15

Fionn

Two hours before Tai’s call, I was back in the water and heading upriver.

I’d gone out there expecting an hour’s search for Faerd, if not more. But I was met before I’d been longer than twenty minutes afloat.

‘Fionn of Cuath-Tor,’ came a voice out of the shadows. ‘Faerd summons you.’

I dislike being summoned, for it assumes a degree of authority over me that I don’t choose to acknowledge. But since I’d wanted to find Faerd anyway, and I assuredly needed his help, I kept my dislike of this terminology to myself. ‘Then I’ll follow,’ I told the wispy asrai messenger, and I did, though not without difficulty; she was fast, and agitated. Even, perhaps, annoyed.

‘Something troubles you?’ I said, after a few minutes’ silent forging upriver. The intense blackness of the waters were no impediment for her, for the asrai are nocturnal, with a sensitivity of vision to exceed even my seal’s keen eyes. I followed more by sound than by sight, listening for every swish of the currents that washed around her undulating form.

‘We have been seeking you this long while,’ she snapped, without so much as a slight turn of her head; I barely heard the words.

‘I am sorry,’ I said coolly. ‘I did not know myself sought for. Faerd, I believe, knows where to find me.’

My irritable messenger made no reply. I focused on following her pale, darting shape through the shadows, and soon enough she began to slow, leading me into the deeper depths of the water. I heard fresh sounds: someone else had joined us.

‘Fionn,’ said Faerd, and came swimming slowly into view. As pale as the waters were dark, he looked the very water-ghost the asrai are sometimes called. ‘I’d begun to despair.’

Growing tired of these chastisements, I retorted, ‘Could you not have sent someone to find me, if it were so urgent?’

‘No one wants to step out of the waters. Not now.’

That silenced me, for a moment. The asrai are not comfortable out of water, but this was something else. This was outright fear. ‘Have your people been harmed?’

Faerd did not answer, at least not immediately. He murmured something to his messenger in a tongue I could not follow, and she left us. Then he said: ‘The drowned selkie.’

‘Yes. Narasel. You’ve heard something?’

‘Gained something.’ He floated a slow circle around me, and a heaviness settled over me. I felt an odd pull of kinship, laced with a sharp repulsion.

A sealskin. Another selkie’s skin.

‘Her skin was not found, I think you said.’

‘It remains unaccounted for,’ I said cautiously. ‘Where did you acquire this?’

‘It was brought to me by one of my own. Tossed upon the morning tide, they said, and adrift.’

‘Someone threw it in the river.’

‘So it appears.’

Thrown away, like useless rubbish. A surge of rage left me shaking, and sick. Narasel’s killer had kept it a while, perhaps thinking to turn it to use. May have tried to sell it, even, but they’d failed, for the skin of a dead selkie has no magic left in it; is only a hide.

A thing not everyone knew.

‘I thank you,’ I said to Faerd. ‘I will see that it is well treated.’

I wasn’t immediately sure how I would achieve that. Most likely it ought to be returned to Narasel’s people, if I could find out which clan she’d belonged to. That would have to wait a little while.

I engaged in a moment’s gratitude that it had been returned to the water, and not hurled into the garbage.

And paused. Why had it ended up in the Thames? Was that happenstance?

I folded the thought away for later reflection, for Faerd was speaking. ‘There has been no harm to my people.’

‘Good.’

‘Yet. But there is fear that we will not escape the persecution our wave-cousins have suffered.’

‘To my knowledge,’ I said cautiously, ‘it is selkies only that are of interest to these people.’

‘Why?’

‘Skins. And pearls.’

‘Theft, then.’

‘Yes. Yes, exactly. Narasel’s death may not have been intended. A… process of theirs went awry.’

Faerd was silent. I could imagine his thoughts. An asrai may be taken captive, as may any being, but there exists no such tool like the selkie-skin, to compel their obedience. Not lastingly. If Tai and I were right, and theft, not murder, was the purpose of the scheme, then the asrai should be safe from it.

‘Thank you,’ said Faerd. ‘I am in your debt.’

Either for the reassurance, or the service I intended to perform for Narasel’s sealskin, I wasn’t sure which. But I needed his help, so I accepted the debt. ‘I have a boon to ask of you.’

‘Name it.’

‘There are others like Narasel still without liberty.’

‘So it is said.’

‘Tomorrow night, it is my intention to attempt their rescue. If they can make it to the waters, will you give shelter?’

‘We will.’

‘There may be pursuit.’

‘If so, it will be dealt with.’

I considered the problem of Cellann of Indra-Tath. Perhaps I ought to send her to Faerd’s waters right away. She would be safer there than she would be wandering London alone.

But to do so would be to draw further attention to ourselves and our interference, in ways which would conflict with the role we were attempting to play. Mine was the role of prey, to Tai’s and Daix’s predator; to shepherd those like me to safety in no way fit with our story.

And Cellann may not consent to go. The girl had not seemed to me to possess much in the way of sense, and we had little with which to persuade her. Only the death of Narasel, which could be called accident, and a wild tale of missing persons impossible to prove.

‘Have you further word for me?’ I asked of Faerd. ‘Did aught of Narasel’s fate reach you, besides her skin?’

‘I have heard nothing of use.’

Disappointing, but perhaps this was no longer a useful line of enquiry. Not wishing to linger too long in the asrai’s waters, I thanked Faerd and withdrew. The pearls I’d made from the stagnant pools at the old car factory were with me still, but submersion confused them, muddied their link to the waters from which they were fashioned. If I wanted them to work for me, I’d have to get back to dry land.

Tai’s phone call, soon afterwards, recalled Narasel’s sealskin to my mind immediately. An irreverent use to put it to, of course, and I suffered a pang of remorse upon proposing the idea. But Narasel was not here to receive offence, and besides, we were on the trail of her killer.

Were it me, I’d want to help, even if direct assistance had been put forever out of my power.

So I swallowed my conscience, and set aside the sealskin to put into Tai’s possession. What would she choose to do with it? I had to smile at her airy admission of having double-booked herself; very Tai, to get herself into a tangled series of messes, and work out an extrication plan somewhat later. To her credit, she probably would. I didn’t need to worry for her.

In the meantime, I had more preparations to make for the auction, namely regarding Cellann. Was there something I needed to do for her?

Was there some way I could use her? Especially without making any open approach.

I thought back to the only occasion I’d encountered her in person: at Eventide. She had been wearing one of my gowns.

Gifts. The girl liked gifts, especially the expensive kind.

My poor pearls. Once all this was over, I’d have to devote some serious time to replenishing them.

I hadn’t more than formed the thought before my attention was arrested, and all ideas of Cellann flew out of my mind.

My pearls awoke.

Not my ancients, my lustres, but my new ones; the pearls I’d formed out of the waters at the car factory. Stained and muddied, these, no shine to their surfaces at all. I hated to look at them, hated more to touch or wear them. But they’d served their purpose.

Someone wandered the derelict halls in which I had, briefly, been held captive.

I sank into the nearest chair, thankful that my flat was quiet tonight. No noise, no company to distract me. Closing my eyes, I let every idea empty out of my mind, save one: those stagnant pools and the link I’d forged with them. Sensations washed over me.

Someone’s feet stepped softly through the puddles, spilling droplets beyond the borders of the pools. The foul water sank into the fabric of their shoes, their socks — stockings in fact, flimsy and delicate, barely absorbent — a lady? Brianne. Surely, it must be.

I waited, sought for further signs. The cadence of those steps: slow and deliberate. No hurry there, no flurry of activity ahead of the proposed auction. What was this lady’s purpose, then, in entering the building?

I thought of Tai, or Daix, but discarded the idea. Nothing about this person matched either: the movements were wrong, the proportions… the scent. A hint of a deep, floral fragrance caught at me, distracting. I didn’t recognise it.

The waters knew her. She’d been there before. When I was brought in, perhaps? Was this my captor?

Was it Brianne?

It had to be; it was the only explanation that made any sense. But I couldn’t be certain. Too many nagging dissimilarities, too many subtle signs…

Besides that, a familiarity. I could not shake the sense that I, too, had seen her before, that I knew her as the waters did…

At last it dawned on me. What the evidence of my pearls was telling me, what the waters saw: I did know her.

I’d known her very well, long ago, and she was dead.

She was dead; she’d been dead for eighty years.

I couldn’t breathe. The pearls fell from my fingers and spilled across the floor, unheeded; I fought for air, frozen with horror. And beneath that, hope.

It couldn’t be. It couldn’t be.

Could the waters be wrong?

How long I sat frozen in this state, I could not have said. I was woken abruptly from the trance by the sound of a pounding upon the door, and Tai’s voice, yelling for me. ‘Fi?’

‘Moment,’ I called, or tried to; the word came out as a cracked whisper, and Tai didn’t hear it.

‘Fi! Open the damned door!’

I shot out of the chair, made it to the door in three great strides, and hauled it open.

Tai stood staring at me, eyes wide and petrified. She let out a breath when she saw me, relief quickly giving way to annoyance.

‘I only thought you were dead,’ she growled, stalking past me into the hall.

‘Sorry,’ I mumbled. ‘Sorry, I was…’ I couldn’t finish the sentence. I closed the door, and it was a moment before I could turn and meet her gaze again.

Tai’s eyebrows went up. ‘What?’

I tried to speak, but the words didn’t come.

‘Fi.’ Tai gripped my arms and gave me a tiny shake. ‘Pull it together. What’s happened now?’

‘I saw…’ I paused, cleared my throat. ‘At the car factory. You know I wrought pearls from the waters there? When they took me?’

‘No, but good. And?’

‘They… someone’s there now.’

Tai nodded. She was not unfamiliar with the method; I’d used it in the past. ‘Tell me it’s Brianne? I’ll be down there in a jiffy to remove a couple of important articles of her anatomy.’

‘It wasn’t Brianne.’

‘Damnit.’

‘I… I’m fairly sure it wasn’t Brianne.’

Tai took a long look at my face, then steered me to a chair. ‘All right, deep breath. You’re a big girl, you can do this.’

‘Silise,’ I blurted.

‘What?’

‘I saw Silise.’

‘No fucking way.’

‘It was her.’

‘Fionn of Cuath-Tor, Silise is dead. It couldn’t have been her.’

‘Nonetheless.’ I breathed deep, and managed to stop shaking. ‘I’m certain of it.’

‘Can’t be. Someone’s screwing with you. How clear a vision do you actually get with this trick, anyway?’

‘Not… not that clear. It’s more impressions, senses—’

‘So you didn’t see her.’

‘Not exactly—’

Tai sat back. ‘As I said. Someone’s screwing with you. With us. Again.’

That could be true. I thought back, tried to imagine how it might be possible to fake all the impressions I’d received. It seemed… improbable. ‘But, Tai, how could anybody be that familiar with Silise except Silise herself? Every movement of hers, her gestures, her demeanour — that stuff is far harder to fake than a face. You know that.’

‘Well.’ Tai stood up. ‘One way to find out,’ she said cheerfully. ‘Let’s go down there right now.’

‘If you’re right, then this is another trap.’

‘And if you’re right, our long-lost best friend is down there waiting for us.’

Tai’s words triggered what was left of my critical thinking. Shock and… other emotions had temporarily disordered my wits, but my head was clearing. ‘No. You’re right. If she was alive somehow, why would she be at this building, of all places? And why wouldn’t she have told us?’

Tai nodded. ‘This is some game of Brianne’s. It’s clever, I grant you.’

I frowned, still disquieted. ‘But how could Brianne know Silise so well? And, Tai, she’d have to have realised I would work pearls from those waters, she’d have to have known what that meant, what I could do—’

‘Perhaps she does know all that. She’s been watching us a long time, planning this little game for a while. That much is clear.’

‘She? Or someone else?’

‘Like who?’

I just looked at her.

‘Silise is dead,’ said Tai firmly. ‘I don’t know how Brianne is doing this either, but it’s just a game. It has to be.’ She headed for the door. ‘You coming?’

‘Where? The old car factory?’

‘Where else? Let’s go find out what Bri’s up to now.’

‘You remember the part where this is a trap?’

‘Yep.’ Tai beamed at me.

‘And maybe we could stay ahead of this game by not walking straight into this trap, the way we did at the club?’ I knew myself a hypocrite as I spoke; I’d let Brianne trap me, let her cart me to the old car factory. I’d done it with sound reason, and with good results. But I couldn’t just let Tai throw herself to the wolves.

‘At least it was an informative process,’ said Tai.

‘A process that would have killed you, if you hadn’t happened to thieve my pearls beforehand.’

‘You were the one that walked face-first into the water.’

‘I wasn’t in any danger.’

‘And how did you figure that, exactly? You’re the selkie, Fi, and those are turning up dead lately. Hell, you’ve been kidnapped since then and you can still say you weren’t in any danger?’

I was silent. I had no answer to make, unless I wanted to confess my little scheme to her. I couldn’t.

‘Perhaps you mean you were in no danger you didn’t find acceptable,’ Tai continued.

Too true for argument. Still I said nothing.

‘Okay well, if you’ve got some kind of death wish going on, this is a great way to further that goal.’ Tai beamed at me again, but there was an edge to it this time, something cold behind her eyes. ‘And if that’s Silise down there, she obviously doesn’t love us anymore, so let’s go give her a chance to kill you.’

‘Us, Tai.’

‘Oh, you’re not worried about you but you are about me? That’s sweet.’

‘We lost Silise because we didn’t look after each other. I won’t make that mistake again.’

Her brows went up, her expression one of withering scepticism.

‘I didn’t expect you to follow me into that pool,’ I said. ‘I mean, why would you?’

‘If you’d like to think back to everything you said about ten seconds ago, I believe you’ll find it applicable.’

‘What?’

‘Didn’t want to let you go alone.’

‘Which turned out to be pretty stupid, didn’t it.’

Tai shook her head, chose not to answer that. ‘Are we going to the car factory or not?’

‘Not. We’re sticking to the plan. We can’t afford any more screw-ups before tomorrow’s auction.’

Tai accepted this without a blink. What she might privately have thought of it, I couldn’t have guessed. ‘Fine. About that solution you said you had?’

Wordlessly, I retrieved Narasel’s sealskin from where I had laid it, reverently, over the back of my sofa.

Tai hadn’t registered its presence before. She received it in silence, and nodded once to me. ‘Narasel’s?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’ll bring it back to you.’

Tai said it with emphasis, meaning she’d bring it back to me even if she had to leave a limb behind in the process. ‘Her family will want it,’ I said.

‘They shall have it.’ She stroked the fur softly. ‘I’d better get some sleep,’ she said. ‘I’ll see you for the auction?’

Ah yes, the part where I got to pretend my best friend hated me enough to sell me for cash. Perhaps it was the abrupt way the question of Silise had been raised tonight, but the prospect made me nauseous.

Still. Needs must. ‘Come here first,’ I told Tai. ‘If you like, we can even stage a betrayal scene.’

Her mischievous smile gleamed. ‘Great. I’ll bring the big guns to take you down.’

And then we’d walk out of here, Tai wielding Narasel’s sealskin like it was mine, me acting the part of a woman whose will has been torn away and used against her.

Good times.

‘Sleep well,’ I said. ‘You’ll need it.’