Ardal made a sound of frustration. His left hand formed a fist on the blankets. In the shadows, Gull stirred.

“Hush,” I said, “never mind. I’m upsetting you.” I reached to gather the rune rods. Perhaps I should wake Gull. There was a wildness in Ardal’s eyes, a shivering in his thin frame. In his right hand he clutched the rod carven with Is.

For a moment I considered that he might be out of his wits. Perhaps he had not understood anything at all, and my belief that he knew enough Irish to follow my stories and my conversation was born out of my desire that it should be so. Perhaps I had persuaded myself that I had reached him, simply because I could not bear to be a failure. I sighed and reached out for the last rod.

Ardal gave it to me. As he did so, he lifted his other hand and sketched out the same gestures as before, touching his brow, waving his fingers before his eyes. Oh, the look in those eyes! Think, Sibeal. He wants you to understand. He wants it as desperately as you want him to speak.

The rune: Is. The hand to the head: my mind, my thoughts. The fingers moving in ripples. Chaos? Dreams?

He pointed to me. “Sibeal.” He spoke my name in his rasping whisper. He pointed to himself, and then to the rune rod in my hand.

“Is represents you, shut off from the rest of us. I understand that part.”

“Sibeal,” he said again, pointing to me. Then pointed to himself and repeated the rippling gesture, as if to indicate a swirling confusion in his mind.

I realized, with a sudden chilling clarity, that this was the same exchange Muirrin, Gull and I had tried already—my name, your name. “Oh, gods,” I said, cold to the bone. “You can’t remember anything. You can’t even remember your name.”

CHAPTER 4

~Felix~

Day and night blur into one. Folk come and go, doors open and close. In the time between, my ears cannot escape a ghastly music: the crackling, wheezing, creaking variations of my breath. Sleep comes in snatches. My time is measured by the steady ritual of my keepers. Gull’s kind, ugly hands lifting me, turning me, keeping me clean. What lies in his past, that he bears such scars, yet gazes on the world with perfect serenity? Evan, calm and tall, tending to me with practiced care. His eyes assess me. I see him thinking: He will live another day. Capable, hardworking Muirrin. They all depend on her.