Her head throbbed. She hadn’t had a hangover since college, and they were probably worse in your forties than your twenties. What was supposed to be the cure? Hot coffee and lots of greasy food? No thank you. Ibuprofen and water? That sounded better. Then, taking off her salt-crusted clothing, followed by a shower and a quiet morning to recover.

Quiet, not peaceful. She had the feeling that peace wasn’t on her horizon anytime soon.

Not with the research she was about to do.

Over the next hour, Madeleine showered, changed, cringed away from Harry Duggan’s attempts at conversation over breakfast (“Iona said you got a bit tipsy last night and wanted to know you’d made it here!”), and fled back to her room. Now she sat curled up in the armchair, researching on her phone.

During her last visit, she’d read up a little on Scottish folklore, including folklore specific to Orkney. She’d read about trows, and then forgotten all about them until Hæra mentioned them again. She’d read about selkies, seals that could take human form. Orkney used to have fairies too, before the arrival of Christian priests had driven them away. That one had been a little on-the-nose.

Then there were the kelpies.

Madeleine gulped as she combed through another website on Scottish lore, remembering what she’d read years ago. A kelpie was a water demon in the shape of a horse. It assumed an attractive human guise to lure people to their deaths.

Kelpies inhabited freshwater lochs and rivers. They dwelled inland. Their goal seemed to be getting humans into water, drowning them, and eating them. Why? Nobody knew. General malevolence, apparently.

The website said kelpies had black hides. Some legends said they had snakes in their manes.

Her heart flipped in her chest when she saw there was a version specific to Orkney, a shape-shifter called a “tangie.” But that one was also supposed to be a merman sometimes, and lived by the lochs as well.

Madeleine’s horse had met her by the ocean, not inland by a river or loch. Its hide hadn’t been black, and she hadn’t seen any snakes. And it definitely hadn’t assumed human or merman form. It hadn’t tried to lure her, either. It had just walked her inexorably backward toward the sea.

Good grief, what was she doing? Trying to convince herself that whatever beast she’d met last night was normal, not one of these terrifying creatures? Legends started somewhere. Maybe this was how the legend of the kelpie had begun.

Madeleine dropped the phone in her lap, bent over, and hid her face in her hands with a groan.