“I’ll speak to them about that.” Sionnach flashed her a quicksilver grin and then ordered a glass of milk for himself, as well as a burger, fries, and a soda for Carissa.

After the waitress walked away, Carissa was quiet for a minute before she asked, “Who’s Keenan?”

“Rika’s ex . . .” Sionnach felt weary. “He wasn’t kind to her, and it’s taken her years to even think about trusting again.”

Carissa squeezed his hand. “Will she be okay?”

“Yes,” Sionnach vowed. “We’ll find a way to keep her free of him. Everyone will be fine. It’s just a matter of finding ways to make it so.”

Carissa leaned against him. “You’re a good person.”

“No, not usually,” Sionnach admitted. “But I do try to protect my own.”

A few hours later, Sionnach stood waiting for Carissa to meet him in the ghost town where he’d been sleeping of late. They’d separated after their meal, her to run an errand and him to take some time with the sand and sun to think. He liked that he didn’t have to tell her that he couldn’t ride inside her vehicle, that such machines made him sick. They’d been spending enough time together of late that she didn’t ask questions when he made decisions that might otherwise seem peculiar. That, too, was a benefit of living in the desert. Out here, the sense of what was “normal” was wide and varied. Desert towns were the safe havens of mortals who didn’t want to be trapped by society—and faeries who weren’t willing to be a part of the courts. Peculiar was the norm here.

This ghost town had once been the only outpost in this part of the desert. It stood here when he first realized that Rika was living in a nearby cave. Back then, Silver Ridge was filled with mortals. Much like the ones living in the new desert town, those long-gone mortals were a mix of adventurers and lost souls. Some came to make a new life; others came to hide. They were all dead now, had been for decades. The town was dead too. It had been abandoned, and aside from the occasional photographer or hiker, the ghost town was Sionnach’s very own space, his personal hideaway and one of his regular resting spots.

Some of the buildings were standing, but others were shells now. He liked it that way, with saloon doors standing in a frame with no walls to support them. Behind those doors was a sheer drop to a ravine. When the ground had crumbled, he’d always thought that there was something strangely poetic about the still-standing doors. The town was clustered along a street, but on the hill stood an abandoned mining shack and a partial bit of track, broken but still present.