, spoiled child,” Liz spits. “You don’t even know her.”

“I do! She’s my aunt, and she’s visited me since I was a baby.” Elsie glares at Liz. “You don’t know me.”

“Elsie…” I say, unsure how to calm her anger, unsure how to reconcile the person I know–the person Elsie knows–with the woman who swept a teenage Selkiekin up in a probably unhealthy relationship. “René told me the same story. He said Liz and the Luidaeg were lovers.”

“Just because other people spread a rumor, that doesn’t make it true.”

“His husband was there when I met Annie,” Liz hisses. “You can ask anyone in my clan, half of them are old enough to remember. Everyone saw our courtship. The chief’s daughter and the Roane changeling.”

“It can’t be true,” Elsie insists, and she’s turned her glare on me, too. “Annie’s ancient. She wouldn’t date someone so young, especially not someone descended from the murderers of her children.”

“I don’t like it either,” I admit. “Ridiculous age gaps are always going to happen in Faerie; my fiance's from the 17th century. But I feel like ancient Firstborn shouldn’t be picking up teenagers while pretending to be changelings. Liz, was it a serious relationship?”

“Serious?” Liz laughs mirthlessly. “She was the love of my life. I thought she loved me too.” She takes another swig of her drink. “I kept getting passed over for a skin, and every time she was there, and eventually I stopped caring about my inheritance. When she asked me to be with her, I said yes. When she asked me to move in with her, I said yes. We lived together for six years, and she threw me out the moment I told her I was pregnant.”

“Oak and ash,” I whisper.

Liz lifts her chin. “Was it fair, to lie to me a thousand times, to break my heart and forsake our child, because of the crimes of ancestors I’ve never met?”

“What do you mean, our child?” Elsie asks.

“She denied it, of course. She accused me of cheating on her and sent me home before I could pack.” Liz stares into her drink. “It is the simplest explanation. I didn’t blame her much at the time.”

“But you didn’t cheat,” I say.

“I would never do that. I loved her.” Liz nearly snarls the word. “I don’t know how my baby happened. She claims she doesn’t know. But I wasn’t with anyone else, and who knows how these things work with the Firstborn?” She laughs, bitter. “Not that I knew she was Firstborn at the time.”

“This is ridiculous.” Elsie whirls on me. “How can you believe any of this? I thought you were Annie’s friend.”

“I am.” I swallow, hard. “But I think she’s done something terrible.”

“This isn’t real,” Elsie says, fierce and sure. “She would have told me about any child.”

“Of course she didn’t tell you. She’s always refused to acknowledge our daughter.” Liz glares, eyes bright with unshed tears. “But she knew the baby was hers. She confessed that to me years later, and I know that makes it my word against hers, but I don’t care. She knew it right from the beginning, and she pretended not to. She threw me out, and she vanished, and she didn’t even try to save our baby.”

My mouth goes dry. “Save her?”

The tears in Liz’s eyes streak down her cheeks. “She knew all along our baby wouldn’t survive the birth, but she let me grow her and love her and mourn her. The sea witch can punish generations in her grief, but the rest of us? We’re expected to move on. She can call every Selkie here for her vengeance, but the Selkies who were forced to drown their own children will never be avenged. My daughter died before she could ever live, and she will never be avenged.”

Root and branch. When I knocked on Liz’s door, I was sure that the puzzle pieces fit together, sure enough to drag her and Elsie through this questioning.

But unless Liz is a far better liar than I’ve given her credit for, her baby did die. Her tears and the anger could be an act, or they could be grief for another loss, a child secretly given up for adoption—but if that was true, why would she be so baffled when I said the baby never died?

The baby not being Elsie is too much of a coincidence. But the baby being Elsie is impossible if Liz is telling the truth. She was there when the child was born. She would have watched her die.

“Drown their children?” Elsie asks hoarsely. “What?”

Liz’s eyes snap to hers. “I thought you knew the price of the skins. Didn’t anyone tell you what happens when someone refuses one?”

“You drown them?” Elsie jumps to her feet, a note of hysteria in her voice. “Why would you do that?”

“Do you think we want to? Do you think it isn’t the worst day of that Selkie’s life? We’re bound to the deal our ancestors made with the sea witch. We don’t have a choice. I’ve never seen it happen, thank Oberon, but I’ve heard stories. The parents usually drown themselves too, in the end.”

“You’re lying.” Elsie says, cold and certain. “She wouldn’t make people do something so horrible. Especially not to their children.”

“It’s true, Elsie,” I say, and she whirls to face me, betrayal in her eyes. “It’s like the Changeling’s Choice. If a Selkie doesn’t accept the skin, they have to die.”

She shakes her head hard, as if that will fix everything. “My best friend was Selkiekin. She would have told me if the Choice meant she had to take the skin or die! She would have warned me!”

“She told me herself,” I say, as gently as I can. It’s not a kind part of the story, and I understand why the Luidaeg–or Pete–didn’t want to tell it. But keeping it secret is unfair to the Selkies. “The Luidaeg can’t lie.”

“Not to you,” Liz snorts. “All she’s ever done is lie to me.”

“Rhona refused the skin at first,” Elsie whispers. “Are you saying if she’d done that outside the Convocation, her mother would have drowned her? Because of Annie’s rules?”

“Annie would have watched them do it,” Liz says. “She makes Selkies drown their children, and she didn’t lift a finger to stop the death of my little girl. But she makes us all pay for the loss of her other children, the ones that matter. I’ll never forgive her for that.” Her glare swings from me to Elsie. “She might be kind to you, but your friend, your family is every bit the monster she claims to be.”

The Luidaeg’s grief over her children is torrential. She speaks to kids kindly, and she doesn’t attack the innocent, and I can’t reconcile any of that with the woman who abandoned her pregnant lover and let her youngest child die during birth.

But I can’t convince myself that Liz is lying. Her anguish burns too brightly.

The grief of a parent who never got to know their child. The anger of a parent whose child could have been saved, if only someone had helped. I’ve heard that pain before, when Tybalt told me about Anne and their changeling baby, and how every pureblood healer who could save his love and his child refused to help.

“She wouldn’t.” Elsie sinks back onto the bed, her voice thin and nearly pleading. “Annie would never let a child of hers die, if she had any way of stopping it.”

“You sound like her.” Liz glares at her tumbler, which is mostly empty again. “There was nothing I could do, trust me. But she’s Firstborn. And it wasn’t anything powerful that killed my baby. The birth went wrong, and she couldn’t breathe. It was so…..normal.”

If that’s really all it was, there’s no reason the Luidaeg couldn’t have stepped in. No geas would have restricted her from saving her own child. The more I try to make the story make sense, the more it resists me.

“She claimed she couldn’t let herself get attached, since the baby was going to die. And then she claimed she couldn’t tell me to get an abortion and save myself the pain, because there was the tiniest chance the baby would live.” Liz sets her drink aside at last. “Whatever the truth is, I’ve never heard it. None of her excuses ever made any sense.”

“You though, she can’t lie to you.” Liz leans forward in her chair. “I want you to ask her, in front of me, why she let our baby die. I deserve to know. That’s what you get for dredging up the past.”

I nod. I doubt the Luidaeg will willingly volunteer that story, but I promised Liz a favor. And more than that, I want to understand what happened all those years ago, even if it means digging myself deeper into the Luidaeg’s debt.

Fresh tears spill down Liz’s cheeks. “You actually believe me.”

“I do,” I say, ignoring Elsie’s frown. I shouldn’t have made Elsie hear this story, and I shouldn’t have made Liz endure Elsie’s barrage of disbelief and accusations. Elsie never had the same pieces of the puzzle I did–or thought I did. This is all a cascade of surprises to her, and it’s understandable that it’s too much, but it isn’t fair to Liz.

The way Liz’s voice breaks when she says baby–that can’t be a lie. I’ve heard the same crack in the Luidaeg’s voice, the same crack in my voice after I’d turned Gillian human and was sure I’d lost her forever. Liz loved the Luidaeg, and she had a child she couldn’t explain, and the child died in her arms. The why is a mystery, but the what I believe. I’ve spent too long missing Gillian not to.

“Even though ‘no, I didn’t cheat on my girlfriend, the baby just magically happened’ is probably the stupidest excuse in the book?”

“If you did get pregnant from an affair, it would be pretty stupid to stick to that story for years and years, since almost no one believes you,” I agree. “It’s the sort of thing you’d only insist on for that long if it was true. And when Isla was going after you, the Luidaeg put a stop to it. I don’t think she’d do that if you were actually the woman who cheated on her. She tends to hold a grudge.”

Liz leans back in her chair, a glimmer of hope in her eyes. But she glances at Elsie, and it vanishes. “You still think I’m a liar.”

“Maybe she didn’t tell me how messed up her bargain with the Selkies was,” Elsie says, choked. “Maybe I can believe you dated somehow, and that Annie never told me about another child who died because it was too painful. Talking about the Roane is difficult enough for her, and they died such a long time ago. But Mom would have told me. She’s talked about Annie’s kids, she would have said.”

“You assume Annie told the Captain,” Liz says. “But she won’t even tell my clan the baby was hers–she lets them all keep believing I cheated on her. I doubt she told anyone she had another kid.”

“She trusts Mom.”

“Maybe she does.” Liz blows out a breath. “Or maybe not. I thought she trusted me, once.”

Elsie looks away.

“I’m sorry, Liz,” I say softly. “I didn’t know René was right about her death. I swear I never would have bothered you if I’d known.”

“Why did you bother her?” Elsie bursts out. “Why did you make me come here, too?”

My cheeks burn. “This is going to sound horrible, but Liz, I thought that you pretended she died to cover up that you’d given her away. Because—”

“Because you saw a girl who looks like she could be Annie’s daughter,” Liz finishes wearily. “You don’t think I noticed?”

Elsie wobbles on the edge of the bed, gripping the bedpost to steady herself. She’s paler than normal; her freckles bold pinpricks. “What?”

“If Toby hadn’t introduced you, I would have assumed your fae parent was Roane. You look close enough to be one of hers. You look….” Liz stares at the ceiling, voice thick with tears. “….like I imagine my daughter could have looked, if she’d lived.”

“It wasn’t only that,” I add, “Elsie, your magic is like an echo of the Roane’s—not just what you can do, but how it feels when you cast. I guess I’m attuned to that now, it’s like binding the Selkies to their skins left me with a subconscious awareness of what makes the Roane Roane. And the scent of your magic—it smells more like the Luidaeg’s than Pete’s, if I dig deep down. To be honest, I still don’t understand how you’re not the Luidaeg’s daughter.”

“I’m the daughter of Amphitrite.” Elsie’s shoulders are tense, eyes wide. “I thought you were done questioning my parentage after Mom told you herself.”

“When I smelled your magic, and your friend’s, I thought there was more to your story. You wouldn’t let me ride your blood, and Liz had a baby after dating the Luidaeg…I thought it all added up. I thought I’d figured it out.”

“She’s not mine.” Liz’s voice breaks. “She isn’t a ghost. She’s just a girl who had the future my daughter could have had. Should have had.”

And we’re stuck with absurdly unlikely coincidence as our only answer to the scent of Elsie’s magic, the shape of her power. It itches at me—I still feel like I’m missing something, but if Liz watched her baby die, she can’t be Elsie.

“I guess descendant races aren’t always so neat,” I say slowly. “My fiancé’s Cait Sidhe, they came from three different Firstborn who all had kids so similar they became one race. It’s not like there isn’t some precedent.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard about that,” Elsie says.

“Precedent for what?” Liz asks.

“Your baby, Lilianne. We’ll never know what kind of fae she would have been.” My voice catches in my throat. “But maybe…maybe she would have been a lot like Elsie.”

“Why?” Elsie stares at me.

“Because you do resemble the Roane,” I say. “I wasn’t wrong about that. Your magic feels close enough to be a sibling. Maybe, for whatever reason, Faerie wanted another similar race and wanted it now. Maybe it was never guaranteed that the Roane would return, I don’t know.” I turn to Liz. “But that could explain why you got pregnant with the Luidaeg’s child when that shouldn’t have been possible.” I turn back to Elsie. “And it could explain why your magic feels close to the Roane’s even though you’re Pete’s kid. Faerie is weird sometimes. Maybe it really wanted the Dòbhran to exist, even more than it wanted them to all come from the Luidaeg.”

It could also explain why the Luidaeg has visited Elsie so often. Why she was so scared when Elsie was hurt. Even on a raw, magical level, Elsie is an echo of her own dead children. Of course the Luidaeg would be drawn to her. Of course Elsie bleeding on the docks would remind her of the worst day of her life.

“So she really could have grown up to be like you.” Liz buries her face in her hands for several ragged breaths, before scrubbing her face with one sleeve and looking at Elsie. “I’m sorry you never got to meet her. Especially if you would have been the same kind of fae. It must be lonely, being the only one of your kind.”

“It is,” Elsie says quietly, then stands. “But I think I should go now. I need to talk to Annie.”

Liz slumps back in her chair, looking older than I’ve ever seen her. “You still believe her. Not me.”

The two of them are at a stalemate, but it will resolve easily enough once Elsie questions the Luidaeg. If we’re really both nieces of hers, she’s bound to tell both of us the truth. If truth is the only kind of closure Liz can get, I owe it to her to hear it, to make the Luidaeg say it. And Elsie isn’t even in the Luidaeg’s debt; she can bargain with her if the Luidaeg doesn’t want to answer her questions.

This isn’t how I wanted the Convocation to end. Some wounds healing, but others ripped open. Another story of a dead child. Another mother’s grief. An unanswered mystery, because I can explain a lot with “descendant races are weird” but not why Elsie’s magic smells of the wrong Firstborn.

Elsie inhales abruptly, like she’s trying to suck all the air from the room. She’s staring at nothing, looking so faint I’m afraid she’s about to topple over.

“Elsie? Are you okay?” When she doesn’t respond, I step closer, laying a hand on her shoulder. “Elsie. What’s wrong?”

She blinks at me, but her eyes are unfocused. My skin prickles, and before suspicion can do anything more than start to curdle in my stomach, she turns to Liz. “Your baby. When was she born?”

“Why?” Liz stiffens, like she’s gearing up for a fight.

“It’s important,” Elsie says, and that suspicion grows roots, plunging down to my toes. There’s only one reason why Lilianne’s birthday would matter.

“Nineteen ninety four.” Liz wipes at her eyes. “It was Samhain night. It was supposed to be a celebration.”

Elsie’s gasp shatters everything.

She stumbles towards the door, but I block her way. I understand wanting to run, when you find out everything you thought you knew is a lie. But she’s not the only one who’s world has been upended. She’s just the only one who’s realized.

“Elsie,” I say, “if this means what I think it does, you need to tell Liz.”

“Tell me what?” Liz asks.

Elsie stumbles away from me and sinks slowly back onto the edge of the bed, knees pressed together. The silence in the room burns, but finally, she breaks it.

“That’s my birthday. November 1, 1994.”

Liz flinches. “The Captain had her child on the same day?”

“No. Toby was right.”

Liz is frozen, silent. I don’t know if she understands yet. I don’t know that I do—Lilianne’s death is still unexplained—but everything is converging on one truth. The bizarre coincidences aren’t bizarre or coincidental after all.

“My magic is like the Roane’s. Even more than Toby knew, because I’m not supposed to tell people I can read futures in the blood. But this part is obvious.” Her magic rises, hot sand and sea air flooding the room, and an otter sits on the floor. Elsie hauls herself across the room, stopping before she touches Liz’s leg, and when she transforms back, she’s kneeling in front of Liz’s chair. “I keep getting mistaken for one. I even pretended to be one, when I was caught in the Mists.”

Liz’s eyes widen. “The changeling who pissed off the old queen—”

“—was me,” Elsie finishes. “I’m Dòbhran, not Roane, but no one on the land knows that. I’m a shapeshifter like the Roane and a Seer like the Roane, and I’m a daughter of Antigone, like the Roane.” Elsie takes a shaky breath. “She said she gave birth to me on that Samhain night, and she gave me to Mom to keep me safe.”

“You can’t be Annie’s daughter. She can’t have had another daughter on the same night. And you aren’t Lilianne. She died.”

Liz is pressing herself as far back in the chair as she can, like a cornered animal. I offer Elsie a hand, and when she takes it and stands, I walk her back a couple steps, giving Liz some space.

“Liz,” I say, as gently as I can. “I’m so sorry, but are you sure she died?”

“Of course I’m sure. The night haunts came for her. I buried what they left behind in the sea.”

The night haunts. I also used to believe they were absolute evidence of death, before I was spectacularly proven wrong.

“But before the night haunts came? Was she alive when she was born? Was she taken to another room at all, before she died?”

“I heard her before I passed out. I know I heard her.” Liz’s voice trembles. “But she wasn’t taken to another room. My parents were right outside the door.”

“They weren’t with you?”

“The midwife sent them away, I think.” She shakes her head, like she can’t quite remember, and I process the other part of what she said.

“You weren’t conscious?”

“I’d lost too much blood.” Liz’s eyes are unfocused, her shoulders shaking. “I wasn’t there for her. She was dying, and I wasn’t there for her, and the midwife left the room to tell my parents when she was gone, and the night haunts came for my baby, and I missed all of it. I never even got to hold her. The real her.” Her voice breaks, dissolving into sobs.

I breathe out. “So you didn’t see her die. You didn’t even see her body.”

Liz stands abruptly, glaring through her tears. “How many times are you going to make me say it? The night haunts came. They don’t come for the living.”

“It wouldn’t be the first time the night haunts have left a body for someone who never died,” I say. “They can be bargained with.”

It’s as if I’ve knocked the wind out of her. Liz freezes, eyes stretched wide, and gapes at me.

“I know one Firstborn who faked her own death that way,” I add.

Elsie stares. “Who?”

“Saying her name might attract unwanted attention, but trust me. I believed absolutely that she was dead, until she turned up again to torment me. Faking a death that thoroughly is possible, and the Luidaeg always seemed on good terms with the night haunts.”

Elsie steps back. “There’s only one Firstborn who Mom says to be careful about naming, and she’s the entire reason Annie gave me away. You think Annie did the same thing she did?” Her horror hits me in the gut, and I wish I could tell her no. The comparison repulses me, but it makes far more sense than two identical pregnancies and one neglected baby.

“There was a midwife,” Liz says. “She told my parents what happened. She saw my baby die.”

“Who was she?” I ask.

“I don’t…she must not have said her name? But why…” Liz shakes her head. “She was an older woman. Scottish accent. She moved not long after, and we could never…reach…”

The words die. The final nail in the coffin.

“A mysterious Scottish woman who disappeared without a trace,” I say.

“And she was the only one who witnessed the death,” Elsie finishes, bleak.

Liz is so pale, I’m afraid she’s on the verge of fainting. I can’t know what she’s thinking, but I imagine it’s an echo of what I felt when I emerged from the pond to discover I’d missed fourteen years of Gillian’s life.

“I’m your daughter,” Elsie says quietly. “Everything Mom and Annie said about my father—that I even had a father—was a lie. Except they said his name was Ryan, that’s how I realized. They weren’t even good at lying.”

Liz takes a step backwards, collapsing into the chair.

“You’re Lilianne,” she whispers. “Maeve’s fucking bones, you’re Lilianne, and she stole you, and she left me with a corpse.” Liz’s arms curl around her stomach, and she’s crying again, her shoulders shaking.

She’s missed more years with Elsie than I did with Gillian, and I never spent any of those years thinking Gillian was dead. I’d gladly take the pond over that.

“Annie knows what it’s like to lose a child.” Elsie’s fingers curl into a fist. “Why would she do that?”

I wrap my arm around her shoulder in lieu of an answer, because I don’t have one either. I don’t know how to unwind the hurt snaking through my own gut, because the Luidaeg is my friend and my family, and she tore a baby from her mother. A mother who’s sobbing in front of me, her entire world turned on its axis.

“Why would she lie to me?” Elsie asks, so quiet I doubt Liz can hear.

I know the hurt in her voice. She sounds like how I felt when Sylvester admitted to hiding all my mother’s secrets. Angry and shocked and unsure how to deal with the ground under her feet being yanked away.

The door bangs open, and we all jump.

The Luidaeg stands in the hall. Her eyes are black and her face is stone, and Diva Ryan hovers at her shoulder.

Chapter Text

“I said I’d let you know she was here, but she just barged in, and I couldn’t stop her, and—Mom?” Diva’s eyes go wider than should be possible, and she ducks under the Luidaeg’s arm, practically flinging herself towards Liz. “Mom, what’s wrong?

“Mom?” Elsie stumbles backwards. “She’s your mother?”

“Yes?” Diva turns, and there is no recognition in her eyes. They’ve never met, and I don’t think any of us mentioned Diva to Elsie. Oak and ash, I completely forgot to warn her.

Diva looks frantically between us. “You have to tell me what’s going on, you have to explain.”

Silence drops like a stone. No one moves, and no one speaks, and I’m gearing up to break the news to Diva when Elsie says, “Annie, tell her. Tell her who I am. Tell me.”

The Luidaeg closes her eyes, and she looks older and more exhausted than I’ve ever seen her.

“Diva.” She speaks in barely a whisper, but it carries to every corner of the room. “This is Elspeth Ryan. Your half-sister.”

Elsie’s inhale is nearly a gasp. Diva’s eyes are wider than should be possible, a green luminescence in the dimly lit room. And Liz speaks for the first time since the Luidaeg arrived.

“That isn’t what I named her.”

“I know.” The Luidaeg sounds like someone’s scraped out the inside of her throat. “You named her after me.”

“You named her after me.” A hundred different emotions are screaming in Liz’s eyes, and I don’t know how the Luidaeg can bear to meet her gaze. “She’s my daughter.”

“Yes.”

Liz’s voice breaks. “She’s Lilianne.”

“But Lilianne’s dead.” Diva looks from Liz to the Luidaeg to me, as if one of us can surely make sense of it all.

“I thought she was.” Liz wraps an arm around Diva, clutching her as if to stop the Luidaeg from making a habit of stealing daughters. “I held the body the night haunts left and buried her in the sea, and it was all a trick. Annie never stopped lying to me.”

“I lied,” the Luidaeg agrees, shifting those dark eyes from Liz to Diva. “There are powerful people out there who would destroy your sister if they could, and I needed to keep her safe.”

“You took her? And pretended she was dead?”

“It was necessary.”

“It was necessary for them to mourn me?” Elsie snaps.

“You know what’s at stake.” The Luidaeg’s magic rises around her as she whirls on Elsie, and every word is a crackle of thunder. “You know why your parentage always has to be a secret.”

“So it’s true.” Diva blurts out. “About you and Mom.”

The Luidaeg’s face goes blank, and Liz looks stricken. “How do you know about that?”

“Family? People gossip.”

“They shouldn’t have gossiped about it in front of you,” Liz says.

“I’m not a little kid.” Diva pulls away from her, and somehow, Liz’s expression shatters even more. “I don’t need to be sheltered—especially not from something like this! You should have told me about Annie.”

“I couldn’t tell you who she really was.” Liz buries her face in her hands. “She bound me, she binds all the clan leaders. And if I told you we were together when I got pregnant, you’d think the same thing the rest of the clan does. That I cheated on my girlfriend.”

I hated people keeping secrets from me, but I can’t really blame Liz for keeping this story quiet—how can you explain a relationship like that when the truth of it shrivels to dust in your mouth?

“If you didn’t cheat on her,” Diva says, “then Lilianne is—”

“—my daughter,” the Luidaeg cuts in, quiet and sharp as a blade. “Yes.”

“How?”

“I don’t know.” The Luidaeg is firm, but I’m the only one in this room she can’t lie to. Does she have to tell the full truth because I’m listening? Or can she get away with falsehoods if they’re not directed at me? “It wasn’t my magic, and it wasn’t my choice, and after all these years, I can only guess that it was one of those curveballs Faerie likes to throw. Your mother should never have gotten pregnant when we were together, but she did.”

“And you knew Lilianne was hers,” Diva says to Liz, her voice trembling. Poor kid. She doesn’t deserve having the whole, painful story dropped on her at once.

“Annie admitted it after your grandfather died,” Liz says dully. “I couldn’t tell anyone else, I couldn’t clear my name, but I knew.”

“We can clear your name now. We can tell everyone the truth,” Diva says, and as if on cue, the Luidaeg snaps her fingers, and the air in the room ripples. It whisks around my ankles like I’m caught in my own personal tornado, and from the way Diva yelps, and Elsie shouts, and Liz closes her eyes, they’ve all been caught in the magic.

“By the root and the branch, I bind you. By the leaf and the vine, I bind you. Never will you speak of Elspeth’s blood parentage, except if you are solely in the presence of those who already know that she is my daughter and the daughter of Elizabeth Ryan. By rowan and oak and ash and thorn, I bind you.”

The whirlwinds die, and I stumble to catch my balance. I expected something like this, but I still hate it, especially when the binding form so resembles Eira’s.

“I told Tybalt I’d explain everything later. He’ll know something’s wrong if I can’t tell him.” Drawing the Luidaeg’s attention back to me is probably a bad idea. Her eyes shift to abyssal blue, and a mask of anger slides over the misery etched into her skin.

She snaps her fingers again, and the whirlwinds flare up. Glaring at me, unblinking, she says, “By the root and the branch, I bind you. By the leaf and the vine, I bind you. Never will you speak of Elspeth’s blood parentage, except if you are solely in the presence of those who already know that she is my daughter and the daughter of Elizabeth Ryan, with the exception of Tybalt, King of Dreaming Cats, who may be told and upon being told, will be bound to the same silence. By rowan and oak and ash and thorn, I bind you.” She lowers her hand. “Happy?”

“No,” I say honestly.

“Neither am I.”

“You’ve never bound me before.” Elsie’s hands are squeezing fistfuls of her tunic. “Nine years I’ve known you’re my mother, and you never used magic to keep my silence.”

“Maybe I should have,” the Luidaeg says. “Maybe I should have warded the ship you were supposed to be on up and down, so you couldn’t dream of swimming back for the Convocation.”

“You sound like Amandine.” I nearly place a hand on my weapon, but that instinct wouldn’t be any use here. “She likes to keep her kids contained, too. Did you take notes from her, about keeping your daughter in the dark about her own parents?”

The Luidaeg’s eyes darken to obsidian. “You should have stayed out of this.”

“I don’t think so. Parents with missing children are exactly my business.”

“Everything I did was to protect my daughter,” the Luidaeg snarls. “In case you’d forgotten, all my other daughters were slaughtered like animals, and my sister would do the same to Elspeth given half a chance.”

“I know.” I brought the Luidaeg back to life after Eira killed her. I poured my magic into the Selkie skins, the blood of lost children and a mother’s love reshaping Faerie. Eira would go as far as she could to break the Luidaeg. “Losing another child would destroy you. But did you think about what losing a child would do to Liz?”

“And what would you have done, if Gillian was too obviously fae, and your blood wasn’t strong enough to change hers? If you asked her to Choose and by some miracle she Chose Faerie, you’d fake her death and spirit her away and leave her father in mourning, like Sylvester left yours.”

“The Changeling’s Choice doesn’t have anything to do with this,” Elsie cuts in. “Elizabeth was already part of Faerie. You never had to take me from her.”

“I couldn’t have you swimming in the coastal waters, not when my sister lived in a coastal knowe. You could have never stayed hidden among the Selkies. You would have been too obvious.”

“You didn’t have to pretend I died.”

The Luidaeg shakes her head. “No loose ends. No quests to find you. Nothing to draw attention.”

“No loose ends except me.” Liz scrubs at her face with the hand that’s not squeezing Diva close. “But a woman insisting her baby is a magical miracle is either a liar or crazy.”

The Luidaeg blinks, and her eyes are glassy green again, like they could shatter so easily. “There wasn’t another way.”

“Because this way worked out so well for you.” Elsie laughs, nearly hysterical. “No one ever found out your secrets.”

“You weren’t supposed to be here.”

“You weren’t supposed to lie to me.”

The color bleeds from the Luidaeg’s skin, turning it a ghostly white. “Lying to your children to protect them is part of being a parent. Even Titania’s own magic couldn’t touch that.”

“Just because you can lie doesn’t mean you should!” Elsie’s almost shouting, but I suspect the Luidaeg’s done something to prevent anyone outside this room from hearing. “You’re so afraid of anything bad happening to me that you become the bad things. You keep me stuck in this tiny part of the Summerlands. You give me nightmares about being flayed alive for months. You tell me all my siblings are dead, when you know I have a sister.”

The Luidaeg takes a stumbling step back, like Elsie’s punched her in the gut. “All your siblings from me are dead. That’s the point.”

“And the other side of my family doesn’t matter?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“But you decided that.” Elsie looks ready to charge at the Luidaeg, fists at her side. “You decided that when you stole me from them and never told me they existed. And I’m done.”

“Elspeth…”

“I’m done with you lying to me. I’m done with you deciding what’s best for me.”

The Luidaeg steps forward, arm outstretched, but Elsie dodges around her, backing towards the door.

“And I’m done having this same conversation, over and over again, and nothing changing.” She sets her hand on the doorknob and throws Liz and Diva a fragile look. “I’m sorry, but I can’t—”

“I love you,” the Luidaeg says, so soft. “More than anything and anyone still breathing.”

Elsie lifts her chin. “And that’s the problem, isn’t it?”

“Elspeth—”

But she’s already yanked the door open and fled into the hallway. The Luidaeg stares at the creaking hinges, like they’ll miraculously drag Elsie back—which, to be fair, might be something she can make them do. But all she does is click her fingers, and the door swings shut again.

Diva hasn’t looked away from the door, her face white. Liz crumples, shoulders shaking with fresh sobs.

“October.” The Luidaeg turns, and I know a threat when I see one.

“You won’t forgive me for this, I know.” I take a deep breath. “But I don’t know if I can forgive you, so I guess that makes us even.”

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” Liz rasps. “You found my baby. I never even knew she was missing, and you found her.”

The Luidaeg’s eyes drift to Liz, and as much as I try, I can’t picture the two of them together. Liz’s hatred burns too bright, and even in her most innocent guises, the Luidaeg is something ancient.

“You were the one who found her?” Diva asks.

“It was less finding, and more putting the pieces together,” I admit.

“What pieces?”

“Her resemblance to the Roane, magically and otherwise, her refusal to let me touch her blood, some things the husband of one of the clan leaders said about Liz’s past, a good bit of guesswork.” I hesitate. “To be fair, I didn’t guess right at first.”

“So you met her here?”

“She sort of elbowed her way into my murder investigation yesterday.”

“Your what?” Diva stares.

“I told you about Isla,” Liz says.

“Daisy told me about Isla,” Diva corrects. “But she didn’t say Toby was investigating.” Her eyes flick to the door. “Did my sister get involved because she can see the future?”

“No, not because—” I pause. Elsie came to find me because she left bite marks in the body, and she told Liz she can read the future in the blood, so Diva might be onto something. “Actually maybe a bit? But mainly because she found Isla’s body, and she’s heir to the Duchy of Ships.”

Diva freezes.

“Oberon’s balls,” Liz closes her eyes, like the weight of the world has dropped on her shoulders. “Toby, did you really have to…”

“What?” I blink.

“She’s the heir to the Duchy of Ships,” Diva repeats.

“Diva…” Liz says, but Diva stands suddenly, cheeks reddening.

“So she lives on the Duchy of Ships.” Diva clenches her hands. “She’s lived on the Duchy of Ships this whole time?”

“Yes.” Liz stares at the ground like she wants it to swallow her whole. “The Captain raised her.”

“She’s the Captain’s daughter? The one everyone’s been talking about?” Diva’s briefly stunned into silence before her anger bubbles up again. “So you were here, and Elspeth was here, and you didn’t even know. She was right there, and the Captain kept her a secret.”

“Pete didn’t know who your mother was, Diva,” the Luidaeg says wearily. “She only realized after Liz left, since she didn’t give her real name until the end.”

“So she recognized my name.” Liz takes a shaky breath. “Did she know?”

“She knew where Elspeth came from.”

“And that you took her from me?”

“Yes.”

“Sorry,” I cut in. “I feel like I’m missing something. Liz has been here before?”

“Mom met Dad here,” Diva says, her chin raised and tears leaking from her eyes. “They got married here, and Mom got pregnant with me here, and all that time, Dad must have known.”

“That’s…” My stomach drops. “Maeve’s tits, I didn’t know your dad was involved in all this, too.”

Until now, I hadn’t known for sure that Pete was involved either. Given how secretive the Luidaeg was, I wouldn’t have been surprised if she spun Pete the same story as Elsie, about a father named Ryan and giving birth herself. If she had, it would mean Elsie still had one parent who didn’t lie to her. But she didn’t, and the Captain, one of the few other Firstborn I’ve liked, is complicit in Liz’s grief.

“I don’t know that he is,” the Luidaeg says. “I’ve never spoken to him, and Pete never told anyone about Elspeth’s parentage.”

“He still lives here,” Diva snaps back. “I thought he must have moved away, since he told Mom we’re not meant to meet until I’m older, but he still has the bakery. He just left for the week. He’s avoiding me.”

The Luidaeg makes a pained noise. “He must have his reasons, Diva. I don’t know all the futures my descendants see.”

“Just because he has reasons doesn’t mean they’re good ones.” Diva crosses her arms. “He must know my sister.”

“As the Captain’s daughter, yes. They know each other.”

“And he Sees the future.” Diva turns back to Liz. “Mom, you said he knew who you were the moment you met.”

“He knew I would be the mother of his child. But that doesn’t mean…..” Liz trails off, the excuse dying in her mouth.

“Do you think he knew? About Elspeth?”

“I don’t know.”

“You’re hiding something.”

Liz squeezes her eyes shut. “He was the one who told me not to give my real name while I was on the Duchy of Ships. Why would he do that, unless he knew the Captain would recognize it?” She opens her eyes to a girl standing too still. “I’m sorry. Diva, I’m so sorry.”

“Was any of what he said true?” Her voice is small.

“I don’t know.” Liz jerks her forearm across her cheeks and reaches forward, as if to draw Diva into a hug. “Diva, I—”

But Diva stumbles away. Her breath is hiccuping faster, and she nearly trips over her feet as she backs towards the door.

“I’m going to my room.” Diva doesn’t look at any of us. When she bolts, yanking the door shut behind her, everything is so, so quiet.

And then Liz stands and whirls on the Luidaeg with more fury than I’ve ever seen from her. “Fuck you for ever coming near my family.”

“They’re my family, too,” the Luidaeg says, softer than I expect.

“Don’t you dare.” I’m afraid Liz is going to actually hit the Luidaeg, and more afraid for the consequences, but her trembling fists stay at her side. “Diva trusted you, she adored you, and I couldn’t tell her run, that’s the sea witch, she’ll never be your friend. I couldn’t save one daughter from you, and you wouldn’t let me save the other.”

“The only reason I took Elspeth was to save her. Lizzy…” The Luidaeg lifts a hand, like she might reach out and touch her.

Liz takes a step back. “I’m done hearing your excuses. Get out of my house, Annie.”

I don’t know what she’ll do if the Luidaeg refuses. I don’t really want to watch Liz throw herself against all the power of a Firstborn. So it’s a relief when the Luidaeg deflates, her shoulders slumping forward. She slips out of the door without argument, without even a glance back.

As soon as the door clicks shut for a third time, Liz’s knees buckle. She braces herself against the wall, and I cross the room, offering a hand.

She doesn’t take it. Instead, she staggers back to the chair and collapses into it, staring blankly past me.

I’m not sure if she’s still aware of anything else in this room, so it’s a surprise when she asks, “Why did you tell me?”

“What do you mean?”

“Your loyalty is with her, it always has been.” Liz jerks a thumb at the door. “But when you thought Elsie was a long-lost daughter I’d given away—half right on that, good job—you came to me.”

“Because Elsie clearly has a relationship with the Luidaeg, but you two hadn’t met until I brought her into your living room.” I shrug helplessly. “I thought you gave her away, but the Luidaeg never told you where she ended up. You had a right to know.”

“Even if Annie didn’t want me to?”

“Especially if she didn’t want you to. Liz, I know what it’s like to miss watching your child grow up. To have that taken. No one deserves that.”

She looks briefly surprised, like she’d forgotten about my fraught history with Gillian. I haven’t spoken to my own daughter since she ran away from me. Maybe she won’t ever want to be a part of my life, especially after today, but Liz still has a chance to know her daughter.

“And I know what it’s like to learn that a lot of people were lying to me about my family. It sucks, but I’m glad I found out. I wouldn’t want to still be in the dark. Elsie deserved the truth as much as you did.”

She’s still staring at me oddly, and I continue, “I know we’re not friends. But oak and ash, I’m so sorry, Liz. If there’s anything I can do…”

She slumps forward in the chair, the fight visibly leaving her body. Her hands are trembling, and I don’t know if it’s from shock or alcohol. “I don’t know what you can do. My dead daughter is alive, and my other daughter is falling apart, and the love of my life put a corpse in my arms nineteen years ago, and I just—”

“…want to be alone?”

She makes a noise between a grunt and a groan, but I get the message.

I’m on my way out, when she whispers, “Thank you.”

My chest squeezes at the forbidden words. “You’re welcome.”

I leave the room, and the hallway is the same as it’s always been. Pastel blue walls draped in shells, lovely and gentle and perfectly at odds with the pain unraveled behind them.

I head down the stairs. Even the creaking wood isn’t enough to drown out Liz’s sobs.

Chapter Text

I dive into the water, the only home that hasn’t betrayed me yet.

I’ve never seen the Duchy waters so full of seals. Two drift peacefully by me, their eyes closed, batted this way and that by the peaceful current. Their sleeping bodies move in time with the kelp and it’s beautiful and peaceful, and it’s not enough to settle the terrible energy inside me.

I breach the surface and roll over and over, expelling water from my fur before I dive again. The blue-green of the water darkens as I venture deeper.

I ignore the sights, the glowing coral reefs, the bright kelp, the twinkling sea stars. All I care about is speed, the feeling of water splitting around my paws, the rapidly changing pressure.

I’m the daughter of Antigone, First amongst the First. I’m also the daughter of Elizabeth Ryan, Selkie, descendent of the murderers. I still can’t understand how Annie loved one of them.

…Two of them. She loves me.

But if what Elizabeth and Toby say is true… She made the Selkies drown their own children. She betrayed her lover in the worst ways and left her to suffer. She stole me.

By the time I reach the limits of the Duchy, there’s a tingling in my paws and my flippers are numb. The weight of the water presses down on me, and otters aren’t creatures of the deep sea, yet I press further still.

The crackle of wards stops me. I’d been added to the wards again so I could leave for the Convocation. Has Mom removed me again because she heard about what happened from Annie?

I’m not trying to run away. There isn’t anything for me in the depths. But I’ve never resented their power, their control over me, so much before. I roll and slam into the wards again, and it hurts, a shock that jolts through my body.

I roll into them again and again, beating myself against the barriers, like I’ll somehow spontaneously become my mom’s equal through sheer stubbornness. The pain is momentary, there one moment and gone the next, and the sharpness feels like clarity.

But the dizziness becomes too much, a burn in my brain, and an instinct of self preservation makes me slow to a stop. The surface beckons, promising relief from the pressure, and I start the journey back up. The ascent is always slower, less satisfying.

I breach the surface and roll onto my back, floating as I get my breath back. My head hurts, a pounding dizziness that at least slows down my racing thoughts. A deep tiredness has taken root in my body, another cost of pushing the limits of my biology, and I just float, letting the current pull me this way and that.

A seal pup swims up to me, peering curiously. Probably trying to work out if an ordinary otter had snuck in or if they’ve forgotten a whole race. The pup is novel to me too– Selkies are always adults, and the only Roane I’d met before today was Aldridge. Faerie has baby seals again, thanks to Toby.

I squeak at it, moving one paw in a half-hearted wave, and the pup returns an excited bark, but I’ve never been less in the mood to play. Instead, I roll and swim for a dock, shifting forms.

Once I finish dragging myself up the rope ladder, I feel ready to keel over. At least this is a problem entirely of my own making, and one I know how to fix.

I move through the Duchy on muscle memory, ignoring the gossip I overhear about murders and duels, ducking away from the concern and congratulations from those who know me, until I’m once more outside the bakery.

Aldridge wouldn’t tell me why he couldn’t stay, and I’d thought it was strange. Maybe he’d foreseen this and wanted to avoid all the drama. Maybe the Convocation was always going to end like this.

The shelves are still bare, the bakery eerily empty. Remembering his note, this time I walk into the pantry.

There’s plates on the table. A platter of pastries, a plate of sliced bread, a jug of water, a pair of glasses, and a note. Elsie, save some for our guests. Aldridge’s handwriting, of course. He knew I’d be back here again. Did he know why?

I sink into a seat and devour the bread. It’s slathered in purple jam, made from Mom’s strawberries, and it’s as sweet and juicy as always. The storeroom smells like it always has, of bread and cinnamon and cocoa. But I’m different, and I don’t know if anything will ever be the same again.

I drink half the glass after the bread is finished, and it’s enough to chase away the worst of the pressure sickness. Ever-dependable Aldridge. Maybe he’s the one adult who’ll never disappoint me.

I hear the creak of a door and footsteps in the bakery. “In here,” I call. I don’t know if I’m really up to conversation, but I trust in Aldridge’s foresight.

A few moments later, Quentin peers round the door. “Oh, hey Elsie.”

I gesture to the seat next to me. “Help yourself.”

“Are you sure? It looks like the only stuff left.”

“Aldridge left it for us,” I say, showing him the note. “They were under a freshness-charm.”

“Aldridge?”

“He’s our baker. He’s Roane, so impeccable timing is a talent of his.”

Quentin blinks. “Then why wasn’t he here to see the Convocation?”

“That was intentional. He wouldn’t say why.”

“Huh.” Quentin sits down and examines the platter before taking an eclair. “But he Saw us coming here? I thought Seers Saw important stuff.”

“He’s a baker. Most of his visions are about burning the bread.”

“I guess importance is relative.”

“It says guests,” I muse. “Anyone else coming?”

“I was scouting for food for a couple of us. Toby, mainly– Tybalt thinks she hasn’t eaten enough to recover yet.”

“I think we’re failing as hosts if you’re scavenging for food in empty bakeries.”

“The Captain’s busy.” He shrugs. “But I think you failed as hosts when Torin started kidnapping people.”

I can guess what she’s busy with. I need to know if she was part of this. Maybe Annie lied to her too, maybe she really did think I had a father who never even knew I existed, maybe she didn’t steal me. But once I ask, I’ll know for sure, and I have a horrible feeling that I already know the answer. Mom never was comfortable talking about Ryan.

“Hey, I was kidding,” Quentin says. “I’m pretty sure nearly getting yourself killed in our defence counts as going well beyond the call of hospitality.”

I force a smile. “I know. It’s not that. I had a fight with my mother.”

“Oh. That’s why she’s not around?”

I take a croissant from the platter instead of replying.

“I’m sorry if we got you in trouble,” he says.

“I may be in trouble with her,” I mutter, “but she’s in even more trouble with me.”

“What did she do?”

“She’s a lying liar who lies.” I bite violently into my croissant.

Quentin blinks again, bewilderment melting into concern. “About something serious?”

“It’s got nothing to do with you or your friends. It’s nothing you have to worry about.”

“Okay,” he says. “You can tell me about it, if you want. It doesn’t matter that she’s Firstborn, if she’s doing something shitty.”

I can’t even tell him he’s thinking about the wrong Firstborn. “Yes, it does.” I meet his eyes. “They’re a law unto themselves.”

“That’s why it’s important that we at least try and hold them to account.” He tilts his head. “Is it to do with your blood magic? Does the Captain disapprove that much?”

“Well, she wasn’t wild about that part either.” If it turns out that Mom is innocent in all this, I’ll have to apologise for ruining Quentin’s opinion of her.

“It’s cruel, forcing someone not to use their own magic,” Quentin frowns. “It’s just like what Amandine did to Toby. I thought the Captain was better than that.”

“Yeah,” I say quietly. I’d already thoroughly won that argument with Mom, but that conversation feels like a long time ago now. “Not much I can do though.”

Quentin’s silent for long enough that I turn to look questioningly at him.

“Toby ran away,” he says.

“She took me off the wards again. I can’t leave.”

“I don’t like that,” he says, eyes narrowing. “I don’t like that at all.”

“That makes two of us.”

“Let me talk to Toby,” he says, standing up. “If you really want to leave, we won't leave you behind.”

“What do you expect Toby to do against the might of a Firstborn?” She might have stood up to Annie, but she'd been caught in her geas just as easily as the rest of us.

“Trust us,” he grins, “we’ve got a pretty good track record.”

“I heard Toby killed Blind Michael,” I say nervously. “That would be going way too far.”

“He was a monster,” Quentin says, and there’s steel in his voice. “That was completely different.”

Everyone calls my mother that. Monster. I always thought it was a cruelty, wished I could correct them. But she stole a baby from her lover and left her with a corpse. For fifteen hundred years, she’s forced the Selkies to drown their own children for not wanting the spoils of slaughter. Is there any other word?

“Elsie? Are you okay?”

I realise I’m shaking. “I’ll get you a to-go bag,” I mumble, jumping to my feet and heading to the basket with paper bags. I pass it to Quentin and watch him load the rest of the pastries into it.

“What do you want me to do?” he asks.

“Talk to Toby, please.” I turn away. “I’ll talk to Mom. Maybe she’ll listen to me now.”

Mom isn’t in her room. She isn’t in the lighthouse either, or at least, not in the main room.

I walk the length of the room and sit down on her bejewelled throne, trying to lounge on it like I belong there. This is the core of the Duchy, its beating heart, and it’s attuned to her in a deeper way than the rest of it. She’ll feel this invasion.

A runnel of water snakes its way across the perfectly level floor, moving with purpose and intent. It’s joined by another, and another, until tiny streams pour in from all directions, pooling together at the base of the dais. They flow into a small pond, shimmering silver as it flows up the dais steps.

The water pulses and twists upward into a column, sculpting itself into a familiar silhouette. The water surges upwards and bursts, cascading over the form of Captain Pete, my mom, in a final mighty wave.

She’s in what I think of as her most natural form, apart from how she’s still wearing legs, with no illusions to dull her glory. Her hair is braided with black pearls and small white beads of bone, styled to reveal her gills.

She stands in front of me, her eyes dancing with all the darkest colors of the sea, and for all I’ve known her my entire life, I can’t read the emotion there.

“Elsie,” she says, her voice low and bleak.

“Did you know?”

“Elsie–”

“Did you know?” I snap. “There’s only two answers.”

“Yes.”

I close my eyes tightly. I withdraw into a ball, my arms drawing around my knees. Mom knew she was raising a stolen child, and she didn’t care. She’s on Annie’s side, not mine. It’s always been about her sister, not me.

“Elsie,” she says again, tone soft and pleading, and I feel her hand on my shoulder.

“Don’t touch me,” I hiss, uncurling enough to glare.

She withdraws, stepping back.

“You knew she stole me from Elizabeth. You knew I was kidnapped.”

“Faerie is built on stolen babes,” she says. “Annie gave you to me. Children have always belonged with their First, her claim would always have superseded Elizabeth’s. She could never have kept you.”

“What a surprise, considering you and your parents made all the rules,” I scoff. “Belonged with, or belonged to?”

She looks away.

I get up, abandoning the throne, standing in front of her. She’s still nearly a foot taller than me. “Maybe by Fae standards you've done nothing wrong, but I'm still a changeling. I can have human standards too, and I thought yours were higher. You’ve always made the Duchy a place where what Faerie says doesn’t matter, where airbreathers can still live at sea if they want to, where changelings can inherit.”

“I know,” she says, and her voice is smaller than I’ve ever heard it.

“Why couldn’t Elizabeth have stayed here, with me?”

“Her whole clan would have looked for her.”

I stare at her, trying to work out if she’s being deliberately obtuse. “Annie faked my death just fine!”

Mom blinks, the colors of her eyes rippling. “I… I don’t know if she’d have been prepared to give up her whole life.”

“It kind of seems like thinking I was dead and Annie hated us ruined her whole life!”

“I– I never proposed that solution,” she says slowly. “I honestly never thought of it.”

“I don’t believe you.” I stare at her, searching for dishonesty. “I thought of that after what, an hour? You had months! You had nineteen years!”

Mom closes her eyes and sighs. When she ppens them again, they’re still that ever-shifting blue. “We fucked that up, Elsie,” she admits. “Annie was terrified, she couldn’t think straight, and I didn’t push her as much as I should have.”

“That’s it?” I can’t look away from her, her betrayal somehow growing with her every word. “You ruined their lives for years, all because you didn’t think about it hard enough? And that's all you have to say?”

“There’s nothing I can do to undo what we did. All I can be is sorry, and I am.” She stares at me, grim and solemn. “I’m sorry I lied to you all this time, and I’m sorrier still that we intended this lie to stand forever.”

“You were sorry last time it turned out I had another parent,” I snarl. “How do I even know this is the last massive lie? How do I know you’re not exaggerating about my aunt?”

Her eyes flash abyssal blue. “My bitch of a sister almost killed you via one of her pawns today, and they didn’t even know who you were. On Dad’s name, we never lied about her.”

“Is there anything else you’ve been lying about?”

She hesitates.

“There is!” I grab her wrist, as intense as a shark on the hunt. “Tell me! Tell me, or I’ll never talk to you again, because I’ll never trust you’re telling the truth.”

Her skin burns hot in my grip. I dig in with my nails. Mom’s never lost her temper with me before, but I don’t know who she is anymore, and if she hurts me, all my worst doubts will be proven.

She meets my gaze. She twists her hand in my grip so her palm is facing up and pulls her arm back, making my hand slip into hers. She took my fumbling attempt at violence and turned it into peace. Her thumb strokes the knuckles of my hand gently and I can’t bear to pull away, even as the rest of me dreads some terrible revelation.

“You should have shifted when you were younger. We held your magic back. We gave you potions that tamed it, throttled it, caged it. It broke through when you endangered yourself, and we stopped.”

I don’t say anything. I barely even breathe.

“I’m so sorry, but that’s it. I swear there isn’t anything else.”

I swallow. I pull my trembling hand away, my world once again torn asunder. Mom’s gentle assurances that one day the seas would welcome me, her lecture that using her magic would be favoritism… All the while, she was intentionally smothering my powers.

“You knew what it meant to me. How it hurt me. I was born for the water and surrounded by it my whole life and– and the magic that should have been there wasn’t. You– You held me while I cried, while I blamed myself for being born too weak, and all along, you were doing it to me!” By the end, my voice is nearly a scream.

She looks down. “I knew it was wrong.”

“Then why?”

“We weren’t sure how your powers would manifest, whether they would make it too obvious you couldn’t have come from me. Some changelings don’t fully manifest their powers until late adolescence, it seemed safer if we made sure you were one of them.”

“That’s not good enough.” My hands tighten into fists. “You keep saying we, but I’ll bet anything that means Annie, but I went along with it.”

“Yes.”

“Why does it not matter that Liz gets hurt, and me, and Diva? Why do only Annie’s feelings matter? You don’t care how much you ruin other people's lives, or how tightly you have to control me, just so long as Annie doesn’t have to feel scared!”

“That’s not true,” she says quietly.

“You were right, earlier,” I say. Her speech about how wrong it had been to try and suppress my Seer magic had been touching, I’d felt heard and understood, but weighed against all these greater betrayals, it's just another hypocrisy. “You are like Titania!”

She flinches. Her eyes are bright with hurt, and I don’t care. I want her to hurt like she’s hurt me.

She looks away, and says nothing more.

“Elspeth,” whispers a voice behind me.

I whirl around to find Annie standing there. She’s taller than usual, and her hair is the blue-black of the deep ocean at midnight, with glints of silver like fish under the waves, but she’s still in her white samite dress, impossibly spotless.

“How long have you been listening?” I ask, scowling.

“Long enough.” She lets out a deep sigh. “You should know that Pete pressed me to reconsider on both accounts. I refused.”

“I thought you were happy, when I shifted,” I say. My voice comes out small and hurt, not loud and angry like I want it to. “I thought you were proud.”

She closes her eyes for a moment. “I was never going to keep your powers contained forever.”

“I don’t believe you. Maybe that’s what you told yourself, but when would you have ever stopped being paranoid?”

“Fine. Believe what you want,” she says sharply. “Clearly, there’s nothing I can say that will stop you being furious with us.”

“You still think you haven’t done anything wrong, do you?” I ask, staring at her in disbelief. “You’re blaming Toby for telling us and me for coming back and anyone but yourself!”

“I would do worse to protect you.”

“I don’t want you to,” I say, quietly. “I don’t want your protections anymore. Either of you.”

“You don’t mean that,” she says, but her eyes go white from side to side.

“I do.” I lift my chin, meeting her strange seafoam stare. “I want to leave. I know I can’t unless you let me, but Toby’s here. Would you stand against her?”

“I don’t have to,” she hisses. “Toby’s in my debt. She promised to do the next thing I asked of her, no matter what.”

“And you expect she’ll just forgive you after?”

“Toby’s always needed me more than I do her. No other Firstborn has to answer her calls.”

“Oh, so you have other friends?”

It’s a low blow. There’s a spark of anger in her voice as she says, “You’re my child, Elspeth. I have every right to keep you where you’ll be safe.”

I glare at her. “And I have every right to never forgive you.”

Annie stares back at me, wounded and angry, like I’m the one who’s betrayed her.

Mom clears her throat. “Let’s not say anything we can’t take back, shall we? Also, Toby’s been knocking.” She clicks her fingers and the door falls open, revealing Toby standing there.

Toby walks forward to meet us, a grim expression on her face. She looks out of place amongst my parents in their godly guises, a changeling knight wrapped in a leather jacket like it’s her armor.

“What are you doing here?” Annie demands. “Haven’t you interfered enough?”

“Elsie asked for my help,” she says, withstanding her glare. She looks to me. “You want me here, right?”

I nod, moving back so I’m standing next to her. I can handle defying my mothers, but having someone on my side is welcome. “I want to leave the Duchy.”

“And go where?” Annie’s voice is as cold as a winter storm.

“She can stay with me as long as needed,” says Toby. “I have the room.”

I look at her in surprise. “Are you sure?”

“Elsie, I started all this,” she says earnestly. “I’d be the biggest kind of jerk if I blew up your whole life and left you to figure the rest out yourself.” She smiles. “Plus, you know, solidarity between children of lying Firstborn.”

I smile hesitantly back.

“Do you really think I'm anything like your mother?” Annie asks quietly. “She neglected you, she didn’t protect you.”

“She’d probably say she was protecting me from the prophecy you like being vague as shit about. Honestly, right now, you’re kind of acting like Janet.”

Annie snarls wordlessly, brackish water and a world of foreign scents coalescing around her. “Compare me to her again and I’ll gut you like a fish.”

Toby flinches. She can’t lie to Toby. She can’t make threats she doesn’t intend to follow through on.

I’ve never seen my mother act like this before. I look to Mom, expecting her to at least admonish Annie, but she just looks neutral, like a death threat you’re magically compelled to follow through on is perfectly normal.

“I want to stay with Toby,” I say.

“She’s a hero of the realm,” Annie says, still emanating quiet fury, her magic hanging sharply in the air. “You don’t understand what that means. Her life is stumbling from one crisis to the next, the blood and chaos on the Duchy these past few days is normal to her. You won’t be safe there.”

“It’s not like I was suggesting taking her on as a squire.”

“It’s not long ago that your mother kidnapped your skinshifter roommate and your fiance.”

Toby winces.

“What about Half Moon Bay?” Mom asks suddenly.

Annie swings to face Mom, her voice low and dangerous. “What about Half Moon Bay?”

“If I’m going to send my heir to live somewhere else, Half Moon Bay makes a lot more sense than the spare room of a hero of the realm. The return of the Roane changes the balance of power in the Undersea. Sending Elsie there on fosterage wouldn’t raise eyebrows.”

She glares at Mom. “Sending her to live with a clan of brand new Roane, curious about their new magic and primed to notice the odd similarities between themselves and a supposed daughter of yours? That’s no better.”

Do I want to live at Half Moon Bay? The idea gives me pause. I could never have lived with a clan of Selkies, does it make a difference now they’re all Roane? And Elizabeth hated me until she found out the truth. Probably she’d accept me moving there now, but would that just be out of spite to Annie, and not because she actually wants to know me?

She turns back to me. “Elspeth, I know Elizabeth loved you, but she could have never have kept you safe, and she still can’t.”

“You say I’m a child in need of protecting,” I say, “but I’m nineteen. What does that make Elizabeth, when you met her?”

She blinks. “Humans age differently. Their lives are so fleeting.”

I stare at her, hardly able to believe the words are coming from Annie, who had always said my human heritage was nothing to be ashamed of. “And that makes it okay to toy with them?”

“Bullshit,” Toby says. “Humans can still be young and impressionable, and you are basically her First. I didn’t think you were the kind of Firstborn to make them your playthings.”

Annie looks bewildered. “I wasn’t taking advantage of her. I loved her. Do you understand how rare that is?”

“If you loved her, how could you hurt her like that?” I ask, staring at Annie, silently begging her to somehow explain it, to make it all okay. “How could you let her grieve for me? How could you let people gossip about her and think she cheated on you?”

“Elspeth,” she says, her voice barely above a whisper, “you’re so young. You’ve never truly lost anything before. I did it for you.”

Tears prick at my eyes. “So it’s my fault?”

“It isn’t,” Toby says fiercely. “You’re not responsible for something she did when you were a baby.” She glares at my mother. “Will you let Elsie live at Half Moon Bay?”

The idea of living there still fills me with trepidation, but if it’s the only one Mom will support, I’m willing to take the risk of living with a parent who doesn’t actually want me. “If people get curious about our similarities, I can tell them it’s like the Cait Sidhe or whatever it was Toby was talking about. My aunt’s asleep. You don’t want me to go because it still scares you, but that’s not my problem.” I lift my chin. “I’m not scared.”

Antigone of Albany stares at us. Her eyes are black now, the eyes of a monster. I’ve never missed my mother’s gentle green eyes so much. The smell of her magic, ancient and wonderful and terrible, strengthens around us and it takes all I have not to flinch away from her.

“Everyone who knows– excepting Pete– descends from my mother or my father,” she says. “It’s within my power to meddle with your memories. I can make this whole day vanish.”

I inhale sharply, truly, genuinely scared of my mother for the first time in my life. “Mom,” I blurt out, looking to the Captain. “Please.”

Mom sighs. She moves slowly, like every century she’s lived is weighing her down, and stands in front of me, facing her sister. Choosing my side, not hers. “Annie, the tide’s gone out. Only a fool tries to call it back.”

“You agree with them?” she asks. There’s betrayal in her eyes and accusation in her voice, an undertow of danger lurking beneath her quiet words.

“You’ve always loved your parents, Annie,” Mom says softly, “even with all the ways they failed you. You think children will always understand our mistakes and imperfections, eventually. But I know that some bonds, once fractured, are never restored.”

Her magic rises ever higher, crackling in the air, for all that she can’t possibly let it touch Mom. “Are you comparing me to your mother?” By the end, her voice has twisted into a shriek, shrill like the cry of a Banshee.

“I’m saying that Elsie might not be an adult, but she’s old enough that we ought to respect her wishes, where we can. This is the harvest we’ve sown, Antigone. If you bury it, if it ever grows back, she’ll never trust us again. Not allowing your child to grow beyond what you want them to be is what my mother did, and I know you know that, because you’re the one who taught me what parents owe their children.”

Annie stays frozen for a long moment, glaring at Mom, her magic a tidal wave hanging above us. Then all the anger seeps away from her. She slumps, all the certainty leaving her shoulders, and bursts into tears.

I always end up making my mother cry and it never stops making me feel guilty.

Annie disappears in a sudden release of steam. I stare at the mist, watching as it fades away.

Mom turns to look at us, but still no one speaks. Eventually, she says, “You’d better get packing.”

“She’ll let us leave?” Toby asks cautiously. “With Elsie?”

“She’ll have to,” Mom says, her voice full of sorrow. “She can’t defy me.”

Chapter Text

Forget packing. I need to get back to my cabin so I can curl up somewhere quiet and dark, and fall to pieces. The foundations of my world are shattered, and yet the sky is a cheerful purple, the Duchy is alive with laughter and music and dancing, and I want to scream.

Both my mothers betrayed me. The hurt isn’t gone, but my fury is. I’ve hurt them like they hurt me, and I don’t feel any better. I just feel awful.

I’m standing, once again, in front of the house that belongs to the Ryan clan. Yesterday already feels so long ago.

Elizabeth hadn’t liked me at all before. To be fair, the feeling had been mutual. She’d been a bitter Selkie, angry with the sea witch for reasons I couldn’t have understood.

I’m the baby she lost, but I’m half-grown already, raised by her enemies, and she isn’t exactly the picture of mental stability. I might be nineteen years too late.

I knock on the door.

A teenager with hair the color of sun-bleached driftwood answers the door. “Hello?”

“Hi. I need to speak to Elizabeth Ryan.”

“Sorry,” she says. “She’s really busy at the moment.”

“I’m Elsie. I’m the Captain’s daughter,” I say, and for the first time, those words stick in my throat. “It’s important Duchy business, and it can’t wait.”

“Nice name. I’m Elsa,” she says, smiling. “I can get Tara? She’s handling things while Liz is, um, busy.”

She must be a cousin of mine if she’s with the Ryans, and it’s not done to have such similar names in a family, but of course none of them knew my real name, or that I lived longer than a minute, so I can’t really take offense. “It has to be her. I don’t care that she’s drunk.”

Elsa blinks. “Umm. Okay?” She steps aside uncertainly. “I think she’s upstairs, first door on your left?”

“Great,” I say. I have no further niceties left in me so I dodge around her and head upstairs, repeating the journey I’d done only a little while ago with Toby, back when everything still made sense.

I rap gently at the bedroom door. “Elizabeth?”

There's silence for several moments. I strain to hear, but no one's moving inside. I knock louder, calling “Elizabeth?”

There’s a clinking sound, followed by slow footsteps. The door opens, and Elizabeth stares at me like she’s not quite sure I’m real. The skin around her eyes is puffy and red, and her hair is a tousled mess.

“Elsie?” She blinks slowly. “Why are you here?”

“Hi,” I say awkwardly. I feel like an intruder. “Can I come in?”

She frowns. “You’re allowed to talk to me?”

“Yes,” I say firmly, though it’s more complicated than that. Annie doesn’t want me here, doesn’t want me to ask the question I need to ask.

She stares at me for a long moment. The look in her eyes is something that I can only describe as something between weariness and wariness. Then she abruptly steps aside, a sudden energy to her movements. “Come in, come in, before they change their minds.”

I step in, closing the door behind me. The room is mostly as I’d left it, though the smell of alcohol in the air is stronger now. I perch on the end of the bed like before, tapping my toes nervously on the floor.

Elizabeth doesn’t sit this time. She stands before me, staring at me like she’s seeing me for the first time. Or maybe, like she’s trying to find the child she remembers in me, to fathom how the baby she lost could become me.

I look down, uncomfortable under the scrutiny.  

“I don’t know what to call you,” Elizabeth mumbles. “Toby called you Elsie. But Annie called you Elspeth.”

And you called me Lilianne. It could never be my name now, it sounds like someone else, and I like my own. But it feels unfair that Annie got to decide what to call me all on her own.

“It’s Elsie most of the time. If someone’s calling me Elspeth, usually I’m in trouble or it’s about something serious. Except Annie. She never calls me Elsie.”

She nods slowly. She doesn’t look any more sure of which one to use.

“I want to leave the Duchy.”

Elizabeth blinks. “What?”

“They can spend their lives being paranoid, but I’m not scared of the shore.”

Her eyes—those bright Roane eyes—widen further. “No.”

She grabs my arms, and it’s the first time she’s ever touched me. She looks briefly overwhelmed, as if the same thought has occurred to her. “They’ll be angry.” Her grip tightens; she’s squeezing me. “If you try to go. They’ll—” She shakes her head, as if she can’t quite think of what they’ll do. “They’re Firstborn.”

She’s known me for all of five minutes and she’s already being protective, so I guess it’s not just a Firstborn thing. It feels weird. She’d hated me before, when she’d thought I was just the Captain’s daughter, and now she wants to protect me from said Captain.

I pull my arms away. “The Captain says I can leave. Toby helped me convince her. She said they won’t leave the Duchy without me, if I don’t want to stay here.”

Elizabeth gives me another blank stare. “Why would Amphitrite let you go? She took you. They took you, for years. They wouldn’t let you go.”

I bite my lip. “I don’t know. Annie was going to wipe our memories. I begged Mom to help, and she stopped her. She said I could go, and Annie isn’t allowed to fight her.”

Elizabeth’s eyes fill with tears, and she pulls me close, wrapping her arms around me. I freeze in surprise. The smell of alcohol on her breath and sweat on her skin is sharp and unpleasant, but I hold my breath and hug her back. Anything else would be cruel.

“I should have known you weren’t…I should have found you sooner,” she whispers. “I couldn’t have gotten you away, but I could have tried. I should have tried.”

“You didn't do anything wrong. You're supposed to trust midwives.”

Her breath hitches, and she lets me go like I’ve burned her.

“Sorry.” Elizabeth wipes at her face. “You don’t know me. I shouldn’t…”

“You could get to know me,” I blurt out.

She blinks. “Where…Where would you be living on shore?”

“Toby said I could stay at hers, but they didn’t like that plan.” I fidget, threading my fingers together, not looking at Eliza—at my mother. “But the Captain liked the plan of me going to live at Half Moon Bay.”

Elizabeth stares at me, slack with shock.

“I—I know I didn’t make the best impression before,” I say quietly. “But I want to know you and my—my sister.” I stumble over the last part a little. It's hard to conceive of a living, breathing sibling after so long of thinking of my slaughtered ones.

“You…” She presses her hand to her mouth, shock in her eyes, before shaking her head. “It’s a trick. She wouldn’t let me.”

“Annie can’t fight the Captain.” I raise my chin, burning with the need to prove that I can choose my own future. “And if M—the Captain changes her mind, I’ll never talk to her again. I’ll—” I stop, realizing what my biggest bargaining chip is. “If she won’t let me go, I’ll ask Toby to give me the Choice, and I’ll choose human. Then I won’t even be Annie’s daughter anymore.”

“Don’t.” Elizabeth grabs my wrist, her nails biting my skin. Her breath wheezes in and out, rapid. “Don’t ever walk away from the sea. I can’t watch you drown.”

Her intensity comes with none of the magnetism my other mothers have, but it’s no less affecting. Of course Selkies would fear that for their children more than anything.

But my parents—my Firstborn parents—want nothing less than immortality for me. I’m sure they'd cave instead of calling my bluff.

A knock at the door startles us both, jolting my arm out of her grip.

“Who's there?” I ask, suspicious.

The door opens, revealing my mom—the Captain. It feels unfair that she gets to be Mom, when the mother I was stolen from is still just Elizabeth to me. She's in her usual guise again, complete with piratical outfit.

“Elsie?” She blinks in surprise, her gaze shifting to Elizabeth. “I can come back later.”

Elizabeth pales. She shrinks under the Captain’s eyes in a way she hadn’t under Annie’s, but she takes a few wobbly steps forward anyways, like she’s trying to put herself between us.

“What do you want?” she asks, hollow.

The Captain steps in, closing the door behind her, and says nothing for a long moment. She’s hesitating, more uncomfortable than I’ve ever seen her.

“This isn’t for your benefit,” she says, looking towards me, though she doesn’t quite meet my eyes. “I didn’t know you would be here, but I won’t ask you to leave.”

“Elizabeth,” she says, her attention switching. “I’ve wronged you, and I’m sorry. When I welcomed you to my Duchy, I didn’t know.”

“You did,” Elizabeth says, bitter. “You did know. Annie said you knew. Not who I was, but you knew—you knew what you did.”

She sighs. “Yes. I knew Elsie was taken from her human mother. I don’t rightly know what I would have done if I’d known who you were, but to present myself as an ally while knowing that I had your child would have been perverse.”

“But kidnapping is fine?” I mutter. I don’t quite know what they mean. All the Selkies were welcomed to the Duchy with the Convocation, but this kind of sounds more personal? It feels a little like I’m intruding on a private conversation, but I am the topic right now.

“Everyone who’s ever played faerie bride in the past few centuries has either stolen their child, or killed them,” she says, still ignoring me as she walks to stand in front of Elizabeth. "You can hate us for making you mourn, for not giving you a chance to be part of Elsie's life. I think that was a mistake." Her eyes darken to the colour of the lightless sea, and though she isn't talking to me, I can't look away. "But if you could live in a world where you raised her at Half Moon Bay, you'd beg us to take it back."

"You know the story of the Selkies, but some details have been lost to time, some rumours too dangerous to repeat," she says, a distant storm rumbling in her voice. "Your ancestors, the ones who murdered my nieces and nephews, they didn't come up with it on their own. Do you know who told them where to find the rookery? Who put the knives in their hands and promised them they'd find immortality in the slaughter of seals?"

I step forward, stopping at Elizabeth's shoulder with a frown. This sounds like the beginning of a pitch to convince her that it's too dangerous for me to leave the Duchy, but I know better than to interrupt this story. 

Elizabeth shakes her head. She doesn’t speak, doesn’t stand in front of the swelling tide of the Captain’s tale either.

"My sister. Your ancestors were little more than her weapons, used and tossed aside. She killed the Roane because they saw the future, because they were children of Maeve, and I think, most of all because they made Annie happy."  

"My sister lived barely thirty miles from Half Moon Bay, a Countess of the Mists. She would have heard of a Roane child with magic no one could explain. She'd have come to your beach. She was born for blood as I was born for the sea, and it would be the work of a moment to taste the balance of blood in the air. Maybe someone remembers seeing a woman with skin as white as snow leading a child away. Maybe you're left with nothing more than footprints in the sand, and a tide that's coming in."

I've heard it all before, but I still shiver.

It takes a while for Elizabeth to process the story, fear and confusion swimming in her eyes. Finally, she shakes her head again. “That’s not right. There’s no Firstborn in the Mists. No other Firstborn.” She squints. “And the only Countess that close died. Years ago.”

The Captain meets her eyes. “Did she?”

“Remember what Toby said?” I ask quietly. “About a Firstborn who bargained with the night haunts to fake her own death? We’re not meant to say her names, but Toby confirmed we were thinking about the same one.”

“She’s elf-shot, currently,” says the Captain. “But she’s powerful even amongst the First, only Annie can equal her, she’s still dangerous asleep. She used my own descendant to disrupt the Convocation. She almost killed Elsie today by accident.”

Elizabeth’s eyes widen, and she stumbles sideways, like the Captain is yanking at the ground under her feet once again. “What? Almost killed?”

“Torin was going to kill Gillian, so I dueled him until the Captain came back,” I say. “It, uh, wasn't going well.”

“He fractured her skull,” she says sharply. “If Annie hadn’t been there to heal her… He came here at my sister's urging, but luckily she only knows of Elsie as my daughter and heir.”

Elizabeth whips around to look at me, her eyes skittering back and forth over my face, like she’s looking for a wound.

“So.” She pauses, visibly struggling to string a sentence together. “So. You took her to keep her safe? But you didn’t.” Her voice cracks. “You didn’t even do that.”

The Captain sighs. “Yes, I failed today. She wasn’t meant to be here, she was meant to be away from all this chaos, but she chose to come back, and that was the consequence.”

“Is this you going back on your word?” I ask, scowling. “Saying that it isn’t safe for me to be at Half Moon Bay?”

“This is me making sure Elizabeth understands what’s at stake. Annie laid a geas on you, but if the lie is to stand, we need you both to want that.” She focuses on Elizabeth again. “I need you to accept that she is only safe if the world knows her as my daughter. My sister has never targeted my children, and she wouldn’t risk a war among the First by starting now. I can still raise hand against her, and I have legions under the sea who were born for battle and worship me in my absence. Blood is all she respects, and she assumes all hearts alike.”

“So why haven’t you killed her?” Elizabeth glares, voice raw. “If you’re so powerful. If Elsie would be safe.”

“She’s always been powerful in her sleep, and she slumbers far from the sea. I’m not sure I could kill her, and I’m not willing to gamble. It would only take a drop of my blood and some curiosity, and she’d know who I was protecting.”

That’s something I haven’t fully understood myself, and it’s hard to imagine the Captain being beaten by a sleeping sister.

“It’s risky for Elsie to live with you so soon after the Clans have learned who your lover really was, when she shares so much with the Roane.” She glances at me. “And telling people we’ve had a fight is not helping.”  

“Then lay a geas to stop me saying a bad word about you,” I challenge.

The Captain looks away.

“I can’t tell if you’re lying.” Elizabeth shakes her head helplessly. “Elsie said that… Toby said the Countess isn’t dead. So maybe that’s true. But the rest of it…everyone’s always lied to me. And I always stupidly believed them.”

She presses her hands to her temples for a long, quiet moment, and then barks out a hysterical laugh. “I don’t want to be stupid again. But I don’t want to put her in danger. So in case it’s true, I have to say no, she can’t come home.”

“See, if you’d just told the truth from the beginning, none of this would have happened,” I mutter, glaring daggers at the Captain. If they’d convinced her I wouldn’t be safe at Half Moon Bay, she’d have let them take me, and she could have come for visits, or even lived here.

Elizabeth doesn’t seem to hear me. “Except Elsie said she’d rather die than stay, so what the fuck do I do now?”

The Captain stares at me, a storm swirling in her eyes and a faint hint of ozone in the air. “Did you?”

I blink, startled. I hadn’t said that. I’d said I’d rather be human, and maybe that means the same thing to Elizabeth? But it shouldn’t, she’s a Selkie, she was born human. “I… I said I’d Choose human? If you wouldn’t let me go, and I could convince Toby to do her blood-magic thing.”

For a moment, there’s only silence and the stillness of air before a storm. “No,” she says, and her voice is quiet thunder. “This is still my Duchy, and that is one act of blood magic I will not allow.”

I stiffen, wary of her anger in a way I’ve never been before.

Maybe she notices, because her tone softens. “Some Choices can never be taken back. They should never be made to please another, or to spite them. That way lies a path of regret and rue. I won’t sit by and watch you repeat my mistakes, little otter.”

“Your mistakes?” Elizabeth spits. “You’re pureblood. You never gave up the sea. You can’t.”

“I can’t,” she agrees. Her voice is calm, but in the way the sea can appear gentle, while hiding a fierce undertow. “But once, I was asked to choose if I belonged to Titania or to Oberon. I chose poorly, and I can never take it back.”

Elizabeth stares blankly back. “So? That didn’t hurt you. You didn’t die from that choice.”

The Captain’s eyes flash with the color of the deepest depths. “You’ve never met my mother,” she says darkly. “Count yourself lucky for that.”

“It’s still got nothing to do with the Changeling’s Choice.”

“Who do you think made that bullshit up?” She shakes her head. “And even if Toby did make her human, she wouldn’t be killed, there’d be no risk to our secrecy.”

“Obviously. She’d kill herself, you know that,” Elizabeth says, choked.

“What?” The Captain stills, true blackness enveloping her eyes. “Why would she do that?”

“I didn’t say I’d do that,” I add, alarmed.

“You…” Elizabeth’s eyes swim with tears as she looks back and forth between us, before settling on me. “You have Selkies here. You know what happens when they leave the sea.”

“Plenty of former Selkies have lived out their natural lives on the Duchy,” the Captain says, frowning. “But I have heard of that happening elsewhere.”

“You’re my daughter,” she whispers, reaching out to grip my arm. “You’re Selkiekin. Toby would make you all Selkiekin. Selkiekin who give up the sea have to go far, far away from the water, or they drown. Maybe it’s an accident. Mostly it’s not.” Tears streak her cheeks. “You wouldn’t be lucky. You couldn’t live by the water, after. You burned for the sea before you were born. I know that. I felt it. You’d drown yourself trying to go back.”

“Oh,” I say quietly. I hadn't given much thought to living as a human, only that so many people manage it that it must be possible. “I remember… I mean, I remember how it felt when I was a kid, before my magic…” the words came through die on my tongue. “Broke through.”

“Then we’re all agreed,” says the Captain. “No one’s turning Elsie human. No one’s turning Elsie anything, until she’s of age.”

I nod tightly. Elizabeth breathes out and lets go of my arm.

The Captain draws in a deep breath and releases it, her eyes settling on a brighter, kinder blue. "Elizabeth, what I came here to say was that if Elsie's going to leave with you—and I have no want to keep her against her will—it needs to happen in a way that doesn't make people wonder about your past. This needs to be a fosterage, something political. The return of the Roane changes the balance of power in the Undersea, people will believe I want to keep an eye on that. That I've sent Elsie with you to keep me informed, and to prepare her for her future position."  

I don't want the others to think I'm some kind of spy, but I know that I'm lucky they're letting me go at all. There isn't any point in protesting.

"You understand that means you can't act like her parent in front of your clan? She has to be an outsider foisted on you by a Firstborn, not your lost daughter."

Elizabeth stares oddly at the Captain, like she’s not really taking in what she’s saying. “Why would you let her go? After all this?” She gestures vaguely, as if to sum up the whole conversation. “I don’t understand that.”

“Because if I keep her against her will now, she’ll never forgive me. If she’s determined to do this, I want to minimize the risk, not take away her freedom.”

Elizabeth doesn’t look like she trusts the Captain, but she nods slowly, her shoulders slumping. “No one will figure it out. Not from me.” Her brow furrows. “But Diva is her sister. They shouldn’t have to be distant.”

“In public, they can be friends, and sisters in private. Diva was a Roane in a clan of Selkies. She knows something of what it might be like, to be a Dobhran in a rookery of Roane. It’s believable they would become close. And they both know Aldridge.”

“Diva doesn’t know Aldridge,” Elizabeth snaps. “She’s never met him. She probably won’t ever meet him. He lied about so much, why not that too?”

“There’s nothing he wants more than to meet her,” she says, tilting her head. “I’ve known him for a long time. He’s been waiting to meet her since before even I met him, long before her arrival was certain. Nothing less than death would have him miss it. What did he lie about?”

“Wait,” I say, looking between them. “Aldridge’s daughter is Diva? He’s been the father of my sister this whole time?” It seems obvious now. How many Roane changelings with Selkie mothers can there be in North America?

“Yes?” Elizabeth blinks, and her eyes widen. “You didn’t know.”

“No.” My mouth is dry. “No one mentioned that.”

The Captain winces. “Diva’s parentage was never a secret. I forgot you might not know that Elizabeth is Aldridge’s wife.”

How would I know? I want to snap, except Aldridge had talked about her. His daughter’s mother. It’s plausible I’d be aware of the connection—except he never did say her name.

“He had to know about you,” Elizabeth says to me, “He wouldn’t let me tell anyone my real name the whole time I was here. He was keeping me a secret from the Captain.”

She turns to the Captain. “That’s what he lied about. He said he was so sorry I’d lost my baby, when he knew. And I’m won’t take your word that he cares about Diva. That she wasn’t just some fucked up attempt to stop feeling guilty for Elsie. You’ve lied just as much.”

“What?” I stare at her. “He couldn’t have. He wouldn’t…” I trail off. I would have thought it impossible that my parents were hiding something this important only a few hours ago. I can’t trust anyone to be who they seem, so I start thinking about everything he told me about his daughter. “He said I’d know his daughter one day. That our futures were connected? And he never thought it was weird when I asked a lot about how Seer powers work. I thought he might know about Annie.”

“If he knew all this time…” Tears sting in my eyes again and I struggle to hold them back. “Everyone was lying, you all knew.”

“Elsie, I'm not so sure he did,” says the Captain, and I hate the gentleness in her voice. “It's possible, but I know that your existence has nothing to do with Diva. Around when you arrived, Diva became less tangible, less assured, until Elizabeth actually visited.”

I don’t know why she thinks the idea that I’d almost stopped my possibly prophesied sister from existing will make me feel better.

“Don’t,” Elizabeth says, but there’s no force behind it, only exhaustion. “Don’t defend him.”

She drags a hand through her already messy hair and blinks at the Captain with too wide eyes. “I want you to leave. I can’t tell you to, you’re…” She seems to search for a word before giving up. “…you make the rules. But I want you to leave.”

The Captain stares at Elizabeth for a long moment, unblinking. Finally, she bows her head slightly. “Keep her safe,” she says, simply.

Her gaze turns to me. It hits me then that I’m not going to see her again for a very long time. I want to hug her. I want to glare at her until she leaves. I split the difference, staring blankly back at her.

“I hope the shore proves the adventure you’ve dreamed of,” she says, and her tone is earnest. Despite everything, her words make me feel guilty for leaving.

The Captain—I keep trying to call her that, but she’s always going to be Mom, isn’t she—leaves, quietly shutting the door behind her.

All the tension goes out of my shoulders. I’m trembling, my feelings a confusing haze. I can go, but Elizabeth still can’t be my mother. I can go, but Aldridge betrayed me too. I can go, but I have to leave everything and everyone behind.

The door to my cabin is ajar, which immediately puts me on edge. Someone—Torin—had invaded my room, hiding a stolen skin in my own wardrobe. I kick the door open, one hand on the bands around my wrist.

Rhona looks up from where she’s perched on the bed. “Elsie!”

“What’re you doing here?” I ask bluntly as I step into my room, lowering my guard but not relaxing. I’d wanted just a moment to myself.

“You said you were just going to be a minute and then you disappeared for ages. After everything that's happened, I was worried!”

“Oh.” I wring my hands, trying to think of an excuse. “Sorry. I had a fight with my mother.”

“Because you came to the Convocation when you weren’t meant to and got yourself injured?”

“Something like that.”

“You did say you wouldn’t ever do it again, after how Operation: San Francisco ended.”

“This was different,” I snap. “It wasn’t for fun!”

Rhona raises her hands in surrender. “Hey, don’t bite my head off.”

“I’m leaving.”

“This is your room. You can kick me out.”

I take a breath. “No, I mean. I’m leaving the Duchy.”

Rhona blinks. Then, very quietly, she says, “Elsie, you can’t. I can’t—I won’t cover for you again, not after what happened last time.”

“Mom says I can go. I’m going to live on shore with the new Roane.”

“What?” She stares at me. “I don’t understand. This is all over one fight?”

I slump into my wooden chair. “It was a very big fight.”

Rhona fidgets. “Are you sure you’re not going too far here? You’ll probably feel differently about it in the morning.”

“This isn’t something you forgive overnight.” I stare at the dark wood of the floor. “It’s the sort of thing you maybe never forgive at all.”

“She’s your mom,” Rhona says. “She loves you, she does her best.”

No, she isn’t, is what I try to say. The words turn to ash in my mouth and for a moment, I can’t breathe. Annie’s magic strangled the words out of me and there’s not even a fight to be had, my magic can’t even try to resist it.

Like how she’d stolen May’s memories so easily. What’s to stop her from going through with her threat and taking my memories of today, making me forget everything they’ve done? I don’t know if Mom could undo that. Annie could imprison me forever here and I wouldn’t even know myself a captive.

“Elsie, calm down.” Rhona’s at my side all of a sudden, her hand on my shoulder. “You’re breathing too fast. You’ll panic.”

She’s right. I’m on the brink of hyperventilating as I focus, forcing myself to take long, slow breaths.

“What happened? This wasn’t just an argument.”

“She hurt me,” I whisper.

“What? How?”

“With her magic.”

Rhona’s eyes shine with worry. “Has—Has she done it before?”

I think of my childhood spent worrying about why my magic hadn’t manifested yet, oblivious to its sabotage. “Yes.”

She doesn’t say anything for a while. “I thought she was nice.”

“She’s a good liar.”

“And you’re sure you want to leave?”

“No,” I whisper. “Of course I’m not sure. The Duchy is all I’ve ever known.”

“Then stay, please,” Rhona begs. “We can sort it out. Whatever the Captain is doing, we can make her stop. She listens to people, like Rodrick and Aldridge, and they listen to you.”

“I can’t. I can’t explain, and I’m sorry, but… something was stolen from me, and I have a chance to get it back, and there might never be another one again.”

“From where? Where are you even going?”

“Half Moon Bay.”

“Oh,” she blinks. “That’s where we used to go, when we had trips to San Francisco.”

“Was it nice?”

“Sure. Their home is like a Duchy of Houses.”

“What’s that mean?”

“You’ll get it when you see it.” She bites her lip. “I’m really gonna miss you.”

I throw my arms around her, hugging her tightly. “I’ll miss you. And Aila and Niall and Ronan, and Maritza and Rodrick and Gwen and Roselle and Freya, and everyone.” The rest of my composure breaks and I burst into tears.

Rhona hugs me back, sniffing back tears herself. If she notices Aldridge's omission, she doesn't say anything. “I wish you didn’t have to go. I wish you could tell me what’s going on.”  

When I finally regain control of myself, I pull away, wiping tears from my face. “My ship’s leaving soon,” I mumble. “I haven’t even packed.”

“You won’t be able to say bye to Aila?”

I shake my head regretfully. “Her ship won’t be in for days yet.”

“You’ve got to at least write her a letter. Explain it, preferably better than you did to me.”

“I should,” I agree. But I don’t make any move to start on the letter or to pack.

Rhona sighs and half-drags me over to my writing desk. “Letter, now. I’ll help you with the packing.”

I dip my pen in ink and start writing on a piece of parchment. “You’re a better best friend than I deserve.”

“Will I still be your best friend?” she asks. “When you’re at Half Moon Bay and I’m here.”

“Of course. We can write. You could visit.”

“You couldn’t visit here?”

“No,” I sigh. “No, I couldn’t.”

“Elsie,” she murmurs, “what did Pete do?”

I just shake my head and keep writing my letter.

Rhona gives up and starts packing my clothes away in my new suitcase. It was meant to be for my trip to Atlantis, my reward for being good, and the reminder makes my heart twinge.

“Are you taking your otter?” She asks. “It won't fit, but you could carry it.”

I glance back to my bed. The life-size otter plush Annie had got me for my first birthday after my transformation still guards my pillows.

“No,” I say. “I'll leave it.”

My eyes sting with tears, and I tell myself it’s the fault of the fierce wind. I’m sitting on my suitcase, waiting by the Blackbird, under a pale, clouded sky.

“Are the ships going to sail?”

I look to my right to see Dean frowning at the frothing sea. “Why wouldn’t they?”

“It looks like it’s going to storm.”

“It only storms here if Amphitrite wants it to.”

Dean hesitates. “Quentin said you two had a falling out, that you might be leaving, and you’re waiting here with a suitcase. Seems like she might want it to.”

“Yeah,” I sigh. Annie has just as much control over the waves, so it could be her too, or both of them. “I’m hoping she’ll stick to her word.”

“The thought of my First being mad at us is frankly terrifying,” he says. “But I’ll stand with you guys if it comes to it.”

“She wouldn’t hurt you for defying her. She’d just fog your memories and send you away.”

“How is taking away all my agency and stealing my memories not harm?”

“...It is,” I say quietly. “Of course it is.”

After a silent moment, he asks, “Is it helping to talk, or would you rather be alone?”

I glance at Dean, and there’s concern in his eyes. He’s very sensitive, for a Merrow. I’d say it was the Daoine Sidhe in him, but considering who their First is, surely that can’t be a common trait for them either.

“There’s nothing else to do,” I say, trying to force some cheer into my voice. “Is your mom okay?”

“She’s fine. Well, she spent the day furious and terrified and she doesn’t have anyone to pommel right now, but she’s gone to take back control of Saltmist, where there'll be plenty of traitors to punch.”

“She didn’t mind Torin being dead?”

“She would have rather killed him herself, but murdered by his own First was a very good consolation.” He glances at me. “How did you know my uncle was your great-great nephew?”

“Mom told me about Efa, your great-great grandmother. She was one of her youngest before me and apparently quite the handful, and she mentioned her great-granddaughter, Dianda, was the ruler of Saltmist.”

“I’ve never met her, but I remember her from the family tree, sure.” He tilts his head. “So, you’re my great-great-great aunt? Aren’t I older than you?”

“I was born 1994. You?”

“1993.”

“How ancient you are, great-great-great-nephew.”

He laughs, and I do too. For a moment, I can almost forget everything that’s wrong.

We lapse into silence after that, both of us watching the waves beat against the ships.

“Where are you going to be living, on the land?” he asks, eventually.

“Half Moon Bay. The Ryan clan agreed I could live with them on fosterage.”

“And you’ve lived on the Duchy your whole life? Have you ever been to shore before?”

“Once, for a couple of days. It… didn’t go well. I got really lost.”

“It’s quite the culture-shock,” he agrees. “I know a thing or two about figuring out how things work on the land. Consider yourself welcome at Goldengreen. If you want to come round and you haven’t got the hang of cars yet, Marcia could pick you up.”

“What does getting the hang of cars mean?”

“Driving them?”

I blanch at the thought. “I definitely won’t have the hang of cars anytime soon, but I’d like that, if Marcia doesn’t mind.”

“Probably wise. Quentin’s tried to give me driving lessons, but it went so badly I’m banned until I master Mario Kart.”

I’m about to ask what Mario Kart is when Quentin says from behind us, “You nearly ran over a kelpie.”

“In the water, they just get out of your way!”

I turn to see not only Quentin, but Toby and Tybalt too. I focus on Tybalt, trying to work out if Toby’s told him yet. Though most of him appears relaxed, his eyes are pinprick slits, and he eyes the water like it might bite.

“Rodrick told us your ship is ready for boarding,” he says. “May we assist with your bags?”

“Um, sure,” I blink. I can manage them just fine on my own, but maybe this is Toby making sure the Firstborn don’t interfere out of her sight.

I only have two; Tybalt claims my suitcase and Dean takes my woven basket, leaving me with nothing to carry as we approach the ship. “I didn’t think kings and counts were meant to be the ones carrying things.”

“I am a King of Cats, we pull our own weight,” Tybalt says airily, leading the way over the gangplank with unnatural grace.

“You’re the daughter of my First, who can make me faint with her presence,” Dean says. “Of course I’m going to be gentlemanly.”

“Chelsea would say something clever about gender norms here,” Quentin says.

Toby’s the last to cross—she crosses slowly and deliberately, clearly anticipating a slip. Tybalt reaches out as she reaches our side, helping her down. If my parents were setting sail together, I think Elizabeth would push Annie off the gangplank.

Biting back a wave of hysterical laughter, I ask, “Who’s Chelsea?”

“She’s a Tuatha who was raised by her human mother and didn’t know about Faerie until last year,” answers Quentin.

“That’s not allowed. What about the Changeling’s Choice?”

“Yeahhh, her father had no idea she existed until she was kidnapped.”

I stare at him, startled by the similarity. “That… must have been a shock,” I manage. “Her world turned upside down so suddenly.”

He nods. “For the better, in the end, though.”

“Really?”

“Her parents are even married now.”

“Oh,” I say, very quietly.

Toby touches my shoulder gently. It makes me feel less alone, that someone here can guess what’s going through my head, knows that this is more than a rebellious teenager leaving in a huff.

“Let me give you my number,” she says.

“Number?” I ask blankly.

“Damn, no tech this deep in the Summerlands, right.”

“I’ll talk to April.” Quentin grins. “Wait til you see computers. Gaming blew Dean’s little mermaid mind.”

Dean swats him.

“I sense the teenage horde grows,” Tybalt says, bemused. “October, one day your ceilings will give out under the stampede for pizza.”

She shoves him playfully.

“What’s pizza?” I ask.

Quentin laughs. “Oh, the human world has so much to teach you.”

The shrill cry of the bosun’s whistle rings out and someone shouts, “All those for Half Moon Bay!”

“We’re about to be very in the way,” Toby says. “Boys, you head back. I need to have a quick word with Elsie.”

“Goodbye,” says Dean.

“See you later,” says Quentin. “We’ll get you up to speed on the twenty-first century.”

My smile for them is as genuine as it can be in the circumstances. “Be seeing you,” I say, giving a small wave.

They cross the plank without complaint, but Tybalt hesitates, casting Toby a questioning glance.

She nods. “You too.”

He dips his head in acknowledgement. “Goodbye, Elspeth,” he says, and follows the boys back to the dock, where a mass of Ryans have gathered, waiting to be let on. I can’t tell if Annie or Mom are among their number, watching me.

“Can we go to a cabin?” I ask. I don’t have anything left for the strangers who should be my cousins who are about to storm the ship.

“Sure,” Toby says, picking up my suitcase. I pick up my basket and lead the way below deck, where I lay claim to a small, private cabin.

I put down my basket and sit down on the cot, looking expectantly at Toby.

“How did it go with Liz?”

“You were right. She wants me.”

“Of course she does,” Toby says, and I’m surprised to see a glimmer of sorrow in her eyes. “You’re her little girl, and she finally got you back. It means the world to her, that you want to know her.”

She sounds oddly certain for someone who was Elizabeth’s enemy until today, but I don’t pry.

Toby takes a deep breath and says, “And I wanted to say, I’m sorry.”

I squint at her. “What for?”

“For being the one to turn your world upside down. I didn’t realise quite what a bombshell I was dropping, when I dragged you into this, I just thought… You deserved to know.”

“Elizabeth deserved the truth.”

“But what about you?”

Would I rather have never found out? To go on living in blissful ignorance on the Duchy, loving Mom and Annie? I wouldn’t be hurting right now, hurting in a way where it feels like I might never be okay again. But Elizabeth would never have stopped grieving a baby who never died, and I would never have stopped living a lie.

“I’m glad you told me,” I say finally. “This was the Convocation of Consequences, called to right old wrongs, and that’s all you did.”

Toby smiles. “Okay. Quentin will get you a phone, and then you’ll have my number. If you need to talk to someone who knows the truth, you’re welcome in my home. See you later.”

I smile back. “Bye.”

As she starts to leave, I impulsively call out, “Toby?”

She turns back.

“Thank you.”

She dips her head in ritual, regretful acknowledgement before leaving me alone in the dark of my cabin.

Soon, I’ll be far from everyone and everything I’ve ever known, but if Quentin and Dean’s overtures are anything to go by, I have friendships to build already, cousins to meet, and a mother and a sister to reunite with. I curl up on the cot and close my eyes, surrendering myself to the soft silence of the sea.