“Hello? I’m Isla? In the kitchen . . .”

“Oh yes, hello.” He sank into his traditional sullen silence in case she started to talk about Colton or asked him how he was doing, something he was tired of and normally discouraged.

“I am a bit worried,” said Isla in that quiet way of hers, “that they might not be very keen when they arrive.”

Sure enough, it was an absolute pig of a day. Hail was blowing into their faces; Isla was barely visible inside the zipped-up hood of her puffer; Fintan had an expensive overcoat and a cashmere scarf, but the tips of his ears were bright pink.

He smiled ruefully. “It’s not Antigua.”

Isla pulled open her bag.

“I brought hot chocolate,” she said, “to kind of welcome them if they’d had terrible journeys. Would you like some?”

Fintan was about to say no—he ate rarely these days and never really felt hungry—when he felt how cold his fingers were, even inside the leather gloves he was wearing.

“Okay,” he said.

She poured him out a cup of the most delicious frothy hot chocolate he’d ever tasted, sliding in a couple of marshmallows for good measure. He warmed his hands, then took a sip of the rich, not-too-sweet goodness. It tasted like Christmas and home and warmth all at once.

“Oh my,” he said. “That’s fantastic.”

Isla smiled. “We’ve been perfecting it in the café for years. Have you not tried it?”

“It’s not very good for you.”

Isla didn’t say anything, as she disagreed with him thoroughly and thought a delicious, satisfying milk-based beverage on a cold day probably didn’t do anyone any harm. She caught sight of the arriving ferry bouncing on the gray sea.

Fintan stared out at the waves pounding against the dock that had been the background noise to almost everything he’d done for so long that, like most people on Mure, he couldn’t even hear it anymore. He took another sip. It really was good.

“We need to serve that in the bar,” he said.

Isla nodded. “You could put a shot of whisky in it and have it like Irish coffee,” she said. “Only better.”

Fintan nodded back. “It would be better,” he said. “I should write that down.”

Isla pulled out her phone. “Hot chocolate with booze,” she said into it. Fintan looked at her.

“You talk to your phone?”

Isla flushed instantly. She hated anyone singling her out for anything. “Uh, yeah,” she said, quietly. “When I have to remember something but I don’t want to take my gloves off.”

“That makes a lot of sense,” said Fintan.

The ferry started to churn in reverse, backing up, and they fell once again into a watchful silence.

GASPARD HAD SPOTTED the lean, confused-looking boy in the corner of the bar in the nearly empty ferry. November was not what you’d call peak season for island hopping in the far north of Scotland, and there was barely anyone on board: a few farmers with Land Rovers stowed downstairs; those who had come back from the market enjoying a wee dram at the bar; a clutch of ladies who’d been shopping and to a show in Glasgow, giggling and cheerful and dressed up, albeit with their fleeces pulled back on over the top, now that they were heading into the real world again. And a well-built blond-haired boy looking sulky and completely out of place.