The old ways are in place, as much as we could revive them, but the method of human sacrifice is completely modern. It will end at the red-stained stone, not with a bludgeoning rock but with a physician in plainclothes and a small, painless needle.

The procession moves on without me, Charlie at the helm, Emma and her friends in the tail, a white flock. Something quiets in my heart, watching them.

Then I hear a shout. “Daddy!”

“I kept him as long as I could, I swear.” Jenny laughs, chasing after Andy. “He’s a curious little chap, isn’t he?”

“Takes after his mother,” Matty says, touching my back as he passes me to scoop up our three-year-old. “Can’t keep her nose out of anything.”

“Oh, stop.” I kick his shoe, grinning.

He leans back to kiss my cheek, and Andy reaches over so he can hug us both, then he’s scrambling down again, running toward the dock.

My heart clenches. His chubby legs can’t keep up with the rest of him, and he’s so reckless and determined. The fear, it hasn’t left me. I hold my breath until Matty’s snatched him up again and carried him back to solid ground. I’ll hold my breath all day tomorrow too, I’m sure I will, no matter how well it all goes.

“You go ahead,” Matty says, tickling Andy until he’s giggling upside down. “We’ll get out some energy and then meet you at the house.”

He still calls it “the house,” even after five years living there.

We didn’t rush in, despite the way we started. We were cordial, platonic, for two full years.

It changed, at last, one afternoon in September. I’d snuck out for a walk with Max to see the archaeologists resuming their work on the north site and found Matty there chatting with the new National Trust warden. She wasn’t a young woman, but not elderly either, and a completely new kind of terror gripped me.

I needn’t have worried. Matty walked me back down island and laughed when I told Max off for chasing birds. “He’s a dog. What do you expect?”

“It’s a delicate ecosystem!” I protested. “I do not want to mess with it.”

“You know, this was probably the first thing I noticed about you.”

My breath stalled as I waited for him to go on, but he hit me with an unexpected wry smile instead.

“You don’t even step on insects, do you?”

“Not if I can help it.”

I nudged him. He nudged me back.

“This is why Lute loves you,” he said.

I looked at him. “You think Lute loves me.”

“I know it does.” He smiled back. “That doesn’t mean it won’t kill you.”