“He must’ve thought I was worthy once. Am I still? He looked at me tonight the same way he did years ago, just before he tried to…” Jonathan shivered. He was red in the face. “I’m not much now, but…”

“Eat you?” After tonight’s other events, she’d thought she could hold no more horror, but this offer… “Are you mad?”

“What about this isn’t!” He let go of her arm so he could throw both hands in the air. “And what the hell else am I meant to do?”

Had tonight broken him? Had seeing Asgall done his brain in for good? “There are plenty of alternatives to being eaten!”

“Really? For me?” Jonathan leaned forward, eyes flashing. “Like what? Dribbling on myself in a care home until I’m buried and prayed over by people who don’t know me?”

“Jonathan, what…”

“It’s my bloody destiny.”

Hæra gaped at him. A purple vein pulsed at his temple, beneath his reddened skin.

“I’ve always known it,” he said. “Ever since they pulled me up on that boat while I bled from my leg. Spent decades as a sot, dreaming of him, and then I met you that night, and I thought—here it is, it’s time⁠—”

“You thought…?”

“But it didn’t happen like that. You were different from him.”

Hæra hunched her shoulders. “I’m not, I…”

“You were different, and I thought, Maybe it’s all done with, maybe it won’t come to pass after all. And you know what that did?” His eyes were wide and wet. “It broke my fucking heart.”

Her ears rang. She was faint. Maybe she was losing more blood than she thought. “You…want to be eaten?”

“I want to do something, and for him to… How many deaths mean anything? Not just pissing off one day and hoping your mates raise a glass. I haven’t got mates. I’ve only got you and…”

Somehow, Hæra knew Jonathan wasn’t going to say and the farm or and Jim and Connor or and Madeleine or and the bloody sheep or anything else that might have made sense. She knew who he meant.

“Meanwhile, you’ve got her,” Jonathan said hoarsely.

Madeleine. Who had fled across the green fields to the depths knew where. “She hates me. She should. I don’t have her.”

“It doesn’t matter if she hates you,” Jonathan said raggedly. “You’ve got her anyway. But you could leave her be, you could give her life back. Take me with you, do what you’ve got to do, and go back to the sea. Get your damned wings.”

The bathwater was too cold now, and her wrist ached worse. She put her right hand over her face. “Stop. No more of that nonsense. I can’t think. I have to find her.”

“But…”