The sun is setting on the Howe, and Mathea and Ylva are curled up in the cave, now amply supplied with blankets. "Tell me about how they met," Ylva asks, as if she was 5 years old again and asking for a bedtime story. "The village we lived in was just across the strait from Skalvar," Mathea says, recalling her childhood home. "Arvid came over on his own. Some kind of silly dare. It happened a lot." She hadn't been a child when he came. She - and Eidys - had been grown. Grown enough for it to matter. "He ran into Eidys one night, and they fell in love." Such a terse way to describe it. "Did you hate him?" Ylva looks worried. "How could I have hated someone who made my sister so happy?"