It was nearly dry now, and it caked her shoes, the palms of her hands, and her jeans over her knees and bottom—everywhere she’d touched the wet earth when she’d knelt before Hæra. Now she was dirty all over, and there was nowhere to wash.

Whatever plumbing the neolithic Orcadians had managed was long gone.

She hadn’t realized where she was going until she got here: the standing stones of Jorsay, near the most ancient human settlement in Europe. Six years ago, her students hadn’t been impressed by the tiny size of the stones and settlement compared to more impressive sites on the Mainland.

Madeleine had found it interesting, although she hadn’t felt any particular urge to revisit it since her return. It wasn’t like Skara Brae or the Ring of Brodgar, which were well traveled and roped off. The ruins on Jorsay still felt wild, as if you could fall into trouble in some other world.

That’d suit her. It couldn’t be worse than the trouble she’d found in this one. Even in the darkness, with the only light coming from her phone, this place held less horror than what she’d just left behind.

Hæra…

Her legs shook with exhaustion and her lungs ached. Had she run all this way, or at least most of it? She wasn’t a runner. Her body, smarter than her brain, must really have wanted to get out of there.

With a whimper, Madeleine sat on the ground—what could a little more mud hurt?—and leaned back against one of the standing stones. Its rough surface tugged on her sweater’s wet wool. She closed her eyes, for all that there was nothing to see in the dark. Behind her eyelids, Hæra’s face stared back at her. It shifted back and forth between human and Each-uisge, but its eyes always glowed. Not the amber that had been almost human, but yellow, the yellow eyes of the beast that had tried to walk her backward into the ocean one night.

I was going to kill you.

No. Madeleine shook her head, even as Hæra’s voice echoed in her memory.

To regain honor with my herd, so I could become a Stormhorse.

A Stormhorse, like her father had been—Hæra had told her that her father, Alban, had been part of the great force that uncovered Skara Brae. She revered his memory. Of course she’d want to follow in his footsteps. Hoofprints. Whatever. And of course she’d take extreme measures to get there. Hæra always did whatever was necessary to get what she wanted.

Including getting Madeleine in bed after turning her away from beliefs she’d held sacred her whole life. All for the purpose of killing her.