Madeleine had sung for her life. This was her life. Everything else came from this, and whatever she did with whatever she was about to learn would show her how small, or big, she could become. Maybe, like the little horse, her courage wouldn’t be enough to save her. She could only try and hope she’d see the sun again.

“That is what matters to you?” The Great Mare sounded incredulous.

“Yes!”

The enormous head tossed, as if in resignation. “Very well. Something moves the Earth and stars, and it has no name, and it has all names. There are saints, and there are not saints. You have lived in heaven and hell already. Your rules for how to live were devised by other humans, and I cannot explain them. If everything is true, then nothing is true too. That is your answer.”

It had to be a joke. That was the “boon”? Madeleine had never heard anything so unhelpful in her life. What a ridiculous cop-out. What kind of wishy-washy nonsense…

Unless—

Unless maybe, possibly, it wasn’t, because⁠—

“Devised by humans,” she said numbly, thinking of priests in pulpits, of angry slogans on signs. Of God and the saints, she knew no more than she did before, but maybe she wasn’t supposed to. That was where faith came in. As for the rest…

“That was a very limited question,” the Great Mare said. “You should have asked how a whale feels when it finds its mate through song. That is the answer to everything. But at least you asked about something other than how to find riches or fame.” She tossed her enormous head. “Or love.”

Madeleine looked up into the blackness of her eyes and thought she saw stars there. Or maybe those were the stars above, shining through the water. “I think we have to find love on our own.”

“And you found my unruliest daughter. She is unlike my other children, but I have a fondness for her. I put before her a great choice. It might not, however, have been a kindness.”

The lightning, thunder, and wind. Madeleine shuddered. “You mean—the opportunity to become a Stormhorse. To eat me.”

“No,” the Great Mare said, to her astonishment. “Something else. She could never have eaten you. Still, her love is unlike yours, and perhaps you cannot return it. Your love is not her hunger.”

In her mind’s eye, Madeleine saw Hæra’s face. It had been a study in agony as she lay in the mud, begging for pardon. In bed, it had relaxed in pleasure and relief. In conversation, it had creased in concentration whenever Madeleine spoke. Madeleine saw all of these things, and her heart ached so much it might have killed her.

“Has she changed?” she whispered. “She told me she has, but is that possible for your kind?”