Madeleine did. Thank heavens, her voice steadied. As the Great Mare watched her, she lifted her voice and sang as if she were in Mass. Maybe she wasn’t worshiping the Great Mare, but something powerful whirled around her all the same. The moment deserved her best, didn’t it?

I will not be small anymore.

Then, as she had that night in the cottage, she got to the end of the third verse and had to stop. “Um, yes. There you are. I’m done.”

The Great Mare narrowed her eyes. “There is more to the song.”

“Yes, I know. My mother sang it to me, but I…I don’t remember all of it.” She shifted back and forth from foot to foot. “I could try to think of another⁠—”

“The little horse’s courage is not enough. The storm kills him. He perishes without ever seeing the sun.”

Whatever words Madeleine had meant to speak next died in her mouth.

“How human of you,” the Great Mare said, “to turn your memory from such an ending. To be unable to face pain and death.”

“No!” The word burst from Madeleine, high and fierce. Unwise too, no doubt, but the Great Mare was wrong and had no right to say such a thing. “I lost my entire family. My parents and brother were killed. Trust me, I know about pain and death, and I want to know—I want to know so much—” Her voice cracked. “Was that good enough for me to ask you a question? What more do you want from me?”

The Great Mare regarded her silently. She flicked her tail again, and this time, the end of it dissolved. “Very well. But hurry. I cannot stay much longer.”

There were so many choices. So many things Madeleine wanted to know, from the pathetic (Does Hæra really love me?) to the terrifying (Am I damned?), and a dozen questions that fell in between. But in the end, only one of them seemed worthy of this moment.

“How much of it is true?” she asked hoarsely.

“How much of what?”

“Everything. Everything I was taught. God, and His saints, and heaven and hell and—and how to live⁠—”

How to live, and who to love. A sob made its way out of her throat, and she grabbed her hair with her muddy hands. She was cold everywhere, save for the heat behind her eyes. Cold, wet, covered in dirt. Her chest ached with all the screams she wanted to release.

This might be the worst mistake she’d ever made, depending on what she learned now. It might destroy her. She groaned, “How much is true? Do you know? Will you tell me the truth?”