“Charlie?” I call after him, my legs locked in place. “What kind of dream did you have? Why did you want to see the stone?”

He shrugs. Doesn’t turn back.

The dock is empty now. The sea rises and falls. The Pride of Lute has made it over to Sunnan. Out west, little Elding shines gold in the afternoon light, with no people there at all, only sheep dotting its hills, like tiny clouds. Behind me, Joseph’s Rock sits stoic, lonely, buffeted by crashing waves. And this, our main island, is quiet.

If I were as traditional as everybody here, I might say that Lute is waiting.

I’m not from here, so I’ll say it’s nice and peaceful. Lute is the same as it ever was.

TWO DAYS BEFORE

“I knew it would happen.” Jo slides a piping mug across the table—she’s given me my favorite cup from her motley collection, slender and curved, a Welsh dragon curling around its base.

I run my finger along the sharp rim. “What, are you psychic now?”

“Not a bit, to my everlasting dismay.” She smiles out the tearoom window at the village lane beyond, but her eyes are distant. “No, it’s just the way of it here. Hugh left last time, bless him. It simply wasn’t going to happen again.”

“He’s still trying to leave.”

For the first time this morning, Jo looks surprised. “You’re not going to get a boat to come here now.”

“I’m realizing that.” I try a sip. Too hot. I put it down. “He’s trying to get one of his old boarding school friends on the phone. Harry Enston’s wife is an MP, so Hugh thinks she might be able to wrangle a helicopter, requisition one, whatever. Since we gave ours to the RAF.”

“He should know better,” Jo says quietly, resting her chin on her hand.

“It’s embarrassing to even ask. We’re in the middle of a freaking war.”

I glance out the window just as, on cue, a trio of fighter jets roars past to the west. We tense, listening. We can tell from the pitch that they’re ours and relax back against our creaking wooden chairs. It’s a patrol, I hope, not a battle. There’s been a cease-fire for more than a week now. If the cease-fire leads to talks, the talks could lead to a peace agreement, but everything feels so tenuous. The press dubbed the past four years of global conflict the Water Wars, not World War III, like they’re holding out that name for another worse conflict to come. Maybe we’ll at least get a nice long break in between. Everyone will come home long enough to forget.