Children of the Sea 03 - Sea Lord

squinted at the object on the counter, a flat silver disk engraved with swirling lines that looked a lot like Regina’s tattoo: three flowing, connected spirals bound in a circle. The pattern pulled at her, coiling, dangerous, mesmerizing as a snake. Staring at it, she felt her head fill with bees, her bones turn to sand.

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    Deep breaths, she told herself, and held everything still inside her until the dizziness passed.
    Dylan raised his gaze from the medallion to Conn’s face. “I cannot accept it,” he said jerkily.
    “I have never known you to be stupid before,” Conn said. “I can feel your influence all over this island.
    You are a warden now, whether you wear the mark or not. Take it.”
    Dylan shook his head. “My loyalty is pledged elsewhere. To them.”
    “Them,” Conn repeated, testing the word in his mouth.
    Dylan tightened his hold on Regina’s hand. “My family.”
    His new family, Lucy thought, watching unobtrusively from the shelter of the booths. Which was the way it should be. But his gesture did not make her feel any less alone.
    “Yes.” Conn’s pale gaze sought Lucy in her corner. She trembled, pinned. Dismayed. Disconcerted that he had noticed her, when her brothers and her friends had forgotten she was there. “Let us discuss your family.”
    “We can’t now,” Regina objected. “I need to get back to work. Dinner service starts in less than an hour.”
    “I do not believe your participation is required in this discussion,” Conn said coldly.
    “That’s because you don’t know me very well.”
    Lucy bit down on a smile.
    “We’re all in this together,” Caleb said firmly. “Except for Lucy, of course.”
    Lucy’s smile died. Of course.
    “Caleb.” Margred touched his arm again, nodding to where Lucy stood, frozen in her corner.
    Her family turned to look at her with varying degrees of concern, regret, surprise.
    She cringed inside, feeling the veil she had drawn around herself thin to cobweb.
    Strangely, it was Conn who rescued her.
    “Then we must postpone our discussion until you all are available,” he said. “Tonight. At your house.”
    Dylan and Regina exchanged glances.
    “Ma is closing tonight. I can ask her to watch Nick,” she said, referring to her eight-year-old son.
    Dylan nodded.
    “We’ll be there,” Caleb said. “Eight o’clock?”
    “Eight.” Conn’s cool, opaque gaze rested a moment longer on Lucy.
    She felt again that dangerous quiver, that liquid tug deep in her belly, and stared at her feet.
    Go away, she thought fiercely. Please, just . . . go away.
    After a long moment, the bell jangled. The door closed behind him.
    Regina’s cheeks puffed out. “Well.”
    Margred’s smooth forehead creased.
    Caleb rubbed the back of his neck. “Listen, Lu—”
    “I’m fine,” she assured him quickly.
    And she would be. As soon as she could be alone. As soon as she could pull herself together, repair the chinks in the careful wall she’d built around herself and her emotions.
    “I’ll see you all later. Or, um, not,” she said and edged toward the door.
    “It’s not you,” Dylan said. She was sure he meant to be kind. “This doesn’t have anything to do with you.”
    She managed to find a smile from somewhere and fixed it on her mouth. “Right.”
    She didn’t know what was going on. She didn’t know why she was excluded, even in her own family.
    Why she was different .
    Her hand trembled as she reached for the door. She yanked on the handle, desperate to escape before the emotion seething inside her found its way through the cracks.
    She climbed the road toward home, hugging her sweatshirt and her composure against the fog rolling in from the sea. Like Dylan said, Conn’s visit didn’t have anything to do with her.
    And yet . . .
    She reached the top of the hill. The last light spilled through a tear in the sky, daubing the waters of the harbor red and gold. The breeze that plucked her hair carried the scent of salt and the cries of the gulls.

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    For one moment, Lucy lifted her face to the wind and let herself breathe, let herself dream, let herself yearn.
    Then she set her steps inland, toward the dark spires of spruce and the white church tower rising from the streaks of fog. Going home. Alone.
    A bird mourned in the trees.
    Her heart pounded.
    Without