“They never told me I could love,” she choked. “Not this way. I could only take or be taken. It was sharkshite. It was all sharkshite. I didn’t know until now, until Jonathan, until—until—” She looked wildly down at Madeleine, whose eyes were as compassionate as Hæra had known they’d be. “Until you.”

Madeleine grabbed Hæra’s shoulders, as if to keep her feet. After a moment, she said, “This is what we’re supposed to learn.”

“What?”

“I mean, this is it. I think?” Madeleine pressed her face again to Hæra’s shoulder. “No, I know it is. This is why we were brought together, to learn this.”

Hæra dug her hands into Madeleine’s hair again, her fingers shaking. “Learn what?” Water dripped from her eyes down her cheeks. One drop touched her lips. She tasted salt that should have been familiar but wasn’t. Tears tasted different from the sea.

Maybe she was sick of salt.

Madeleine’s arms slid down from Hæra’s shoulders to around her waist. She looked into Hæra’s eyes with an expression so earnest that it made Hæra’s hands release their fierce grip on her hair.

“I think,” Madeleine said slowly, “that there’s so much about the world I don’t know. This world and the next one. The last month’s taught me that. And you told me yourself that doubt isn’t a bad thing. It’s how we learn.” She took in a deep, shaking breath. “You’re brave. You’re so brave. I have to be too. And that means…”

She hesitated, and Hæra couldn’t parse the meaning of the pause. Everything needed to be spelled out clearly for her just now. “Means what?”

“Taking a risk,” Madeleine whispered. “A big one. Because if I don’t…maybe I’ll never be happy. Maybe I’d die without ever being happy. Or free.”

“What does that mean?” Hæra pleaded. Happiness and freedom might not be the same for Madeleine as they would be for her. “What would make you free? Or happy?”

Madeleine looked into her eyes. Her chest didn’t move against Hæra’s; she was holding her breath. And without a word, she reached up and traced her fingertips over the edge of Hæra’s jaw, back and forth.

“This,” she said shakily. “Trying this.”

Hæra couldn’t reply. She could only lower her forehead, slowly, until it touched Madeleine’s. She closed her eyes.

“Oh, Hæra,” Madeleine murmured. Her other hand slid up and down Hæra’s back. “We’ll figure it out. We can do it together. Don’t you think?”

I can do anything with you, except survive the sea. Hæra couldn’t say that. It didn’t seem like the right moment to explain her inevitably grisly fate.