“Johnny,” I said, “I must try to explain to her what we’ve been discussing. Can you wait while I try to reach her?”

I rose to my feet and took Svala’s hands in mine. I pictured the boat setting out from Inis Eala, its crew including Gareth and Felix and a number of other men whose faces I did not imagine in detail. I added Svala herself, standing in the bow with her hair blowing in the wind as the men raised the sail and set a course due northward. I showed a party of folk on the jetty waving goodbye: Johnny, Gull, Biddy, Clodagh and myself.

A sound burst out of Svala, a high, chittering noise of protest. Further down the garden, Niall and Kalev turned their heads in surprise. Closer at hand, eyes widened. Even Johnny looked taken aback.

Svala let me go and took a step toward Johnny, her fear set aside for now. She pointed to me, to herself, to Felix, then performed the same gesture as she had in the cave: quite clearly, rowing a boat. Her arm swung around to indicate due north.

Nobody said a word. As far as I knew, this was the first time Svala had revealed the extent of her understanding in the company of anyone but me and my sisters. When she was done, she stepped back and put her arm around my shoulders, pointing again. Her. Me. The two of us. Two women.

“There is one thing you men didn’t think of,” said Biddy. “If Sibeal doesn’t go, Svala will be the only woman on board. That doesn’t seem quite proper.”

“But then,” put in Muirrin, “if Svala really is going to stay on that island, Sibeal would be the only woman on the way back.”

“We are perhaps getting ahead of ourselves,” Johnny said. “It’s clear Svala believes Sibeal should go, though she cannot tell us why. As for this question about propriety, Gareth and I would not select any man for the crew unless he was completely trustworthy.” In the pause that followed, I thought of Knut, who would be on the boat, and who was one of the least trustworthy men I had ever met. “Believe me, I have given the whole matter considerable thought. Sibeal’s personal safety has loomed large in my mind, along with what her father would deem appropriate. The perils of the voyage itself were foremost in my mind; I didn’t imagine there could be any threat from our own men, and I still don’t.”

“I wonder if you have thought it right through,” Biddy said quietly. “There’s consequences here to freeze the marrow in your bones. It takes a lot of courage to go out and battle monsters. But it takes even more to wait. To see the ones you love put themselves in the path of the storm.”