“You don’t want wind out on the open water in a rowboat. Anyway, it’s not like that. Wind can’t be confined or channeled. I can shift masses of air and freeze rain in the clouds so it falls as sleet or hail…” He glanced past me, eyes widening.

More wedges of ice shook free from the ice shelf. Mist sprayed. The sound of their crashing fall rolled over the channel. A swell rose under us, then a second and a third. He swore in a low voice. I huddled in the wet coat. It would be easier just to go to sleep.

“I didn’t mean that to happen, and I’m not sure what just did.” He frowned at me as if I had said something to offend him. “Talk to me, Catherine. Tell me about your father.”

Fury shook me awake. “I never want to speak of him again!”

“I don’t mean the one who sired you. I meant your father. Daniel Hassi Barahal. The one whose portrait is in your locket. Did you see your father on the beach?”

My father.

Words emerged, although I scarcely knew what I meant to say. “They had just come down from the ice shelf. They were fighting wolves. There was a dead man all bloody. I think his name was Gaius. The Baltic Ice Expedition ended in disaster. Most of the explorers died on the ice, but some survived. Most of the other attempts to explore the ice have ended with the expeditions vanishing forever. I wonder if they accidentally cross into the spirit world and get eaten there. Probably it was just wolves who caught them.”

“Are you suggesting this boat is left over from the Baltic Ice Expedition?” he asked in the calmest voice imaginable, although he looked annoyed and stern in that way he had when he was overcome by a strong emotion. “Tell me about that, Catherine. Keep talking.”

If there was one thing I was good at, it was talking. So I kept talking, even if I stumbled and lost my train of thought. He persisted in asking questions, prodded and poked in a verbal sort of way since obviously because he was rowing the entire time he could not actually poke and prod me, although I had a vague memory that I ought to wish he ought to be able to, but that was a long time ago and anyway it was so very cold and my body ached so much and I was so very tired that eventually I lapsed into silence.