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“The same race?”

“Us,” Lenia said, pointing at herself and then at Margrethe. “When humans were part of the sea. When the world was entirely sea. You have not heard this?”

“No.”

“It is something we are all told about,” Lenia said, “when we are young. How the world was all sea once, ruled over by a king and queen, until there was a terrible battle between them, and the king ripped up the ocean floor and left to found the upper world, changing his tail to legs so that he could walk upon it. They say that is why the ocean is filled with caverns and crevices.”

The girl had never heard any of these things, Lenia realized. She had not even been sure that mermaids really existed, before now, outside of stories.

“Full of caverns?”

“Yes, everywhere.” Lenia smiled, noticed that the girl was not shivering anymore despite her red, chapped skin.

Margrethe shook her head. “I feel like I’m dreaming. I have heard so many stories about mermaids, since I was a small girl. I always dreamt of what it would be like, to disappear in the ocean, learn its mysteries. I wish …”

The girl’s longing was palpable, and it seemed to match Lenia’s own. For a moment, Lenia saw the sea through this human girl’s eyes. She imagined pulling the girl underwater, showing her the palace made of amber and mussel shells, the underwater volcanoes that shot fire into the sea, the ancient shipwrecks full of the bones of her ancestors, the impossible monsters that lived in the corners of the ocean, and then she thought of the blond soldier’s body, bloated and peeling, which she’d kissed, and she remembered … This was as far as she herself could go into the upper world, only this beach, and the girl would die in the sea.

“What is it like?” Margrethe asked.

Lenia leaned forward, thought for a minute, but there was so much to describe, and she had almost nothing to compare it to. “I don’t know …,” she said. “I wish I could show you. Just as I wish you could show me.”

“I would like that. I wish I could show you my home, where I live usually. It is so beautiful there, and there is a big, bright sun, not like this.”

Lenia could not imagine anything more bright, and she laughed. “How strange,” she said. She pointed to the building on the cliff. “And what is that building, where you are hiding?”

“A convent. I’m staying there until it’s safe to go home. That is why I’m dressed this way, like a novice.” Margrethe opened her furs, gestured to her white dress. “Normally … well. I’m much more elaborately attired. Gowns in every color, with beads and lace and corsets. There are women who spend all day every day sewing gowns for me.”

Lenia breathed in. “What is a convent?”

“A convent is a house for women devoted to God.” When she saw Lenia’s confused look, Margrethe continued. “It is a place for constant prayer and devotion. The women inside do not live lives like other people in the world. They are married to God, not men.”

“Oh yes, how wonderful!” Lenia said, excitement rushing through her. It was all true, what her grandmother had told her. “I know about God, and souls, and heaven. Are you also … married to God?” She thought of it: not just two webs of light joining together but all the light in the world strung together, shining at once. She blinked. She could not imagine it. It must be the exact opposite of the world at the bottom of the sea, where everything was dark and muted.

“No,” the girl said. “I pray and worship, but I will marry and have a life in the world.”

Lenia was overcome, by the beauty of the girl’s words, the white sky that was shifting to silver above them, the ice-covered rocks surrounding her, the air hitting her skin and causing the girl’s hair to blow about her face, the idea that there were human women who could spend their life in prayer, speaking to a being they could not see or touch. She was so beautiful, this human girl. The man must have loved her. Could he have? Even with the memory of her own voice in his ear?

“Did you love him?” Lenia asked suddenly. “Do