“Content,” echoes Sibeal. “No, Gull, she’s far from content. But she has no words to explain, and that makes her angry. Several times she has tried to show me her story, and I’ve failed to understand anything save how miserable and frustrated she is. She’s different when Knut is not with her. Stronger. Braver. Angrier. When he comes close she shrinks into herself, like a creature hiding in a shell. I think she’s scared of him.”

I finish my scant meal in silence, pondering this, remembering the wan, limp creature who shared the hold with us on the difficult journey back from the serpent isle. She was neither strong nor brave. She sat huddled in a corner, and any time I went down there she shrank away from me, covering her face with her hands. At night she wept, disturbing our already patchy sleep. I recalled Knut talking to her in an undertone once or twice. Sick, exhausted and disturbed as I was, with my brother beside me in fetters and Matha moaning with pain, I did not take as much notice as I should have done.

“I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep at all,” Sibeal says. “Felix, I’m happy that you were able to tell your story at last, and sad that it is such a terrible one. But now we can act. We can do what the gods bid us do.” She smiles, her face pallid with weariness, and I manage a smile in return. The weight of what lies unspoken is heavy on me.

“You’d best go to bed and shut your eyes awhile, at least,” Gull tells her. “I predict a long and tiring day tomorrow. As for you, Felix, if you really intend to be part of this, if it goes ahead, it’ll be a race to get you strong enough in time. Hard work for the two of us.”

I murmur a response. The magnitude of this mission is daunting. I try not to dwell on what might go wrong, what lives might be lost, what new burdens my quest might lay on the shoulders of these good people. That way lies madness.

“Sibeal,” Gull says quietly. “You realize, I presume, that despite the authority you carry as a druid, your kinsmen will balk at the idea of your undertaking a venture such as this. In saying the gods intend you to go, you make Johnny’s decision especially difficult.”

“I must follow the will of the gods,” Sibeal says, her voice clear and sure. “It was plain in the runes that the two of us would undertake this together. I mean Felix and me. I believe that if we do not both go, and Svala as well, the mission cannot succeed. I can’t be more plain than that.”