Rika wasn’t sure how long it took to get Sionnach to the safety of her cave, nor was she certain how many faeries saw her carrying him across the desert. She knew it was best to hide his injured state, but trying to find a stealthy way across the openness of the desert wasn’t an option. If anyone were foolish enough to further threaten the faery in her arms, she’d deal with them. Being remade as a faery strong enough to hold the weight of winter inside her skin meant that Rika—like every other former Winter Girl—was stronger than most any solitary faery. She’d never used that strength to assert dominance in the desert, never felt the need to do so, but she was willing to do so now. She’d thought she’d surrendered the anger she’d felt over Maili’s behavior on the cliff and in the club a couple of weeks ago. She’d written it off as faery posturing, but now that she was lowering an unconscious faery to her bed, she wasn’t feeling anywhere near forgiving.

The bed upon which she’d lowered Sionnach was nothing more than a pile of various blankets and furs. Furs weren’t truly the sort of thing that made sense in the desert, but she’d never had reason to explain it to another faery. Her bed made her feel comfortable because of its familiarity; it was an admitted result of having lived in a simple home both as a mortal and as a Winter Girl.

Sionnach hadn’t opened his eyes yet. Despite the jarring journey across the desert, he remained silent and unconscious now even as he rolled restlessly.

Rika started a fire. It wasn’t the first time she’d tended his injuries, but familiarity with the process didn’t make it any more palatable.

She filled a basin with water and cleaned away the blood and dirt. The skin around the wounds was already hot to the touch, and a fever had begun to consume him. She soaked a cloth in the water, tried to cool his feverish skin, and hoped that the fox faery’s body would begin to push the metal out. Time and again, she put ice-cold water on Sionnach until the fever let up a bit. Time and again, she poured the red-tinged water into a crack in the cave floor where it would vanish into the depths below her.

“Wake up, Shy,” she ordered.

The bits of metal that had broken off the rusty weapon were caught in his body, but the natural antipathy faeries had to iron should cause his body to try to expel the iron that was battering around inside his body and sickening him. She watched for any sign of the metal and continued to work to keep his fever down.

Still, he stayed that way—thrashing in her bed but unconscious—as night fell.