Madeleine shivered as she walked past it. The sun touched the horizon now, and the night’s chill was drawing in. She couldn’t just pace Thornhill’s streets, waiting for some sign that she wasn’t delusional or damned.

One place was still open, and it’d stay open later than everywhere else on the island. Neither Hæra nor Jonathan were likely to show up. Madeleine turned her steps toward the Kestrel, Jorsay’s only pub. One-and-a-half glasses of wine had been enough to get her in trouble. She’d just buy a drink for courtesy’s sake, no matter how tempting it was to lose herself in an alcoholic haze.

Then again, she’d had a hard time resisting temptation lately.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

“You can’t work out why she’s ashamed? Really?”

Jonathan’s eyebrows came together in a scowl that made no sense. He should be on Hæra’s side here. He had been so far, hadn’t he?

“She was a nun,” Jonathan continued. “You read the Bible, even if you didn’t know the other books she told you about. Don’t you remember what that bloody thing says about men who shag men, and women with women, and so on?”

Hæra winced. “Oh. A bit.” There had been a few passages about how humans weren’t supposed to mate with other humans of their own gender. It hadn’t seemed relevant at the time, since Hæra hadn’t known she’d want to have sex with Madeleine, much less that Madeleine would want to have it with her.

Dammit. This was going to be a problem. Hæra offered, “She cares about other books more, she said. About saints and whatnot. Maybe those are different.”

“I seriously doubt it.”

“You don’t know, though. You’re not like her, you don’t even believe in God. Maybe you’re wrong.”

“I’m more like her than you are, aren’t I?” Jonathan asked.

The words cleaved between the two of them with the sharpness only truth could carry. Jonathan had his arms crossed and a hard look in his eyes. “You don’t understand her. You’re not even trying.”

Unbelievable. It wasn’t even one of Jonathan’s bad jokes. He looked much too serious.

“How can you say that? I’ve done everything to understand her!” Hæra began to count on her fingers. Her human fingers. “I learned your customs. I learned to eat and drink the disgusting things you do. I learned to read. All so I could talk to her and ask her the right questions.”

“Did you learn how to listen to her answers?” Jonathan stalked over to his computer, looking much too upset about this. After all, it was Hæra’s crisis, not his.

“She didn’t give me any answers. Not proper ones. She just ran away after I…after we…”