‘I remember the night it sank though. How could I forget it?

‘There were flashes in the sky that screeched above our heads. The roaring of warring giants in the clouds. I’ve never felt such conflicting emotions. I was terrified. The ship was flying around as if the ocean couldn’t hold it down any longer. It wanted to be free, and so free it became. It came to a deafening halt as it smashed itself into a rock, and the water flooded our hold faster than you could ever imagine. The force of the jolt snapped the manacle loops off the walls and allowed us at least to move about through the rapidly rising water, wrists still chained together. I dragged Grace up the wooden steps and shouted to everyone else to follow, but so many of those captured alongside us had already gone far, far away to their new lives at the bottom of the ocean.

‘The manacles had always been on the big side, designed for larger prisoners, fully grown men, and the water made our skin slippery. Once out onto the mangled disappearing deck, I managed to yank the manacles from Grace’s wrists, and she did the same to mine. The saltwater stung and gnashed at the blisters the shackles had given us, but we were free. Holding on with all my might to Grace’s strong hands, we leaped from the wreckage into the inky water. In the distance, we could see a lighthouse in the gloom and I tried my hardest to point to it, so Grace could swim alongside me. But I must have been hit by some more falling flotsam, or simply have swallowed too much water, because the next thing I know, I’m choking up blood and salt on a rocky beach beneath the very lighthouse we’d been aiming for. Grace was next to me, inanimate and bleeding profusely from her temple. There was a thin layer of foam at her lips and her chest lacked the rise and fall of her breath. I thought she’d left me, too.

‘I remember tearing up my shirt to wrap the wound on her head and doing everything I possibly could to wake her up and make her breathe again, to make her return to me where I could keep her safe from harm.

‘Impossibly, and to my great relief, she retched and vomited, saltwater streaming from her nose and mouth. She took a deep but raspy gasp of air and opened her eyes. She must have seen me kneeling above her because her wide eyes closed again and she surrendered to sleep, safe in the knowledge that I was there.

‘You know the rest of the story. I haven’t ever really said any of that out loud before.’

He looked at the ground, kicking stones as they walked and avoiding eye contact. Lily could tell he’d let his mouth get the better of his brain, and he was suddenly worried he’d been too open.

She took his hand in hers and entwined their fingers. ‘You’ve been through far too much for someone so young. When we get Grace home, let’s work on sharing some of that load you have sitting so heavily on your shoulders.’