Madeleine still didn’t look at her. “Maybe I was wrong. I must have been. I don’t do things like that, I don’t…I don’t kiss women, that’s not right, it’s…”

“You kissed me,” Hæra said. “And it was very right.”

Madeleine went still against her.

“Is this about everything you’ve read?” Hæra pressed. “Is it those doubts you told me about? Your questions?” She let go of Madeleine’s arms to take her hands instead, pressing them to her own chest. “Were they about this? About me?”

“No! That is—” Madeleine tugged her wrists backward. “Yes and no? Please, I can’t think. Let me go!”

“If I do, will you run?” If she did, how fast? Madeleine couldn’t be as swift as Hæra, certainly not in Hæra’s horse form, when she could tear up a field’s soil with the sharpest hooves that had ever seen land.

“No, I won’t run. Let go, I said.”

Hæra saw that Madeleine wouldn’t run, and she let go. Madeleine probably couldn’t, considering that her knees wobbled the instant Hæra set her free.

Madeleine looked up at the closed window. “Who saw us?”

“I don’t know.” Which is for the best. Hæra couldn’t help a snarl. “It doesn’t matter. You don’t know them. Why should you care?”

“I know I shouldn’t.” Madeleine pushed a stray lock of hair from her face. Her hand had stopped shaking, but she seemed to be having trouble meeting Hæra’s eyes again. “I know I shouldn’t put stock in earthly opinions, and I know I didn’t hurt whoever that was, I know...”

Hæra’s lips pulled back farther over her teeth. “You don’t know much at all. That’s why you’re here.”

Madeleine looked at her again, eyes wide.

“Here I am!” Hæra spread her arms. “You said you came here looking for answers. I’m one of them, even if we don’t know the question. Can’t you see that?”

Madeleine might not know Hæra for what she truly was, but they were bound together by a greater force. Whatever name it bore—God, the Great Mare, or something else—didn’t matter.

“Impossible,” Madeleine said. “I can’t be here just to meet you, find you attractive, and realize I’m gay!”

At the last word, she went pale, then clutched her jacket over her heart. Her eyes looked up at Hæra as if she couldn’t believe what she was looking at—or what she’d just said.

“Gay?” Hæra said, when it became clear Madeleine had no follow-up. “You mean homosexual, right?”