The secret was out. Finally, Hæra had found courage to match Madeleine’s. No more lies.

Madeleine looked at the green grass as she walked. “You saved me on the beach.”

“Yes.”

“But you’re not an angel.”

“Definitely not.”

“Then what are you?” Madeleine stopped and looked up with an expression of frank fear. “The opposite? A demon? You can tell me. I can handle that. I just want to know.”

Madeleine’s pallor didn’t suggest she could “handle that,” so it was just as well Hæra could say, “I’m not a demon either. I’m an Each-uisge.”

Madeleine shook her head in incomprehension.

“Like a kelpie,” Hæra clarified. “But from the ocean, and smarter.” Bigger and stronger, too, and a mighty hunter with a herd, not a loner who lurked in a loch. She’d never been so insulted as when Jonathan and Madeleine had confused the two.

“Like a kelpie,” Madeleine repeated, sounding numb. “So you’re a…horse. Or at least you look like a horse sometimes. And sometimes you look like…”

She looked Hæra up and down and didn’t finish her sentence.

“I’m not a horse,” Hæra said forcefully. She mustn’t grab Madeleine again, as urgent as it seemed to make her point right now. “Horses are dumb beasts of the land. My other form resembles them, yes, but we’re not the same. I can…” She hesitated. “Even in that form, I can speak.”

“Speak?” Madeleine narrowed her eyes. “You didn’t speak to me last night.”

“No,” Hæra admitted.

“Why not?”

“I…didn’t know what to say.” It sounded foolish, but what could she have said? Please walk back into the ocean so I can drown and eat you, and we’ll see what happens next?

Please don’t hate me?

“I can think of a few things!” Madeleine hunched her shoulders and looked back toward the farm, where Connor and Jim were moving around the barn.

They didn’t need an audience for this. Hæra said, “Let’s keep walking.”

“I’d like to stay within sight of other people, if it’s all the same to you. This is bad enough without worrying if you’re going to eat me. Which I thought you were last night.”

“I wasn’t,” Hæra said quickly, with the benefit of hindsight.

“Then what were you doing? No. Wait.” Madeleine held up both hands in a warding gesture. “Go back to the beginning. Tell me everything. What the hell’s going on?”

Hæra raised her eyebrows. Madeleine hadn’t sworn in her presence before. She was obviously agitated, and why wouldn’t she be? This had to be handled carefully.