“Kátr-Ekkja,” Orm greets me, ruddy and smiling. “We were just talking about you –” “She is thirteen, Orm,” I tell him. His face turns ghost-white, his lips slack. He lifts his eyes away from her and gives a despairing kind of laugh. “Thirteen!” he says. Then he bows to her and turns away, as though he can’t bear to look at her any more. “Thirteen. Freya have mercy.”
