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But the man had not seemed barbaric. There’d been something gentle about him. The way he’d looked at her—as if she were the one with glimmer on her skin, instead of him. As if she’d been the one to carry him through the water and to shore.

A fire burned in the corner of her cell, throwing everything into shadow.

She lay back down again. Did he know who she was? It would be a great coup, wouldn’t it: to capture the daughter of the enemy king? They were not at war now, and yet there had been reports that the South was planning new attacks. That was why she was here. She thought of her father’s men positioned in the village below. Disguised as civilians but ready to come to her aid at any moment. And the abbess—a powerful woman with old ties to her own family—had vowed to protect her at all costs. She could call all this aid to her in an instant, if she needed it. But instead she turned the events of the last day over and over in her head. Who was he? What he was doing here?

He was so close to her. Outside her locked door, past the cells of the novices, through the main cloisters, and past the abbess’s chamber, he slept.

She reminded herself, again, of what she’d seen: the mermaid had saved him and brought him to the shore. To him, she was a “woman of the cloth,” a girl who’d left her family to take vows and spend the rest of her life in this convent by the sea, and that was all.

She fell asleep, finally, imagining those moments in the water, the mermaid’s arms wrapped around him. The cold sea, its ice and jagged rocks. The mermaid’s silver tail, moving through the water. The blue of the mermaid’s eyes as they met her own.

The bells seemed to ring only moments later, and Margrethe woke shivering and disoriented.

She quickly washed in the basin, then grabbed her breviary and headed to the chapel, where all the others were gathering.

They were watching her as she slid into place, crossing herself and kneeling to the floor. They nudged each other, gave her sidelong glances.

Margrethe looked away quickly, tried to act as if none of it affected her. As if nothing could distract her from the sacred call. Her heart pounded. She opened her breviary to the correct page and stared at it intently.

Around her, she could feel their eyes boring into her. Many of them were girls from noble families that could not afford to marry more than one daughter off and so sent those more or less fortunate offspring, depending on one’s view, into the church’s care. Despite their crisp habits and plain, unpainted faces, most of them could have been her own ladies-in-waiting, playing cards or chess with her in her castle chamber. Others, like the elder nun standing in front of them now, had received a real calling, one that made them lie awake at night trembling with love, but even this nun was watching Margrethe now. Wondering about this mysterious young novice who’d rescued a man on the rocks.

The abbess signaled the beginning of service. After lighting a candle, the elder sister began reading through the day’s office. Margrethe closed her eyes, listened to the nun’s soft voice whispering against the stone walls. Even on a day like today, the presence of all these holy women around her was reassuring, comforting.

When the sister led them in prayer, Margrethe spoke with more fervor than usual, liking the feel of Latin as it filled her mouth, the cold hardness of the stone under the soft soles of her shoes. Here in this bare room, in these sacred garments, surrounded by these women, she felt safe. What had happened to her was God’s will, all of it. The world was larger and stranger than she could ever imagine—the mermaid proved it. If death came to her here, it was because God had meant it to be so. A rush of bliss came over her—unbidden, a gift. Finally her body started to relax.

At the end of the office, as the women all began to move from the chapel to the refectory, where the morning meal awaited them, Edele slipped to Margrethe’s side and grasped