“What happens now?” Isla asked. “Jon’s dead. What does she do? What do you do?”

“Heck if I know,” Madeleine replied. “I can stay until the middle of August. Then school begins and I have to go back to work.”

That didn’t seem real. Whenever she thought of her classroom or apartment, it all seemed to belong to another life, one lived by a different woman. How could she go back to it? She wouldn’t even be able to tell Becca the truth.

And she’d have to leave Hæra behind when they’d been given into each other’s keeping. That didn’t seem real either.

She continued, “Jonathan told me once he intended to leave Hæra the farm, although he wasn’t sure how that’d work given her lifespan. I guess that’s not an issue anymore.”

“He was always fond of her,” Jim said. “And she of him, I think. She’ll take it hard.”

She thought of how it had been during the car ride to the farm. Hæra pale and silent, her gaze locked on the road ahead. “He was her family.”

“And what are you?” Connor flopped back in the chair and took a pull of beer. “Other than an American who’s swung in here for a summer fling, and who’s going to bugger off in a month.”

“Back off,” Isla said sharply. “She’s done in, can’t you see? What sort of night do you think she’s had?”

Isla was right, but Connor’s words had sent one last surge of energy through Madeleine’s blood. She narrowed her eyes. “Actually, let me ask a question. You knew Hæra wasn’t human, and that we were…um…” Whatever we were. Are. “Were you ever going to say anything? Warn me?”

“Who am I, Harry Duggan?” Connor shrugged. “You’d have thought we were off our heads or lying at first. And soon enough we could see you knew. You got the same look as the two of them—the one that said you were in on it.”

“You weren’t in a hurry to share your business either,” Jim pointed out. “We don’t put our noses where they don’t belong. Although if you didn’t want gossip, you shouldn’t have had a go at each other beneath the Frasers’ windows.”

Madeleine barely managed not to hide her face in her hands. Before she could think of a reply, noise came from behind Hæra’s bedroom door.

All four of them looked at each other. Connor, Jim, and Isla stood. Isla said softly, “There’s nothing else that can’t wait until daybreak. Madeleine, will you want someone to stay?”