It seemed they were talking about it now. So talk about it she would.

“You don’t hate anyone,” she said. “You’re not made that way. Besides, you told me you’re gay, didn’t you? So that would mean you’d hate yourself, and that’s absurd.”

The logic seemed foolproof to her. Madeleine would realize she wasn’t a homophobe because she couldn’t possibly hate herself. How could anyone hate her?

Madeleine pressed her lips together and closed her eyes. For all the world, she looked as if someone was about to strike her and she was just waiting for the blow.

I will protect you from blows, Hæra thought, nobody shall strike you while I’m here.

“Maybe it’s absurd,” Madeleine said softly. “Maybe it’s prideful and un-Christian. But it’s still true.”

Hæra boggled. Madeleine could have said nothing more unbelievable. As such, Hæra could not believe it. “Hate yourself! For that?”

Maybe Madeleine just didn’t have a grasp on the concept of hatred. She was too kind. If she knew how Hæra felt about Asgall, Calder, or even her mother sometimes, she’d know the difference.

“It’s wrong,” Madeleine said.

Hæra scowled. Loads of things were wrong, but she couldn’t imagine why this was one of them. Wasn’t Hæra resigned to her attraction to someone from another species? It couldn’t be wrong when it felt so natural. “I know your books say it’s bad. I just don’t know why that matters so much.”

Madeleine kept her eyes shut. “I couldn’t expect you to.”

“No,” Hæra said sharply. “It’s not just because I’m not human. Those men in the café must not care about your books either. Neither do a lot of other humans. If your books and saints and whatever else are more important than people…”

“They’re not!” Madeleine cried, opening her eyes. They were full of anguish. “That’s the point! You can’t separate the Scriptures from people. They teach us how to live with each other. How to behave, how to be.”

Hæra turned her eyes away from what she didn’t understand and toward what she did. Ahead of her, the North Sea churned, iron gray beneath the clouds. Whitecaps crested the waves that carried sediment to shore, blending sea and land.

“Hæra?”

Even the plea in Madeleine’s voice couldn’t get Hæra to turn her eyes from the sea. It was great, it was powerful, it was greatly and powerfully lonely.

“My kind don’t live in community as humans do,” she said eventually. “We only cluster for safety. We hunt and travel as a herd. Everyone knows their place. There was never a place for me.”

Madeleine’s hand landed gently on her upper arm. The sea sighed.