So early in the morning, the cavern was dim. Blue shadows haunted the corners, and the water of the pool lay dark amid the stones. I lay down on the flat rocks, suddenly as tired as if I had climbed a mountain. There seemed no point at all in attempting to pray, or to scry, or to meditate. My mind was all Felix—Felix diving off the boat and vanishing beneath the water, Felix challenging me to be honest with myself, Felix using the rune Is to explain that he had lost his memory. Felix looking in wonder at the talisman he had been given to protect our daughter—how had those gray ones known of her, if she was never to be? Felix with his arms around me and his lips on mine. Felix singing as we made our way through the dark, riding on the monster’s back. My brave, beautiful man.

I lay there a long time; perhaps I slept. When I opened my eyes the cave was much brighter, and I sat up to see the pool before me filled with a faint gold light. I had not expected visions. I had not expected anything save that perhaps, in the quiet of the cave, I might attempt to get my thoughts in order. But there in the water was the figure of a man. A tall, brown-haired man, a well-built young man with a good-humored mouth and smiling blue eyes. Not Finbar. Paul. Paul who lay beneath the earthen mound in the place of the boat burial.

There was no sound in the cavern, but in my mind I heard his voice. I want him to know that I am content, he said. He should feel no regret for what happened. We always knew, my father, my mother and I, that he was the one who would make his mark, break new ground, find paths hitherto unexplored. It was in him from the first, when he was only a scrap of a boy. It’s not his fault that I’m gone. I made my choice, and this is where it led me. He should go forward, speak out, be the brave heart he always was. I don’t think he ever knew how proud Father was of him; I don’t think my brother ever understood how rare such courage is. Paul looked out of the water and straight into my eyes, and he smiled. With you by his side, he will be happy, he said, making tears well in my eyes. Look after him for me, will you? And with a ripple and a passing shadow, he was gone.