“If all I can feel is the very fraying edge of their grief, then I do not want to think how dark the center must be.”

“I think I want to sleep,” I say. And I do, really, I do. The last thing I want is to be awake and to think about how Ilven escaped from the life she didn’t want. And why she never spoke to me, told me, warned me. Perhaps I could have changed her mind. It occurs to me that she never meant to meet me under the trees—that she knew me well enough to predict that I would wait only so long before I left—because then she could take the Leap without any chance of me witnessing her from my tower. My heart goes small, and every limb feels too heavy to lift.”

“He sits down on the edge of the bed. “I wanted to talk to someone who wasn’t food or family.” There’s no humor in his thin smile. “I wanted to talk to someone who had enough courage to take what she wanted.”

“Someone here died, I realize. Someone these people loved and cared for. I’m not the only person in the world tangled up in grief.”

“Do you think I don’t care what happens to her?” He shakes his head. “No. I just think that you’ve forgotten what it’s like to have a friend instead of an agenda.” “Fuck off then,” Dash says. His anger is back, controlled, focused. “I hope you find her, but if you don’t, I won’t mourn either of you.” “I never expected it.” Verrel’s mouth twists in an awful parody of a smile. “I hope your scheme works, Dash, and that you get whatever it is you want.”

“This time I keep to the long shadows where the darkness gathers thickest, picking my way across the silvery damp grass until I reach the edge of the world. Below, the rocks and waves are grinding against each other, and the wind sucks at me, begging me to take one more step, to throw myself down. Sacrifice, the water says in its sea-witch voice, full of whispers and promises. Sometimes I have to wonder if the Hob belief that the sea is animate, alive and full of magic, is more than just primitive nonsense.”

“Are you asking me if I fuck my food?” The words sound overly harsh in the darkness. “I suppose I am.”