“Jonathan’s song.” Hæra looked over Madeleine’s shoulder into the fire. Its glow turned her eyes into that yellow shade that Madeleine remembered so clearly from her horse form. “I know why he chose that one. He wants to tell you the story himself, and I’ll let him, but it’s got me thinking about what I am. Or what I was.”

What I was. Jonathan’s story. The song went out of me after him.

She said slowly, “You told me at the beginning that Jonathan had met another Each-uisge before you.”

A muscle spasmed at the side of Hæra’s mouth.

“Is that what he was singing about?” Madeleine pressed.

“I can’t tell you what happened. That’s his story.” Hæra ran a hand through her hair, mussing it in a way that called to be fixed by Madeleine’s fingers. “But he told me it ruined him. Drove him to drink. And he sang? Now I learn he lost that because of…”

Her eyes filled with anguish as she stared at Madeleine. “What if I don’t know when to stop?”

Whatever that meant, it certainly stopped Madeleine’s heart. Stole her breath, too, making a reply impossible.

“We weren’t taught how to love,” Hæra whispered. “Only take. I would take everything from you if I could. I can’t help it.”

The words should have been a warning. A sensible woman would take them for one. A sensible woman’s body wouldn’t go soft and weak with wanting. It wouldn’t throb between the thighs.

Hæra must have seen it on Madeleine’s face, because her nostrils flared.

“You said you want to know how to love,” Madeleine said hoarsely. She curled her hands into fists. That way, she couldn’t hold out her arms in a moment that had gone from calm to wild in the blink of an eye. “You can. Anyone can, no matter what or who you are.”

“And what does that mean?”

Before Madeleine could answer, Hæra rose from the sofa. All six lanky feet of her unfolded into the air. She came forward—one step, two, three. Her legs were long and that was all it took. She loomed over Madeleine on the floor. Her fists were clenched. Her teeth bared.

Madeleine remembered her jacket ripping beneath those teeth. She remembered one of those hands covering the rip, too. Which would win now? The teeth or the hands?

Which one did Madeleine want to win?

Hæra slowly lowered herself to her knees before Madeleine. Quite close to the hearth, to the fire. “What does that mean?” Hæra repeated. “For me to love you? It’s not the same as it is with Jonathan. I don’t know what this is. It’s not—what I used to think⁠—”