Thomas follows me and peers over my shoulder at the bag of socks, and lets out a dry snort. I throw the bag to the side and crouch down to look through the rest of the bookbag. I won’t take anything valuable. Just food, if I can find it.

Thomas watches me rummage, his head to the side again, his face scrunched up in an expression of absolute confusion.

“You shed your pelt for him,” he says, continuing the conversation I just tried to run away from. “I don’t know selkies that well, but I know that’s a big deal.”

“It’s just temporary. Until I find him,” I snap, pushing aside a few books and patting at the bottom of the bookbag. I’d even take a stray mint. Anything. I’m so bloody hungry. “And I owed him. You were there, you should remember.”

Thomas blinks. “What?”

I sigh and stand up, abandoning my hunt. Clearly no one on this ferry packed any food. Humans are the worst.

“Five years ago, I got caught in a net and was stuck on some rocks. Kit swam out to cut me loose and patched me up. He used your knife.” I’d been in seal form that day; wrapped up too tightly in ropes I had no business being near. I was bleeding because I’d scraped my skin raw against the rock I was stuck on, trying to get back in the water.

Memories come differently when I’m in different forms, but it’s difficult to forget the blinding pain, the flashes of blood and fear, then the calming weight of a hand on my back; the hummed tune of a song I knew.

Thomas shakes his head.

“I don’t remember,” he whispers, then looks at me apologetically. “Sorry, it’s just… Kit did things like that all the time, and my memory from that time period is… spotty at best.”

“It’s fine,” I say. And it is. I’m not one to dwell. “After that, I’ve spent my one day a year on land visiting Kit. I come up at dawn and he has clothes and food ready and he takes the day off work and we just… talk, I suppose. I think he likes having a selkie friend. Someone who gets what it’s like.”

“He’s only half selkie,” Thomas interjects. “It’s not like he’s ever had a pelt. He’s human.”

“He’s selkie enough to hear our songs. And his blood is selkie enough to have shared them with you,” I bite back, and Thomas gives me a look of surrender. “Anyway, I went up this year for our visit, but he was gone. Clothes were there. Tea was made. But he was missing. I waited for him, but he never showed up.”

“Not to point out the obvious, but Kit has never been the most dependable person. He’s sort of notoriously flaky. Cormac always said if he wasn’t careful, one day he’d misplace himself,” Thomas says. “He’s been out of work for several days and his coworkers don’t even find it strange. Doesn’t that tell you something?”