“You first.” He reached the fence and leaned against it with her, breathing heavily. Had he been moving too fast? The doctor at the clinic had warned him about his heart, and Hæra always told him to be careful. “The hell was that?”

“What do you think it was?” Hæra snapped. She turned to look at him. Jonathan’s face was creased with worry—and more than that, with open confusion. How could he possibly not see what was the matter? “She’s not a nun anymore!”

“Yeah, I noticed that upset you a bit.” Jonathan’s voice was as packed as full of sarcasm as if he meant to take it round the world. “So what?”

Hæra looked at Jonathan in disbelief. “So what?”

“It makes sense, now I think about it. D’you think she could have come all the way out here by herself if she was still a bloody nun? If she was in that order of hers, she’d still be back in America, and you’d never have seen her again.”

Hæra turned back to the pasture, gazing at the sheep that appeared as white dots in the distance. Evidence of everything she and Jonathan had worked for, and to what end now? “Maybe that would have been better. At least then I wouldn’t have known…”

Her voice cracked. It sounded horrible. Weak.

Jonathan sighed gustily. “It’s not her fault you built her up in your head. And I still don’t understand why that’s what you’re stuck on. You’ve wanted to know about her religion and that, but you never talked about her having to be a nun.”

“Because it never occurred to me to question it,” Hæra snapped. Her throat was thick. It was too much like her first night on land, when salt water had gathered in her eyes, snot in her nose, and saliva in her mouth. When she’d wept. “It was just part of who she was.”

“Was, not is. She changed. People change. So do your kind, you’d know that better than anybody!”

I haven’t changed. How she longed to say that. Hæra couldn’t tell him why Sister…why Madeleine’s transformation hurt so much. How was she supposed to explain it? I was going to eat her, and then her strength of character would help me return to my kind and transform into a Stormhorse?

Jonathan wouldn’t like that much.

“All right,” he said after a moment. “Do as you like. I’m going back and having a proper conversation with our guest. I’d say you can join us when you feel like apologizing.”

“Would you say that?” Disappointment sharpened her edges. “Then I’d say it’s my house too, and I’ll join you or not, as I please. Don’t forget how you came by all this. Now leave me alone.”

“Ugh,” Jonathan said, and stomped away.