“I was here, and then I was in the sea. With the witch. The one I told you about, in the whirlpool.” She was as spun about as if she truly were in the whirlpool. “I closed my eyes, and I was there, and I opened them, and I was back here.”

Madeleine blinked, not looking nearly as alarmed as she ought to.

She probably didn’t believe it. Hæra must sound out of her mind. She pleaded, “I swear it. I can’t explain it, but it happened.”

“You were dreaming,” Madeleine said softly.

Hæra stared at her. Then she shook her head. “No. I told you, my kind can’t dream. We can’t even sleep.”

“Not ever? You never sleep?”

“No, we…” Hæra’s voice trailed off. She frowned. “It’s not safe. We slow our metabolisms—it’s easier to rouse from that if we’re attacked.” By a predator, or each other.

“That makes it sound like you can sleep.” Madeleine sounded remarkably reasonable for a woman who’d been awakened under these circumstances. “It’s more that you don’t. You’re positive you can’t?”

“I…never thought about it.” Hæra was still shaking. “I never have before. None of us did. It wasn’t safe.”

Madeleine regarded her. Then she held out one hand. “You’re safe here. Maybe your body knew that, and it let you sleep. And then you dreamed.”

The hand, slender and soft, was irresistible. Hæra took it. It was warm too. “That wasn’t safe,” she said unsteadily. “The witch. It felt real. It must have been real.”

“Dreams usually feel real when we’re having them.” Madeleine squeezed her hand. “It’s strange. But if you magically went to the whirlpool and came back, wouldn’t you be wet?”

That was a good point. Hæra was perfectly dry, except for the sweat breaking out beneath her arms and in the small of her back. Strange, to sweat when you were cold.

Strange to be cold at all.

“I dreamed?” That couldn’t be her voice, so small and afraid.

Madeleine squeezed Hæra’s hand gently. “Do you want to tell me what it was about?”

Talking about the dream seemed like a bad idea. Hæra had told Madeleine a little of how the witch had helped her escape from her family’s attempt on her life. She hadn’t mentioned the witch’s specific demand for her despair. Why bother explaining something so grim and impossible? Better to avoid that. She said gruffly, “I’d rather not discuss it.”

“Okay. But do you want to…”

“No. Just go back to sleep. My…dream…is over.”

“We call bad dreams nightmares.”

“Yes, I know. Night mare. It’s ungenerous to horses.”