According to her, the Selkies’ bargain was almost up, and their time in the sea was almost done. I was going to play a part in ending them. I didn’t know what that part was; I was honestly afraid to ask. But as long as she wanted to keep putting it off, I was happy to delay.
“Okay,” I said. “Got any advice for me?”
“Don’t drink the water; don’t trust the locals.” She paused. “Actually, amend that: you need a local, one you can trust. That alchemist of yours, Walther? Take him with you. He’ll help you make it back alive.”
I blinked. “Walther? He’s not from Silences.”
“Yeah, he is. He just doesn’t talk about it much.”
“And you know this because . . . ?”
“Because I pay attention. Because I remember the War of Silences. And because Silences trained the best alchemists in the Westlands. He’s Tylwyth Teg, just like the old ruling family of that Kingdom. He’s an alchemist skilled enough to keep a changeling alive through a goblin fruit addiction. He’s from Silences, sure as fish have bones. It’s going to be hard enough without going in blind. Take him.”
“People aren’t like loaves of bread at the store. I can’t just go ‘oh, I’ll take this one.’”
“Can’t you?” Now she sounded almost amused. “Figure it out. Stay alive.” The line went dead in my hand.
I lowered my phone, glowering at it. I couldn’t call her back. For one thing, if she’d had anything else to say, she would have said it. For another, poking the Firstborn when they don’t want to be poked is a good way to pull back minus a hand, and I liked both of mine. Sighing, I pulled up my address book, and dialed again.
Sunrise was at least twenty minutes away, and the campus wouldn’t be open for hours. The phone was still answered on the second ring. “Professor Davies’ office, Professor Davies speaking. I’d ask why you were calling at this ungodly hour of the morning, but maybe you’ve met me.” Walther sounded almost offensively cheerful for a man who had doubtless been locked in his lab, inhaling chemical fumes all night.
“Academic standards for how you answer the phone get lower after midnight, don’t they?” I asked.
“All human standards get lower after midnight,” said Walther. “Hey, Toby. Long time no hear. What’s up? Do you need another alchemical miracle? Because I’m warning you, I may start charging you by the ounce soon.”
“I don’t need a miracle right now, but I’ll keep that in mind,” I said. “I do have an arrow and scroll that I’m going to need analyzed. I hope your schedule’s free.” Walther was the best alchemist I knew. He’d kept me from eating myself alive when I was addicted to goblin fruit, and he’d created the power-dampening potion that had allowed us to save Chelsea when she was teleporting uncontrollably through the various realms of Faerie. He wasn’t my most frequently used Hail Mary pass, but he’d done the job often enough to be a very valued ally. “Why are you at work this late? I was sort of expecting to get your voicemail at this hour.”
“I’m working on a few private projects. Even the most dedicated grad students give up by midnight, or sometime shortly after; that leaves me the hours between two and six for getting things the way I want them. A lot of alchemical tinctures need to be hit by the first rays of the rising sun to really crystallize their effects, so I like to have them finished right before dawn. That way I can pack them in before the human students show up and why are you calling if it’s just a standard analysis? You’d normally bring that by the lab. Are you actually being social for a change?”
He sounded so delighted by the idea that I felt a pang of guilt when I had to say, “No, not really. I do need that analysis, but there’s . . . there’s a problem, and I think I also need you. Not your work, not your potions, you. Is there any way you can get out of your classes for a while? A week or so?” It wouldn’t be more. After a week, we’d either be at war, or everything would be back to normal.
Walther hesitated before saying, warily, “There’s a flu that’s been going around campus. I have grad students who can take my classes and sick time saved up for the actual time off. But you’re going to have to give me a damn good reason that I’d want to do that.”
“Silences has just declared war on the Mists.”
Walther didn’t say anything.
“Queen Windermere, in her brilliance, has decided that I would be the ideal diplomatic ambassador from the Mists. I leave tomorrow to try and make this war not happen. The Luidaeg says I need to take someone who actually knows Silences with me. She suggested you.”
Walther didn’t say anything.
“Please.”
“Do you understand what you’re asking me to do?” His voice was lower now, almost pained. “If the Luidaeg told you I was from Silences, she must have told you that I never wanted to go back there again. I can’t do this.”
“Why not?”
“Why not?” He laughed unsteadily. “Because they came for my family, Toby. They killed or arrested everyone I had ever given a damn about, and they did it because they didn’t like the way we thought. I barely got away. I haven’t spoken to my sister or to any of my cousins in years. I don’t even know if they made it out, and I can’t go looking. It’s not safe for me to talk to people from Silences, not with that murderous bastard on the throne. You’re asking me to walk right back onto the killing fields.”
“I’m asking you to help me keep the killing fields from coming here. Please, Walther. The old Queen—the one whose rulings about changelings started the first war, the war you’re talking about now—she’s there, with their current King, and she’s the one who wants us to start killing each other again. She wants her throne back. I don’t think that would be good for anybody, but I get the feeling it would be especially bad for people who have known connections to me.”
There was a long pause before Walther said, in a soft voice, “That’s low. You know that, don’t you?”
“I do.” Sometimes the high ground is reserved for the people who think honor is more important than living. “I’m sorry, if that helps at all.”
“It doesn’t.”
“I didn’t think it would.” I stopped talking, waiting for him to break the silence between us.
It stretched out for long enough that I began to think he wasn’t going to. Finally, he said, “Pick me up from my office before you go. I need time to get my kit together.”
“Okay,” I said. I felt bad about pushing him this way, but it was going to have to wait. He was going to come. My diplomatic team, such as it was, was nearly complete. “We’ll see you then. Open roads, Walther.”
“We’re going to need a lot more than open roads,” he said, and hung up.
“That could have gone better,” I said, lowering my phone and looking at it like it should have somehow warned me. Then I sighed and tucked it back into my pocket as I stood. Walther was coming with us. Ruthless as it might seem, I was willing to upset him if it meant he was going to play native guide to the ins and outs of the Court of Silences. Everyone’s lives might depend on his temporary unhappiness . . . and as I had come to learn over the past few years, sometimes ripping away the bandages was what allowed the soul to finally heal. He might come out of this stronger than he had ever imagined.
Assuming he—and we—came out of it at all.
Quentin was in the kitchen making more sandwiches when I came back downstairs. I paused in the doorway, arching an eyebrow upward. “Well?” I asked.