“Right.” I unbuckled my knife belt. Peeling off my jeans took a bit more effort. “So the wards are keyed to Selkie skins, not individual Selkies?”

“Yes, Your Excellency!” said Helmi, sounding surprised and delighted by this strange display of logic from one of the land fae. “The skins pass hands with such frequency, it seemed best to allow their bearers to come and go easily. No one would want to present the Selkies an unfair barrier, given their limitations—and besides, they’re needed all along the coast. It would be quite a bundle to ask them to carry, if they needed a token for each of the knowes.”

“Uh-huh.” Selkie skins “pass hands” every few decades at the most—Connor is older than I am. That must make them almost as transitory as humans to a true immortal. “How many Selkies pass through in a given week?”

“Five, eight, maybe, if there’s news to be passed along.”

“And how many of them do the guards stop for questioning?” The green dress was made of a soft, cottony material. I shrugged it on, pushing my salt-matted hair back with the headband, and belted my knife around the outside of my hips. It might spoil the line of my borrowed attire, but at least I wasn’t hiding the fact that I was armed.

“None. Why would they? The Selkies travel on legitimate business. Or do you not have messengers where you dwell?”

I stepped out from behind the screen. Helmi’s expression was one of honest curiosity, like this was exactly the sort of barbarism she expected from land-dwellers.

“We do, but they’re not quite as . . . standardized.” I smoothed my skirt with the heels of my hands. It was definitely a step up from my usual Old Navy couture. And I just had to go to the bottom of the sea to get it. “I think I’m ready to go back.”

“Surely.” Helmi rotated her entire body, tentacles slapping the floor as she turned, and then made her way back to the door we’d entered through. She knocked three times before opening it, revealing a room that was absolutely not the one we’d been in before. For one thing, this one had walls—wooden ones, no less, making them seem strange and exotic after all the coral.

Dianda and Patrick were standing near one wall, arguing quietly with Connor. All three looked up when Helmi and I approached. My bare feet were silent against the floor. Her tentacles weren’t. Connor’s eyes lit up when he saw me, and he took a half-step forward before he remembered that he was in the presence of his liege and stopped, standing at sudden attention.

“You clean up well,” said Dianda, giving me a once-over.

“Helmi was a great help.” Another careful two-step in the dance of avoided thanks, complete. “Your Graces, Connor, I wanted to verify something Helmi told me. Is that possible?”

Dianda nodded. “Certainly. What did you want to know?”

“Is it true that the wards on this place are set to admit Selkies with no verification of identity or allegiance?”

“Yes.” Dianda frowned quizzically. “All the Undersea Duchies set their wards this way. Selkies act as messengers, and messengers are honor-bound to do no mischief in fiefdoms other than their own. Even in times of war, Selkies are safe guests.”

“Right.” I turned to Connor. “Am I a Merrow?”

“What? No!”

“But if I asked the wards right now, would they say I was a Merrow?”

“I . . .” He paused, looking confused.

Patrick, on the other hand, looked horrified; Patrick, who was born in the land Courts, and knew how they operated. He’d been in the Undersea for a few hundred years, but there are some things you never forget.

“Please tell me you’re not saying what I think you’re saying,” he said.

“I can’t. Because I think someone used a stolen Selkie skin to get past your wards.” I met Dianda’s eyes. It was harder than I expected it to be. “I’m afraid your sons weren’t the first ones taken in this war.”

SIXTEEN

TO HER CREDIT, DIANDA didn���t flinch. Eyes narrowing, she asked, “Who could have done this?”

“Moving past the part where I say ‘someone who was willing to steal your children to provoke a war,’ it would have to be someone who understood the way the Undersea operates. Someone who understood the way Selkies operate.” I let my eyes drift to Connor. He was staring at me, an expression of terrified understanding on his face. “Somebody who understood that a Selkie is the skin, and not the one who wears it.”

“Oh, Oberon,” he whispered.

Patrick frowned, following my gaze. “Connor?”

“Well?” I asked.

“It . . .” Connor took an unsteady breath. “She knows how the skins work. I told her. Showed her, even. I was trying to make her understand me a little better. I thought if we were going to be stuck with each other for a few hundred years, we should at least find a way to be friends.”

“Showed who?” asked Patrick.

Connor didn’t say anything. So I said it for him.

“Rayseline Torquill,” I said. “His ex-wife.”

“Connor, what have you done?” Dianda’s question was raw, aching, a mother yearning for impossible answers.

“What you told me to do!” he said. I barely recognized the desperation in his voice. “I married her because you told me to. I tried! I tried to court her, to woo her, but she couldn’t be courted—she was too far gone, and I . . . I tried!”

“It’s not his fault,” I said, bringing Patrick and Dianda’s eyes back to me. That wasn’t comfortable, but it was better than having them fixed on Connor. “She was more broken than anyone knew, even her parents. He couldn’t know what he was doing when he tried to make the marriage work. If you’re going to blame anyone, blame whoever broke her in the first place. And maybe it wasn’t Raysel. There are other options.”

“Who?” asked Dianda.

I didn’t have an answer for that.

Patrick broke the silence. Indicating the nearest door with a sweep of one hand, he said, “This is Dean’s room. Is there anything you’ll need?”

“Let’s find out.” I reached for the knob, pausing just before I grasped it. “Is there anything I need to know about the wards?”

“There aren’t any.”