One Salt Sea: An October Daye Novel Read Online Free Page A

isn’t fair. “Ah, Quentin. A word with you?” I glanced to him, and he nodded. “It seems appropriate to do it now.”
    I swallowed the urge to protest. “You’re the boss.” We’d have to tell Quentin eventually.
    Quentin looked between us, frowning. “What’s going on, Your Grace?”
    “Quentin, do you remember that I said I was looking for a knight for you?”
    “Yes, Your Grace,” he said.
    “If you assigned him to Etienne, I get to hit you,” May added.
    I eyed her. “Why?”
    “Because ‘boring’ is not a virtue.”
    Sylvester smiled. “No, I’m not assigning him to Etienne.” Quentin’s shoulders relaxed: interesting. I hadn’t realized he felt so strongly about the subject. “I can guarantee that the knight I found for him isn’t boring.”
    May gave me a speculative look. “Is that so?”
    “May—”
    “Your Grace, may I speak?”
    Sylvester and I both stopped, blinking at Quentin. Sylvester recovered slightly faster than I did, and asked, “Yes, Quentin?”
    “I’d like to request I be assigned to Sir Daye.”
    All right, I hadn’t been expecting that. “Oak and ash, why ?” I demanded, before I could stop myself.
    “Because he has taste,” said May.
    “Because I think I have a lot to learn from you,” Quentin said, before elbowing May sharply in the side. She yelped. “I like you, and you teach me things no one else does.”
    “Like what it feels like to be shot?” I asked.
    “Like how to do what needs to be done. Please, Your Grace, I’d like you to consider my request. If she’ll have me.”
    I looked to Sylvester. He wasn’t making any effort to hide his smirk. I sighed. “I’ll have you,” I said.
    “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
    M AY 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