Arabesque: A Wings Companion

Chapter Thirty-One

"Everyone's in place," Tamani said, stowing the handheld radio he'd procured for the occasion. According to the human who sold it to him, it would keep his conversations private and had ample range for use on the open ocean. It wasn't as convenient as cell phones, but though humans apparently had ways to make those work while out at sea, Tamani hadn't really had time to shop around.

Too much improvisation, he chided himself. So many ways this could go horribly wrong.

"You're certain this vessel is seaworthy?" Marion asked, hands clinging to the rail of the immaculate Bayliner, procured at great expense for this single voyage. Of course Tamani might have simply Enticed the human into just giving him both boats, but that would have been needlessly cruel.

"Absolutely certain," Tamani drawled as he and Shawn untied the lines and tossed them aboard. "You ready?" he asked the young human.

"Ready as I'll ever be. I've gone over it in my head a hundred times."

"Good. Keep your radio handy, at least until the earplugs go in." Assuming the siren song was the sea fae's only method of Enticement, they probably wouldn't be able to snare Shawn as long as he was above the water and they, below, but Tamani wanted to leave as little to chance as possible.

He really would have preferred Len be aboard Shawn's boat, but she was needed on the shore, both to coordinate the soldiers and to handle any passers-by that Rowen's shield failed to deter. There was a lot of beach in San Francisco, but there were a lot of people too, and pulling this off without sparking a larger incident was going to be tricky.

Besides, if the sea fae did have some other method of Enticement, well ... that was why Shawn was the only one on his boat. Perhaps the sea fae could cause him to hurt himself, but Tamani had been very clear about the risks as well as the unknowns, and Shawn seemed to understand. It would've been nice to generate a plan from more information—if the sea fae had a pet kraken, for example, then the three of them were almost certainly speeding toward certain death—but Tamani had done all he could think of. Sometimes all you could do was plant the seed and hope.

With a nod of encouragement, Tamani pushed on the hull of his boat and jumped on as it floated away from the dock, watching out of the corner of his eye as Shawn did the same. As they eased into open waters Tamani brought Shawn up on the radio. "Follow us with as little wake as possible."

"Aye, aye, Captain," Shawn said, and Tamani rolled his eyes and released the talk button.

"Where to?" he asked Marion. He braced himself for resistance; some new demand or rhetorical barb.

The deposed monarch simply pointed out to sea.

"How far do you think?" Tamani asked, setting their course.

She tilted her head to the side, as if listening to some faint, distant sound. "Not far. Half a mile, perhaps? It's hard to tell in the water." She gave him a stern look when he made a strangled noise. "The closer we get, the more I'll know."

Tamani clamped his mouth closed and lined up the boat in the direction Marion had pointed, hoping he'd made the right choice putting his trust in her.

"I was a good queen, you know."

Did she just read his mind? The extent to which Winter faeries could and could not do that was just nebulous enough to make Tamani jumpy. "Were you, now?" he drawled.

"I was. The desires of the common fae outpaced me in the end, but until then, I was a good queen."

Tamani held his tongue for a long time before bursting out, "I don't think you were. I was there the day you took a crippling number of Ticer sentries into the already unbreachable Winter Palace, for no other reason than to protect yourself."