One Salt Sea: An October Daye Novel

“I already talked her into agreeing,” Sylvester added.


Quentin looked between us, eyes going wide. “Really?”

“Really,” I said.

“Wow. I owe you five bucks,” May said, looking to Sylvester.

“I told you she’d agree.” He clapped me on the shoulder with one hand. “Come on, you three. Marcia promised a celebratory lunch if I could convince Toby to take a squire.”

I gave him a sidelong look. “You were betting on this?”

“Yes, we were,” he said, nodding. “Now come on. We need to work out when his squiring ceremony will be held—and whether you’d like it here or at Shadowed Hills.” Still smiling, he turned and started to walk away. May flashed me a thumbs-up and followed.

Quentin hung back, asking, “You don’t mind, do you?”

Mind? That I’d been talked into taking a squire who obviously wanted to work with me? The vision of Quentin lying shot and dead on some field was receding, replaced by the slow realization that having a squire might not be such a bad deal after all. He already had my back whenever I needed him—hell, he’d helped Tybalt save my life when the Queen threw me in jail for Blind Michael’s murder, and that took guts, since it was technically treason. Maybe he was just a kid, but he knew what he was doing. He’d better: I’d taught him.

I grinned, putting my hand on his shoulder in much the same way Sylvester had put his hand on mine. We were almost the same height. Oak and ash, he was growing up fast. “Actually, Quentin,” I said, “I think this is going to work out just fine.”





TWO


MAY AND SYLVESTER WERE IN THE HALL playing one of May’s favorite games, “spot the bogey.” This involved staring fixedly at the rafters, waiting for the ceiling to move. I will never understand the things my former Fetch finds fun.

Bogeys are shapeshifting mischief-makers that infest abandoned places, like attics, old castles, and Goldengreen, which sat empty for almost two years before I claimed it. The bogeys were there when I opened the doors. Trying to make them leave was more trouble than it was worth, and so we’d come to a weird sort of peace instead, one where they didn’t scare the crap out of the residents, and I didn’t let the residents beat them to death with bricks.

Sylvester looked down as Quentin and I approached. “May was reminding me of some of the more . . . interesting . . . changes you’ve made.” He smiled. “I do believe them to be improvements.”

I smiled back. “That’s good. So do I.”

Goldengreen was in disrepair when I inherited it, but Sylvester never saw it that way. He probably remembered it the way Evening liked presenting it to people—perfect and static—and not as the crumbling shell it became.

It wasn’t a crumbling shell anymore. It was just a little chaotic sometimes. Case in point: a flock of pixies burst from the kitchen, flying in tight formation as they held up the edges of a red-and-white-checked dish towel. The wind of their passage ruffled my hair. The four of us scattered, and I ducked just before one of the stragglers could kick me in the forehead.

Marcia came barreling after the pixies, waving a broom over her head and shouting, “Come back, you filthy little pests! Thieves!” Her eyes widened when she saw us, and she came skidding to a halt, a guilty look on her face. She tried to hide the broom behind her back, enhancing the ridiculousness of the moment. “Uh, hi, Toby. May. Quentin. Um. Your Grace.”

“Hey, Marcia,” I said, amused. “What did they steal this time?” Pixies will steal anything that’s not nailed down, and the ones in Goldengreen seem to see Marcia as a form of entertainment. They know she’ll never catch them with her broom. As for Marcia, I think she’s playing with the pixies as much as they’re playing with her. She’ll just never admit it.

“Two loaves of bread and my good dish towel.”