The Unkindest Tide (October Daye, #13)

by Seanan McGuire

“We didn’t forgive for long and long, but I suppose forgiveness is the thief in the afternoon sometimes, stealing your anger away when you’re not paying attention,” said Poppy.

The water on the dais pulsed once, twice, and finally twisted upward into a column. I realized what was happening just before it started sculpting itself into the vague outline of a woman, naked and statuesque and gorgeous, from her broad hips and swelling bosom to the sturdy pillars of her thighs. The water surged upward and then burst, cascading down over the form of Captain Pete—of Amphitrite—in a final mighty wave. Because this wasn’t the pirate queen, no, not at all; this was no figure from a storybook or play. This was one of the Firstborn, standing revealed with no illusions, no constraints. Her dress, such as it was, was a sheet of dark and living water, wrapped around her like a lover and slithering as sinuously as an eel, giving us glimpses of scaled, shark-belly skin, enough to tempt, enough to terrify. Her hair was braided with black pearls and small white beads that I suspected were bone, and her throat was exposed, revealing the gills I’d suspected she hid behind her hair.

Wettttttt