Rodrigo woke up at 4:30 in the morning. Even though he had already been living with Ana and Tania for more than two months, he hadn’t lost his habit of waking up early. He always got up before dawn and took a walk around Ibiza while waiting for his companions to wake—usually after eight in the morning.

  After going to the bathroom, he walked into the main lounge of the luxurious room where they were staying and saw Ana sitting on the same couch where Epona had been earlier. In fact, the horse goddess had fallen asleep on Ana’s lap.

  Since there were no windows, they couldn’t tell whether it was dark or light outside. The only illumination came from a few wall lamps. Even though they couldn’t tell if it was day or night, the room looked darker than when they had first arrived.

  The lamplight made Ana’s face and eyes shine, and her expression looked incredibly beautiful.

  Ana carried a look of worry and melancholy, lost in her thoughts as if she weren’t seeing anything at all. Rodrigo remembered that Ana had said she wanted to be alone to process the fact that he was a tannin, so he decided not to disturb her and started heading back to bed. But Ana heard him and turned toward him.

  “Rui,” she said. Her eyes were red, and tears stained her face. Ana had been crying all night, probably with Epona beside her.

  Rodrigo couldn’t ignore her and stopped.

  “Good morning, Ana,” he said.

  “For me, it’s still night,” Ana replied with a small, quiet laugh, trying to put a smile on her face.

  A somewhat awkward silence followed until Ana broke it:

  “Hey… I want to talk to you, if you don’t mind.”

  Rodrigo nodded and sat on the couch across from her. Ana gently lifted Epona’s head from her lap and laid her down on the sofa. Then she stood up and sat next to Rodrigo.

  “First, I want to apologize for what happened at the hospital. I didn’t mean to discriminate against you or look down on you; it’s just… I grew up hearing stories about how evil the tannin were, so I felt nervous,” she said.

  “No problem,” Rodrigo answered.

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  “Why are you always so quiet? So non-confrontational? You should— I don’t know—be angry at me for what I said,” Ana said, looking at him with mild irritation.

  “No, really, Ana, it’s fine. I’m already used to not fitting in with groups,” Rodrigo replied.

  Ana leaned her head against Rodrigo’s arm.

  “I get it. Not fitting in is horrible. That’s why I felt so bad. Ever since I met you, I’ve felt like you’ve lived through isolation and sadness, yet you kept going. To be honest… I was a little jealous,” the goddess said.

  Rodrigo felt a wave of melancholy as brief images of his past surfaced—children shouting: “He’s a demon! Run!”

  “I know there’s a lot of pain in your heart, and you feel powerless because you couldn’t avenge your family, or because you feel weaker than all of us. But you never show anything. You keep it inside, smile, and keep moving forward.

  “I try to be like that too… or at least I learned to be like that, because I have a lot of pain I can’t easily express,” Ana continued.

  Rodrigo grew sad and began remembering his mother, and tears welled up.

  Ana took his hand.

  “Our hands were the first connection we made,” she said softly.

  “Life is a horrible place, but we have to fight to make it better—at least a little. A tiny grain of sand. Even if it takes eons to fix life, we must improve it little by little, so fewer people suffer what we’ve suffered,” Ana went on.

  “I believe that too,” Rodrigo replied.

  “I want you to listen, Rui. I want to tell you about myself—about my past. At the very least, I owe you that for how I behaved toward you,” the goddess said.

  “Of course. You can trust me,” Rodrigo said.

  “Good,” Ana said, lifting her head from his arm.

  She fell silent for a moment, and her face began to reveal frustration and pain.

  “I… well, you’ve heard some people call me ‘Morrigan,’ right?” Ana asked.

  “Yes. I heard Loki use that name,” Rodrigo replied.

  Ana stood up.

  “Morrigan isn’t a goddess or a person. It’s the fusion— the assimilation—of me and my two sisters, Badb and Macha,” she said, staring off into nothing.

  “My sisters and I come from a kingdom called Tuatha Dé Danann, where the Irish gods were born and lived. Until we made contact with humans living on the island of Ireland and began to make them worship us. That’s how we gained strength and influence in the ancient world,” Ana continued, pacing nervously around the room.

  “But our kingdom entered into conflict with an enemy faction of gods who wore ram masks and inhabited our world before us. They called themselves the Fomorians, led by a giant with one eye named Balor.

  “Our two kingdoms clashed for ages—victories and losses back and forth—but Tuatha Dé Danann, after forming the final bond with the humans of Ireland, gained incredible power to confront them. That power prepared us for the final battle against the Fomorian forces.

  “Our king, Nuada—who had overthrown a Fomorian servant—summoned the strongest warriors of Tuatha Dé Danann, including the god Lugh, who is now the current annunaki of Ireland. But even with the strength we’d gained from humans and the courage of the gods, they knew victory might still be impossible. So they decided to contact a previous annunaki named… Dagda.”

  At that moment, Rodrigo noticed Ana’s face distort—she struggled to say that name: “Dagda.” Instinctively, he took Ana’s hand with both of his.