Page 79 of The Dark, Dead, Deep

I avoided her eyes, though every scar on my lower back from the lash of the wire burned as if a hot iron was being pressed against my skin. I ignored her question.

“Do you think that my grandson will wake up?” Urma asked, changing the subject.

I hated that I couldn’t answer her question. “I don’t know.”

Once I had drunk my weight in tea, Urma made her bed and tucked me in, wrapped in Rainn’s warm blanket. I didn’t need but a second before falling heavily asleep though I’d had no intention of doing so. It seemed that sleeping against a stone wall hadn’t done anything to alleviate my exhaustion over the past few days.

It seemed like I had only closed my eyes a moment before I woke, and the faelight in the center of the room had dimmed to embers. Urma had kept watch over me as I slept, reading and puttering about, the evidence of her activities in the open book on the table and the empty tea cups that littered the tray in the corner.

“You’re awake!” She perked up as soon as my eyes opened. My mouth was too dry to say anything, and it took a moment for my mind to catch up to my body and realize where I was.

“Good morning,” I croaked, rubbing the corner of my eye, wincing when my fingers brushed over the smooth skin of my crescent scar on my upper cheek—where one of my pearl freckles had once sat.

“The guards called off the search.” Urma smacked her lips. “I thought I’d try to get you to Cormac’s rooms this morning. Maybe seeing the patient will help jog your memory.”

Fear trickled through my veins like a raindrop on a glass pane. “Cormac’s room?”

“Don’t worry, child.” She waved her hand. “I’ll disguise you. Mermaids are good at glamours, don’t you know?”

“I didn’t know,” I replied numbly.

“Surely you gleaned some insight into the creeds, child.” Urma shook her head with pity. “Shay Mac Eoin said that you spent the better part of the week traveling with the convoy.”

“As their prisoner,” I muttered.

If Urma heard me, she didn’t show it. “The nymphs are good at healing, though perverts the lot of them. Just goes part and parcel with their magic, I suppose.”

With wide eyes, I nodded in agreement, though I didn’t elaborate on the evening spent at the nymph village and the number of moans I had heard in the night.

“Kelpies tend to befuddle the mind and the emotions,” she continued, tapping her chin. “Prince Tormalugh might be trying to use his magic to scoop through my Cormac’s skull, though I suspect my grandson would have woken by now if the Kelpie Prince had succeeded.”

I nodded again, unable to speak as she continued musing, hanging on her every word.

“And those selkie.” She whistled. “You’ll never meet a more loyal being, but if you try and take their coat—woo-ee. You’re going to die. Selkie don’t trust easily.”

“And their magic?” It took everything in me not to glance at the blanket Rainn had given me, left on the bed amongst the other sheets.

“Mighty fast.” She whistled again. “Can kill a mer in a blink without being seen. You never want to cross a selkie. All the best assassins come from the seal-kin. Also immune to almost all magic. That won’t help my boy, though.”

My nostrils flared as I took in that information. “Interesting,” I said, impassive.

“Though you didn’t need me to tell you about the selkie.” Urma chuckled to herself. “Not when you’re wearing the coat of one. Mated, ye are. At least in the eyes of those from the Skala Isles.”

My lungs seized. “No.”

Her cloudy eyes flicked back to the blanket on the bed. “That’s a selkie coat. Ain’t it, child?”

I shook my head. “No,” I wheezed. “It’s just a blanket.”

It couldn’t be a coat. Itcouldn’t.

“Anyway,” Urma shook her head to clear it. “I’ll pop a glamour on you, tell them you’re my friend Ethel, and we’ll march right across the castle. Nothing could go wrong.”

I eyed her dubiously. “If you’re sure.”

“I’m always sure.” She hummed before struggling to push herself out of the chair. “It’s the beauty of being old. Even if I’m wrong, I can just pretend that I’m addled and can’t hear.”

“Well, that’s a relief,” I said dryly.

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