That could have been a lot worse. Hæra rejoined, “That’s how I’ll get to know you. How can I know you if we don’t talk about anything…intimate?”

Madeleine’s cheeks turned pink again. Maybe it was because of the wind. Her grin faded into a smaller, more quizzical smile. “Why do you want to get to know me? I guess you don’t meet a lot of new people out here. Is it because I’m different? From somewhere far away?”

It wasn’t clear how to respond to that. Hæra probably shouldn’t say, I want to know you because you pulled me out of the ocean and turned me into someone else, and somehow you’ve got to be the answer to everything, and when you belong to me, my life will make sense again.

“Would that be a bad reason?” she asked cautiously.

“Not really. You just come on a little strong, that’s all. What happened to asking someone about their favorite color?”

That seemed much less interesting, but if that was the path Madeleine wanted to walk, they’d walk it. Maybe it would lead to wider roads. “What’s your favorite color?”

“Green,” Madeleine said promptly. She looked around at the green fields and grass. “It’s the color of things waking up when winter’s over. It’s the color of life.”

Strange. For Hæra, red was the color of life: the blood a creature lost when giving birth, or what prey spilled before it nourished the predator. However, it made sense that Madeleine would have a different perspective. “Green’s the color of your eyes, too,” Hæra said, then wished she hadn’t, because she hadn’t meant to, and Madeleine knew the color of her own eyes. A useless observation.

Indeed, Madeleine didn’t seem to know how to respond to it. In fact, she looked away, taking the color of her eyes with her.

Hæra cursed herself. “Was that inappropriate?” she asked.

“What? No, of course not.” Madeleine cleared her throat. “What’s your favorite color?”

Hæra had seen every color in the sea. Anemones clothed in red and purple; iridescent fish; the stark black-and-white of orcas; the mottled hides of seals and selkies. She couldn’t choose, although she had to say something to Madeleine.

Suddenly, she remembered the seventh day she’d spent on land after her exile. It was sinking in that she wasn’t leaving any time soon, she had no idea when Sister Madeleine would return, and she had to adjust to a foreign way of life. Despair had set in, and she’d left Jonathan’s cottage with no objective in mind.

Then she’d seen the rainbow.