The Unkindest Tide (October Daye, #13)

by Seanan McGuire

My family tree has a lot of thorns, and a tendency to draw blood.

Sometimes things have to be condensed if they’re going to make sense.

Legends are true. History is a lie. Everything old comes around and becomes new again,

By the tide and the tempest, it is said; by the water and the wave, it shall be done.”

Sadly, knowing where trauma comes from doesn’t magically heal it.

“Small untruths between lovers are not necessarily lies; sometimes they can be considered a form of kindness.”

“It’s sort of like going on vacation, except for the part where it’s not going to be restful and we’re all going to die.” “Cheerful,” I said. She shrugged. “I learned from the best.”

“You could have warned me,” I snapped. She smirked. “Where would have been the fun in that?”

“Does anyone ever really know anyone else, or do we act like cartographers, drawing maps of unfamiliar shores, pretending it teaches us their secrets?

Gentle winds and kind tides to all who come to my realm with peaceful hearts and honest hands.”

Clear skies and trackless shores to all who keep their signal fires burning, guiding home sailors from the sea.”

You can trust her, for the most part.” “For the most part?” “There’s no one in this world you can trust all the time. Not even the people you love, not even the people who love you.”

I suppose forgiveness is the thief in the afternoon sometimes, stealing your anger away when you’re not paying attention,”

“I’ve long since resigned myself to the idea that immortality will never be your saving grace,” he said, voice even more formal and stilted than usual. “Not because of the human blood in your veins, but because you insist—you demand—the world be less unkind. One day, you’re going to go up against something you can’t conquer, and the only way I make my peace with this is by telling myself, over and over again, that when that day comes, I’ll be there to fight by your side, to do whatever can be done to save you. It’s not that I . . . I fell in love with a hero, October. I fell in love with you. I would never dream of asking you to change that essential part of who you are. I don’t want you to stop fighting. I just want to be fighting with you.”

“A drink a day keeps the crushing weight of the universe away,” said Liz, with something that actually resembled good cheer.

“Do you recover from being swept out to sea, gnawn upon by sharks, drowned again, trapped in a discarded fishing net, and prisoned at the bottom of the ocean for a hundred years? Because even if you do, I fear my heart could not.” He thrust me out to arm’s length. His pupils had expanded to their widest point, wiping away all but the thinnest sliver of green. “Do not do this to me again, October. Do not. I can lose . . . so many things. I can’t lose you. I would, unquestionably, fail to survive it.”

Sir Daye hunts as a Cephali does. She will have her quarry, or she will make them pay for denying her.” “I think I’m flattered,” I said.

Sometimes love leaves bruises, no matter how hard you try to prevent it.

Pain has flavors, and I’ve become something of an unwitting connoisseur of the many terrible forms that it can take. The dull, aching throb; the pointed sear; the jabbing agony.

“Pray reassure me that I’ve remained awake long enough to see your recovery, and not lost consciousness from blood loss, only to dream a better ending to our tale than the one reality offers,” he said, in a wan voice.

“I thought you were leaving me. Please, October, I beg. Don’t leave me so soon. I know you cling to your mortality out of love for your father and concern for yourself, and I know it means you may leave me, one day, whether you will it or no, but please. Not so soon as this.”

The Luidaeg’s voice chased after me, holding a hint of wild laughter in its depths: “And change your damn shirt! You look like a slaughterhouse!” The more things change, I guess.

“I love Cait Sidhe. If there’s one thing I regret about being naturally nautical, it’s the paucity of cats. It would be nice to have more people around being shitty to me.”

“I’m amazed a King of Cats tolerates being spoken to in that manner,” said Pete. I shrugged. “He’s planning to marry me. I think he’s figured out that I don’t do ‘respectful’ unless someone’s holding a sword to my throat. Please don’t hold a sword to my throat. It’s hard to tie people up when I’m being threatened.” “You would know,” said the Luidaeg.

it’s the nature of cats to want more than we can have. If we were content to be content, we’d be little better than dogs, and what’s the use in that?

Helen’s kisses tasted like coming home.

It’s always nice, the moment when I know I’ve won. It’s always something to savor.

I don’t have my Uncle Tybalt’s skill with flowery, archaic declarations of love, a fact for which I’m genuinely grateful—sometimes listening to him is like listening to the audio version of some dreadful period romance, the sort of thing where the men are constantly losing their shirts and all the women keep swooning at the shameful sight of their exposed pectorals.

Why is it always the women who are elegantly dead? I would make a perfectly lovely corpse, if the need arose.

If there was pain, I wasn’t dead. October had taught me that, whether she meant to or not.

You were wrong, Uncle, I thought, the words petulant and small, like the crying of a lost child. We’re temporary, too. We always have been. We can go. We can disappear.

Loving her would be like loving a natural disaster. Pleasant enough from a distance; all but guaranteed to break your heart.

“Therapy is for humans.” “Therapy is for people who need to talk about their problems so they can get better.

Can you imagine how much easier everything would be if people made better choices? Or at least choices that involved less knives?”