“How did you call to me in dreams? How did you pull me here?” Hæra asked. “You can’t even leave this spot yourself.”

The witch looked at the dead man who clung to her. “I cannot leave. But I can summon.” Her eyes sliced back into Hæra. “You owe me your life.”

Hæra dipped her head low in acknowledgment. She had made the bargain; she had created the debt. “I’m here,” she said. “I’ve brought you what you asked for. What will you do with it? With me?”

“Don’t know yet.” The witch walked forward, dragging the bodies behind her. Clouds of sand rose beneath them and her bare, knobby feet. “Won’t know until I taste.”

In Hæra’s dream—a vision—the witch had licked Asgall’s blood from Hæra’s human face. It wasn’t difficult to figure out her desire.

“His was bitter,” the witch said when she reached the place where Hæra lay. “It belonged to the sea.”

Between one breath and the next, she went to her knees, leaned forward, and sank her teeth into Hæra’s neck.

Even though Hæra had foreseen this, instinct kicked in again. So did her front legs as she tried to knock the witch away from her. But the witch was immovable as stone, and Hæra’s left front leg only hurt worse for it.

Besides, it was done. Blood floated from the wound the witch had just left in Hæra’s neck, right next to one from Asgall that had healed over. Yet again, the witch’s tongue passed over Hæra’s flesh.

Hæra had tasted Madeleine’s blood last night. It had been thrilling, tempting, intimate—nothing like this. This was the absence of all joy and hope.

This was despair, and Hæra had brought it to the witch as promised.

The witch did not linger. After one lick, she rose to her feet and looked down on Hæra, her expression inscrutable.

Hæra’s neck ached. “Well? Finish me,” she croaked.

But the witch shook her head. “You do not belong here. The sea does not own your blood.”

“I don’t belong anywhere,” Hæra said wearily. “If the sea doesn’t own my blood, what does?”

Silence while the witch regarded her. Hæra’s heart pounded, sending more blood to cloud the water from her wound.

Then the witch said, “The sky.”

It must be a taunt. Somehow, the witch knew Hæra’s doomed desires and was mocking her with them before she killed her. If so, Hæra deserved it. She’d destroyed everything she’d touched.

“Go,” the witch said.

Hæra boggled. Had the bargain been fulfilled? The witch had only wanted a bite of her?

That was no mercy. “I have nowhere to go. I have nothing else to be.”

The witch said, “Wrong.”

Suddenly, Hæra’s vision swam. For a moment, she was in a car, a familiar one, Jonathan’s Vauxhall, as it rattled down a road. Madeleine, still wet and dirty, was in the driver’s seat. Her face was ashen.