“I think your faith is so strong,” I say, stumbling a little, “that some of it may have rubbed off on me. In your company I can no longer say outright that I do not believe in gods of any kind.”

Sibeal brushes her hand against mine, sending a wave of desire through my body. To be so close to her, these days, is to suffer both delight and torment. I think she is quite unaware of what she does to me. “Say rather that you are still searching,” she tells me. “You’re on a journey, an interesting one full of possibilities. Full of opportunities for debate, for learning, for the development of the mind.”

The boat is almost home. On the jetty a woman is jumping up and down with excitement, waving frantically, screaming Daigh! Daigh! A man leaps overboard, amid laughter, and swims for shore. The little dog is making a high-pitched yelping sound.

“But first, another journey,” I tell Sibeal. “Also interesting, but in a somewhat different way.”

“Are you scared?” she asks me.

“To the marrow,” I say. “You?”

“It will be better once the waiting is over.”

“You didn’t answer the question. Perhaps a druid does not feel fear. Faith might outweigh any misgivings.”

Sibeal gazes out toward the horizon, while down at the jetty, the swimmer is hauled up and enfolds his woman in a dripping embrace, to the accompaniment of cheers. A rope is thrown; Liadan is secured, and an extraordinary-looking warrior takes one long step from vessel to shore. Deiz leaps into his arms, to be cradled as if she were a baby.

“I don’t think I was truly scared until I saw Liadan coming in,” Sibeal says. “Now it’s real, Felix. We’re actually going to do this, you and I.”

I clasp her hand, discreetly. Once we are on the boat, all of us in uncomfortably close quarters, such a gesture will not be possible. And perhaps that is just as well. “Uncanny,” I murmur.

“What is?”

“How often we think the same thoughts.”

“That is not uncanny, it’s . . . ” Her voice falters. Whatever she was going to say, she’s thought better of it.

I could complete her sentence. It’s because we are the same. It’s because each of us is half of the other. It’s because we are a perfect fit. A pair. Made to be together. “So that’s the famous Snake,” I say, watching the tall man on the jetty with the wriggling, licking white bundle in his arms. Snake’s hair is cropped stubble-short. He has an intricate pattern graven all across his brow, and marks like broad twisted bracelets on the skin of his wrists. Over his tunic he wears a garment that appears to be fashioned from a serpent’s skin. I am reminded that our journey involves a sea monster, and wish I had not thought of it.