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“There were signs in you from the moment I met you.”

My skin prickles. “Signs of what?”

His eyes hold mine. “That you may not be untouched by old powers.”

The wind falls off so abruptly it feels unnatural.

“What was done tonight did not merely bind you to the protection of Éire. It claimed something from each of you.”

I frown, unable to make sense of his meaning. “How do you mean?”

“The oath took hold more deeply than word and will. By way of it, the land has taken a piece of each soul sworn to her.”

For one absurd instant I nearly laugh, not from humour but from the sheer impossible vastness of it.

“A piece of our souls?”

“Yes.”

“And you say that as though I ought to take it calmly.”

“I say it as one says rain is wet or iron is hard. Your distress will not make it less true.”

I drag a hand over my mouth.

The skin where the symbol had burned gives a sudden, low throb, as though hearing itself spoken of. I look down at the place where I know it lies, though nothing shows there now.

“Then what was that thing on our hands?” I ask. “What marked us? Was something stolen?”

“No.”

“A gift?”

He thinks on that a moment. “An exchange.”

I laugh then, once, sharp and joyless. “You’ll forgive me if that fails to soothe.”

Mannie inclines his head. “You will be granted something in return for what was given freely.”

“What exactly?”

“I do not know in full. Only that the favour of such bindings does not wake all at once. In the coming days, each of you will feel it when the time is right.”

“And you truly have no idea what sort of favour?”

“That will depend on the soul that bears it,” he says. “Amelia, for instance, may find the gift already in her grown… sharper.”

“And the price is that, as long as we behave as we should, we’ll stay in the god’s good graces until we die?”

Something strange passes over Mannie’s face, as though I’m near the truth, but haven’t quite landed where I should.

His eyes narrow a little. “Not precisely.”

That sets my teeth on edge. “Then say it precisely.”

Mannie folds one arm across his chest, braces the other on it, and pinches his lower lip between thumb and forefinger in thought. I get the distinct impression he is choosing mercy as carefully as he can.

“When your mortal bodies die, you may not always leave the mortal realm.”