“Asgall is nobody’s friend,” Hæra said. “But he can pretend.”

“Aye, he pretended all right. He pretended right until the day he…changed. Just like you did.” Jonathan looked off into the distance, as if into the past. “He said he wanted to prove he was telling the truth, and right before my eyes, he changed into a man and climbed up on the rocks.”

“What did he look like?” Hæra asked, curious in spite of herself.

“Young, like me. Like I was, then.” Jonathan still didn’t look at her. What was he seeing over her shoulder, through the window? “Tall and slim. Black hair like yours, but his eyes were…I never saw anything like them before. They were almost red.”

Asgall’s scarlet eyes had flashed maliciously at Hæra many a time. “I expect that showed you something was wrong.”

Jonathan snorted. “You’d think so, wouldn’t you? It didn’t. He seemed to shine in the sun. He was…”

His voice trailed off. Hæra was about to interrupt when Jonathan said, “He was beautiful.”

Hæra barely held back her snort of disbelief. Her monster of a brother, beautiful? She’d believe it when she saw it.

“We talked even more, then,” Jonathan continued. “We talked until the sun was setting, about things I’d never told another soul. Then he held out his hand to me. Suggested I get in the water so he could transform and take me for a ride. Said he’d show me things no human had ever seen before. I…I wanted to go, but there was a little voice in my head. And it said, run.”

Hæra raised her eyebrows, impressed. Jonathan was definitely more perceptive than her first impression had suggested.

“I listened to it. I didn’t want to, but something inside me made me move, yeah? I got up and tried to leave, but he was too close, and he grabbed my hand. He was so bloody strong. I didn’t have a chance, and next thing I knew, I was in the water. Then…” Jonathan ran a shaking hand over the back of his head. “He’s not grabbing my arm anymore. I feel teeth on my leg, sharp as knives. And he’s dragging me under, and that’s when I really see him—not just his beauty but his horror too, there was this big-arsed fish tail…”

He trailed off, clenching his jaw again.

“But you escaped,” Hæra murmured. That was even more impressive. Once an Each-uisge dragged down prey, it was hard to break free.