His hands were too stiff to let go of Jonathan’s clothes, but she saw the cuts and bites she’d given him—not as well healed as her own injuries. There was also the wound in his chest from when Jonathan had shot him. Dark blood leaked sluggishly from it.

The picture came together, horribly. Jonathan had pursued Asgall to the beach, on foot, clearly out of his mind. He had strained his heart, which doctors had been warning him about for years, thanks to all the drinking and the salty food he loved. He’d pushed himself to his limits, and then he had found Asgall.

And Asgall? He’d taken human form. No doubt to confuse Jonathan, perhaps try to lure him into the waves. Maybe it had worked. They were at the edge of the water and Asgall had grabbed Jonathan’s clothes. There must have been a struggle, and it had stopped Jonathan’s heart, and Asgall had been dragging his body back into the sea when his own wounds had overcome him. Now he too was dead. They were both dead. Jonathan was dead.

Jonathan, who had taken her in, who had taught her humanity, who played a bloody awful fiddle, had died. He had died. Jonathan had died, and he was no more, and he would never call her “lass” again. He would never smile when she said good morning. He would never do anything ever again.

He was gone, and she was here. She hadn’t been fast enough to save his life.

Air clogged thick and suffocating in her chest. She had wanted to save his life because she loved him. She loved the dead man lying on the beach, but she’d never told him. She had never said, Jonathan, I love you, thank you for everything.

Now the words clawed her throat with burning talons because they were trying to get out, to follow him, but there was nowhere for them to go. A howl ripped out of her instead. Her denial shrieked its way into the wind, which carried it away. Nobody could hear her, nobody would know the horror of this moment. She was all alone. She stomped her leg, her injured one. She stomped it again and again, until her whole body was white hot with pain, and howled some more. It wasn’t enough. It didn’t hurt enough. It didn’t bring him back.

Try again? Try just one more time? She bent to Jonathan and nudged him once more. She wailed, “Please,” and then, “Please,” again, and he didn’t listen.

Nobody listened. Not Jonathan, and not the Great Mare, who might have been able to save him. But she didn’t. The Great Mare did not wake him up again. Madeleine was wrong about prayer. It was useless.

Madeleine.

Madeleine had left too. She’d left, because she hated Hæra.