When Gareth comes down, he and Cathal argue in lowered voices. Cathal believes that if the wind strengthens we should head in the direction we believe is northwest, even if the clouds make our tools of navigation useless. Gareth disagrees. Cathal sounds edgy, his tone full of the need to go, to move, to get this job done. Gareth’s is the voice of reason: our captain’s voice. Cathal goes up to take his watch with nothing settled. Glancing across the hold, I see that Sibeal is awake, sitting up with her eyes closed and her hands in her lap, a blanket loosely around her shoulders. I wait until she is finished: a long time. A poem forms in my mind as I watch her, a poem I will never speak aloud.

She returns, blinking, stretching, the veil of that other world slow to lift from her features. I am ready with a water skin.

“Here. Drink.”

She smiles. “Thank you, Felix.”

We speak in whispers; around us many are sleeping. I have found it hard to sleep on board the boat. While I no longer suffer from seasickness, I cannot lie here without feeling the immense power that lies beneath our fragile cradle. I cannot close my eyes without seeing the wave come over. With every breath I take, I feel the water’s chill embrace, carrying me away.

I do not ask Sibeal what she has seen. I wait for her to tell me.

“We’ll find the place,” she says. “I’m certain of it.” Nothing of what came to her in meditation; nothing of whether the gods still smile on our endeavor. She wears her contained expression, the look suited to the enactment of a ritual. I wonder if she has seen disaster and wants to spare me. “Best sleep now,” she says. “Rest well, Felix.” She looks over at Svala, whose eyes are on the two of us, watching, watching. Sibeal mimes sleep, resting her head on folded hands. “Good night, Svala.”

But as Sibeal and I lie down, a discreet distance apart, Svala makes no move, save to turn her gaze up through the opening toward the starless sky. I close my eyes and wait for the wave to come.