A thought occurred to her. A big one. For the first time, not everything was awful.

“When what?” Madeleine asked.

When you do, or close to it. Hæra couldn’t say that. Madeleine was being kind now, but there was still unfinished business between them. She might not have forgiven Hæra’s deception. Maybe she was only being nice until Hæra was on her feet again. Still, though. There was some comfort in knowing she wouldn’t outlive those she loved by centuries.

When Hæra didn’t finish her thought, Madeleine took her hand. Hæra looked at their joined hands in astonishment. She’d learned something about the nuances of human gestures in the last six years, especially in the last month and a half. Holding someone’s hand was more intimate than patting their shoulder, and even after Hæra’s betrayal, Madeleine was holding hers.

“I’d like to pray for him, if you’d like to join me,” Madeleine said.

Hæra snorted. “Why? Jonathan didn’t believe in God.”

Madeleine looked beyond Hæra, toward the window. “Catholics are taught that you can pray for people’s souls to ease their way to heaven after death.”

“No,” Hæra said at once. “He’d hate that.”

“I know. Not that kind of prayer. Something that feels right for him. I’m trying to think of one—you’d think it’d be easy, I know hundreds.”

Hæra lay on her back and looked up at the ceiling. After a minute, she said, “There was one he liked. He’d say it sometimes, on holidays or when he was really happy.”

“Do you remember it?”

Right now, Hæra remembered Jonathan down to the last white bristle of his beard and the age spots beneath his eyes. After time passed, would she forget him? Each-uisge never forgot, but humans were different. Might the time come when Jonathan’s memory faded, and she lost what little she had left of him?

Even if she didn’t usually pray, she would say this one now, while she remembered. “Yes.”

As she did at meals, Madeleine bowed her head and closed her eyes. She didn’t cross herself, however.

Hæra closed her own eyes and imagined his smile. “May the road rise up to meet you. May the wind be always at your back. May the sun shine upon your face and the rains fall soft upon your fields.”

She stopped. Madeleine kept her eyes closed. Oh, right, you were supposed to end prayers with Amen, but Jonathan hadn’t.

“That’s it,” she said. “There’s a bit about God at the end, but he always left it out.”

Madeleine opened her eyes. They gleamed with unshed tears.