Rika was silent as he turned and fled. She knew that her insistence on seclusion frustrated him, but she hadn’t realized just how much until that moment. She’d been separate from the faeries in both the Winter Court and Summer Court, and they’d seemed to prefer it. Since she’d been in the desert, she’d assumed that the faeries here wanted the same thing, that her origin as something else bothered them. Faeries had a long history of treating mortals like playthings, sometimes like beloved toys but more often like things that could be discarded or broken. She’d watched them knock Jayce to what could have been serious injury only yesterday. She wasn’t like that—or okay with it.

Still pondering the things Sionnach had said, and trying not to think about things he had left unsaid, she walked through town until she found Jayce. He was sitting with Del and Kayley, and they all seemed to be having a loud discussion about the best way to reach a petroglyph site. When Jayce saw her, he smiled.

When she was near enough that only he would hear, she leaned in and whispered, “I can answer those questions if you want.”

He leaned back to look into her eyes. “When?”

“Now.”

At that, he stood and told his friends, “I’m out.”

Del’s expression wasn’t friendly. “Too good to be around—”

“Stop,” Kayley hissed at him. She flashed a smile at Rika and said, “Sorry.”

“We’ll be back,” Jayce offered. “We just need to talk.”

Kayley nodded, and Del made a shooing motion with his hand. “Go.”

When they reached the open desert, Rika took his hand in hers and reminded him, “Remember to run.”

Then they raced across the desert as they had when she’d taken him to her home the first time. It was an unsettling feeling, as if the ground didn’t quite exist but was instead almost like water. He felt his feet touch and slide, but it wasn’t the same as stepping on solid surface. He couldn’t decide if he liked it or found it frightening. What he did know was that it was different. She was different, and out here where the world was a vast expanse of the same thing, different was extra exciting. He loved the desert, the way the sky seemed to stretch out endlessly and the air sometimes seemed to leave a trace of a taste on his lips. He loved the fierce and sometimes odd creatures that thrived in what some would call an unfriendly land. None of that changed the fact that he’d lived here his whole life and was excited by the prospect of someone unusual.