What did the fish say when it swam into a wall?

Lucien knelt by the water, trailing his fingers through a crop of foam clinging to a rock. Elain watched as he lifted his gaze, scanning the sea. From this place by the shore, she could see little at all, not even the boats they'd seen on the walk down, bobbing in the distance.

Whatever Lucien sought, she could not tell, for her human eyes saw only lazily rolling waves.

Lucien stood, flicking the foam back into the water before turning to face her.

Lifting his hand, he indicated towards a spot just inside the cave. "Will you wait over there for me, just inside the cave, where the shadows are? Can you stay there until I call for you?"

Curiosity flared inside her. "Why?"

He hesitated for a moment. "There is something I must do first. Something…." He paused again, and she was surprised to hear some uncertainty in his voice. After a moment, he exhaled slowly.

"I want my mother to be here," he admitted. "I would like to speak with her first, to let her know what I intend to do."

Something warm and pleasant filled her at the admission. But still…. "Are you worried she won't accept me," she asked despite herself. "Since I'm human?"

He shook his head. "My mother holds no such prejudice against mortals. It's how I need to summon her that concerns me."

He must have read the confusion on her face. "My brother," he admitted. "I will need to ask Eris to bring her here."

She remembered the brother he spoke of, the one who had let him escape in the past. "Eris is a storm kelpie," he explained. "They're powerful. Unpredictable even on their best days. He can craft storms on a cloudless day. His kind are mostly indifferent to mortals, but they have been known to drag sailors down into the depths on a whim. They're not always cruel, but they're rarely kind. He has shown me some measure of mercy in the past, but…" A muscle in his jaw ticked. "I cannot assume his reaction when it comes to you."

She'd heard the legends of storm kelpies, distantly related to their murderous cousins that haunted the inland waters. They'd long lived in the tales of sailors, the faces that watched ships from beneath waves that could turn on a whim.

"How do you summon him?"

"Blood," Lucien said a little flatly. "His kind have a taste for it, and he knows the flavor of mine well."

Her dream from two nights prior echoed back to her, the image of blue hands dragging something heavy and unwilling beneath the water, the vision of blood streaked across stones. She recognized those stones even now as the ones they stood upon here at the cave entrance.

But it was broad daylight now. In her dream, it had been night.

And there had been so, so much blood in her dreams.

She fought the urge to shudder, voicing her question carefully, lest she will nightmares into reality.

"Why summon him at all? Is there no other way?"

Lucien shook his head. "It is too risky for me to seek her out myself right now, and I've spent so much time moving from place to place that I rarely know where to find her. But Eris has his ways. He will know how to find her. Whatever unpleasant traits he might otherwise have, she is sacred to him. He may help, if only to please her."

It seemed a risky situation, and one Elain would rather have avoided entirely. Her experience with the supernatural was limited to her short time with Lucien or the stories she'd heard since childhood.

The stories rarely ended well, for mortals who tread too far into realms they were not meant for.

Still, she trusted Lucien. She could not imagine him putting her into unnecessary harm, and so with a nod she retreated into the cave, concealing herself in one of the dark corners, close enough to the entrance that she could see Lucien clearly.

She watched as he withdrew a blade from a sheath at his hip, the sort of small knife sailors often carried on their person. He did not so much as flinch as he drew the edge of it along his open palm.

She watched as he knelt by the water, squeezing blood droplets into the sea foam. He spoke words too, in a language she did not recognize or understand. There was something old about the sound of it, like a forgotten memory, and she could have sworn she heard the water itself whisper in response.

Then, wrapping a strip of torn fabric around his hand in a bandage, Lucien sat down on the rocks, eyes cast to the water.

And so, they waited.

She did not count the minutes that passed, though it seemed that only a few had passed before something in the water, something other than the waves, began to move and take shape.

Slowly, the waves themselves formed into something solid, something resembling a man in form only. There was certainly nothing kind in the eyes of the creature that came before Lucien, cold amusement in its expression.