Luckily, he seemed to be talking to himself. Hæra would not be insulted or called names. “I mean you no harm. If I did, you’d already be finished.”

“I reckon I would be, yeah.” Jonathan lumbered to his feet with another groan. He bent and placed his hands on his knees, breathing heavily. “Christ, last night did my back in.”

“I told you, my name isn’t Christ,” Hæra said irritably.

“No, Christ is—ah, never mind. That woman could tell you, and probably would for a long time.”

Hæra’s land tail flicked, sending drops of water flying through the air. Finally, something about Sister Madeleine. “Why would she do that? Is it important?”

“It is to her.”

Then it was important to Hæra too, at least until this business was done. “I’ll have to ask her about it when next we meet. I saved her life, you know.”

Jonathan ground his jaw—a human gesture of agitation, she believed. “That’s what she told me.”

“So you see? I’m not like my brother at all.” A dreadful thought suddenly occurred to Hæra. “Did you tell Sister Madeleine about him? About what he did to you?”

The last thing she needed was this dirty human pissing in the riptide, driving Sister Madeleine away because of Asgall’s incompetence. How fitting it would be if her brother ruined Hæra’s dream without even knowing it.

“Did I tell a nun I was nearly drowned by an ocean horse that had a fish tail and talked? I haven’t told anyone. Bad enough to be the town drunk without folk saying I’m off my trolley too.”

“I’m glad. I don’t want her to think of me as a monster like Asgall.”

“A monster, aye. He told me a lot of things about himself, but fuck knows it was probably all lies.”

“Probably,” Hæra agreed. “Now, Sister Mad⁠—”

“He said he…well, I reckon both of you have some special tie to humans. You can take our shape but no other.”

Asgall had betrayed so much? That was far worse than Hæra standing on the shore having a little chat. The Sire would tear him to pieces if he knew. “He told you many things.”

“How much of it was bollocks?” Jonathan’s voice was rough, pleading. His face seemed to soften, to grow open. “Not a day goes by I don’t think about how mental the whole thing was. Even after all this time. Now here you are, chasing after that woman.”

She must be careful now. Hæra said calmly, “I chase no one. Did I drown her, or did I save her? That creates a bond between us, and I have no wish to break it. That’s why I want to see her again.”